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And a reply

And a reply Lest anyone be misled by the Fredman-Rubinstein ‘response’, the gist of my original paper was as follows. In the early 1980s the Liberal government in Australia began reappraising its Middle East policy which had hitherto been strongly pro-Israel. One of the deterrents to a major, publicized policy shift seems to have been the government’s fear of losing Jewish votes and electioneeringfunds. Electoral analysis indicated that Jewish voters are highly concentrated and could have been influential in determining the outcome of only three seats in the then-approaching 1983 federal election. Nevertheless, in a tight election the Jewish voting response to a more ‘evenhanded’ Middle East policy might have been significant, although this response would have been tempered to the extent that Jews are influenced by socio-economic factors applying to the Australian electorate in general. By contrast, the Moslem vote, being ’wasted’in safe Opposition seats, could not have influenced the Liberal government’s chances in 1983. It will be seen that the purpose of my paper was an exercise in political geography-a spatial analysis of electoral patterns and their implications-and not a discussion of m the rights and wrongs of Israeli policy, a subject on which I a the first to http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Australian Journal of Politics and History Wiley

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References (1)

Publisher
Wiley
Copyright
Copyright © 1984 Wiley Subscription Services, Inc., A Wiley Company
ISSN
0004-9522
eISSN
1467-8497
DOI
10.1111/j.1467-8497.1984.tb00568.x
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Lest anyone be misled by the Fredman-Rubinstein ‘response’, the gist of my original paper was as follows. In the early 1980s the Liberal government in Australia began reappraising its Middle East policy which had hitherto been strongly pro-Israel. One of the deterrents to a major, publicized policy shift seems to have been the government’s fear of losing Jewish votes and electioneeringfunds. Electoral analysis indicated that Jewish voters are highly concentrated and could have been influential in determining the outcome of only three seats in the then-approaching 1983 federal election. Nevertheless, in a tight election the Jewish voting response to a more ‘evenhanded’ Middle East policy might have been significant, although this response would have been tempered to the extent that Jews are influenced by socio-economic factors applying to the Australian electorate in general. By contrast, the Moslem vote, being ’wasted’in safe Opposition seats, could not have influenced the Liberal government’s chances in 1983. It will be seen that the purpose of my paper was an exercise in political geography-a spatial analysis of electoral patterns and their implications-and not a discussion of m the rights and wrongs of Israeli policy, a subject on which I a the first to

Journal

Australian Journal of Politics and HistoryWiley

Published: Apr 1, 1984

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