Politicians on Both Sides Hope to Court the Jewish Vote
10/8/2024, 7:43:57 PM
Former President Donald Trump was unquestionably the most pro-Israel president ever with actions like recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, recognizing the Golan Heights as part of the Jewish state and signing the Abraham Accords in 2020. He is also the only U.S. president to have visited the Western Wall while in office.
Now, for the first time in his three runs for president, Trump is making a concerted effort to significantly increase his share of the Jewish vote by meeting with Jewish community members and speaking to Jewish audiences It appears to be working; polls show around 40% of the Jewish vote is going to Trump compared to 24% in 2016.
Astonishingly, the same Democratic officials who refuse to label members of their own party who call for Israel’s destruction, advocate for BDS or seek to deny Israel weapons as “antisemitic” are trying to characterize Trump’s recent statement that if he loses the election it could be because not enough Jews voted for him as antisemitic.
The fact of the matter is that Trump was making an important point to say that he is the candidate who will keep Israel safe. Former Israeli Ambassador to the United States Ron Dermer publicly stated that Trump’s killing of Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani led to Iran freezing its nuclear program until President Joe Biden was elected. Is it not obvious that Trump would take military action to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, and that his opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, would not? During the Biden-Harris term, Iran’s GDP increased from $200 billion to $450 billion, even though it inherited from the Trump administration a sanctions apparatus in which the Islamic Republic’s foreign reserves had dropped below $10 billion.
As it relates to the current war Israel is facing, the two candidates are very different, with Trump supporting Israel defeating Hamas while Harris is calling on Israel to agree to an immediate ceasefire that would leave Hamas in power. Trump has been clear that he would not hold back arms that Israel needs to defeat Hamas while Harris supports the Biden-Harris administration’s decision not to supply Israel with 2,000-pound bombs (the type the United States used in Iraq), which would greatly benefit Israel, especially in its fight against Hezbollah.
Harris refused to attend the joint session of Congress last month when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke, only agreeing to a 45-minute meeting with him. Trump publicly greeted Netanyahu at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
As it relates to fighting antisemitism, especially on college campuses, Trump has hosted four events with Jewish college students in the past few months. He has called for kicking out antisemitic foreign students from these universities and for schools to lose their federal funding if they do not protect Jewish students from discrimination.
It was Trump who added the Jews to the Title VI protection in an executive order (the signing of which I attended) to provide a legal basis to protect students from antisemitism on campus. Harris has so far not met with college students. Even more worrisome, she has expressed sympathy with antisemitic demonstrators, as has her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. The latter has stated how happy he is that his friend, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), is in Congress. Unsurprisingly, there is no indication of any policy that she advocates that would stop the vast increase of antisemitism on college campuses.
To great fanfare, the Biden-Harris administration presented a document on fighting antisemitism that did not list Zionism and did not include anti-Zionism as being antisemitism. That exclusion allowed the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) not only to support but be included in the document by the Biden-Harris administration as a fighter against antisemitism. In December, the administration ended its connection with CAIR after Nihad Awad, its co-founder and national executive director, was discovered to have stated publicly on Nov. 24 that he was “happy” to witness Hamas’s attacks against Israel on Oct 7.
After 2,000 years, the Jewish people finally again have their own country on their ancestral homeland where their forefathers and foremothers lived and are buried, where the two previous Temples stood and where King David reigned 3,000 years ago. Israel was established and survived a defensive war less than five years after the Holocaust in which 6 million Jews were murdered because no country would give them sanctuary in significant numbers and because the British prevented Jews from coming to Israel at the urging of the Palestinian Arab leadership there. Unlike people who accuse American Jews of dual loyalty for supporting Israel, Trump believes they should care and support Israel and support him because they value the safety and security of the Jewish state.
Public opinion surveys by Gallup and Pew have shown that American Jews care about Israel, with results showing that between 89% to 95% support Israel—greater than any other U.S. ethnic group. Democrats who object to Trump’s comments outrageously think that it’s wrong for Trump to believe that American Jews should care and prioritize the safety and security of Israel. American Jews understand that in Israel, we are talking about 7 million Jewish lives, and in America, antisemitism impacts a Jewish way of life that has been protected for 250 years.
It appears that the American Jewish community—for the first time in any significant way—may be changing their voting patterns from being monolithic Democratic voters. Instead of being a cause of his defeat, Trump’s outreach efforts for the Jewish vote may ultimately pay off.