US President Barack Obama campaigns
US President Barack Obama campaignsIsrael news photo: Obama campaign

Jewish Americans are looking ahead to the 2012 presidential race, and President Barack Obama's re-election bid – and they're beginning to wonder.

Among those reconsidering their support are New York's former Mayor Ed Koch. “I believed that then-Senator Obama would be as good as John McCain (in the 2008 election) based on his statements at the time, and based on his support of Israel,” Koch told Reuters in an interview following Obama's Middle East policy speech Thursday. “It turns out I was wrong.”

Mortimer Zuckerman, publisher of the New York Daily News, warned that Obama has alienated numerous former supporters, who he were “very upset and feel alienated.”

The billionaire real estate developer and publisher said bluntly that Obama will get “less political support, fewer activists for his campaign, and I am sure that will extend to financial support as well.”

Zuckerman's own paper endorsed Obama for the 2008 presidential run, as did Zuckerman himself – but he declined to say whether the same would hold true this time around.

Zionist Organization of America president Morton Klein called on the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) to rescind its invitation to the president to address its convention on Sunday.

According to the latest Zogby poll, Obama enjoyed a 10-point bounce in popularity after the successful assassination of Al Qaeda chief terrorist Osama bin Laden. However, John Zogby also found that only 41 percent of U.S. voters believe the president deserves to be re-elected, with another 10 percent undecided. The latest findings give him a 48 percent approval rating, the U.S. pollster told Newsmax.TV – taking him “out of the danger zone,” but leaving him within easy reach of a competitor.

Israel's Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is scheduled to address the AIPAC convention on Monday.