As the mortal threat posed by radical Muslims grows, the traditionally Democratic-leaning American Jewish community is rethinking its political allegiance. Clearly, the Republican Party is more inclined to defend Western values and engage the enemy, while Democrats would be more apt to blame the West for our clash with Islam. Even after it was attacked by Hizballah, Israel is blamed by a majority of Democrats, while Republicans refuse to blame the victim.

Even when it comes to the bombing of Beirut, there's a partisan divide in Florida, where more than half of Democratic voters -- but only a quarter of Republicans -- say Israel has gone too far in its campaign, according to a Miami Herald poll.

The split is even more pronounced among those who say Israel hasn't done enough damage in response to Hezbollah's kidnapping and missile attacks from southern Lebanon, with 19 percent of Republicans saying the Israeli response should be harsher, compared with 5 percent of Democrats, according to the poll of 1,007 likely Republican and Democratic voters conducted for the newspaper by Zogby International.

And a Washington Post article recently raised the possibility that in the future, as the older generation of Jewish voters passes, the Jewish vote will not be as monolithically Democratic as it has been.

Republicans are hoping a strong defense of Israel translates into greater support among Jewish voters this fall, but the biggest political benefits are likely to come long after the 2006 campaign concludes, according to political and demographic experts studying Jewish voting trends.

The Jewish group proving most receptive to Republican overtures over the past decade is among the smallest: Orthodox Jews. Right now, they account for roughly 10 percent of the estimated 5.3 million Jews in the United States, hardly enough to tip most elections.

This is likely to change significantly in the years ahead because Orthodox Jews are the fastest-growing segment of the Jewish population, raising the possibility that one of the most reliable Democratic voting blocs will be increasingly in play in future elections, according to surveys of Jewish voting and religious and social habits.

The most critical security issue in the world now is the increasing violence of Islamists and their work (via Iran) to obtain nuclear weapons. Aside from Israel and conservatives in the U.S., few other people in the world are so prescient as to understand this. Once a major Western population center is vaporized by the Iranian bomb, the battle will truly be joined. Until then, most of the world would rather live in blissful ignorance, leaving Israel and America to worry about the radical Islamic threat. As a result, Jews in America will gravitate towards the Republican party.

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