American Jews And The 2020 Election

American Jews are increasingly being targeted in the 2020 election campaign. The campaign of President Trump, in particular, is appealing to Jewish voters on the basis of his administration’s embrace of the policies of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s government in Israel, in particular, the moving of the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The assumption of Republican strategists, it seems, is that Jewish Americans cast their votes on the basis of what they think is best for Israel. In this calculation, however, what is being ignored is the fact that all available evidence points in a different direction.

In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic and a variety of other serious issues facing the nation, the Middle East has been the focus of a great deal of attention. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo addressed the Republican National Convention from the King David Hotel in Jerusalem. In September, President Trump arranged a ceremony at the White House with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and representatives of the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. For his efforts, several right-wing parliamentarians in Europe have nominated President Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize.

In his Rosh Hashanah statement to American Jews, Trump focused on Israel. He spent most of his twenty-minute call with American Jewish leaders making the case for American Jews to vote for him. He closed by repeating a line that has caused controversy in the past. He said, “We really appreciate you; we love your country also.” By “your country,” he was referring to Israel. Earlier, introducing his son-in-law Jared Kushner, he referred to him as an “unbelievable leader for Israel.” These comments echo others he has made in the past that suggest American Jews think of themselves as Israelis, including at the White House Hanukkah party two years ago.

Politicizing White House Events

Trump’s comments also blurred the line between White House events and campaigning. Until his presidency, campaign appeals from the White House have been seen as unethical if not illegal. He urged listeners to campaign for him and suggested that Israel would suffer if he is not re-elected. He said: “Whatever you can do in terms of Nov. 3 is going to be very important, because if we don’t win, Israel is in big trouble.” He boasted of what his administration had done for Israel, such as providing “$4.2 billion in annual aid.” The correct amount is $3.8 billion, and this was a deal brokered by Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama. “we are in the Middle East because of Israel,”. Trump declared.

Beyond this, Trump lamented that in the 2016 election, he saw a poll that indicated he received only 25% of the Jewish vote, despite the fact that, “I have a son-in-law, a daughter who are Jewish, I have beautiful grandchildren that are Jewish, I have all these incredible achievements.” He hopes that abandoning the nuclear agreement with Iran, moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights and eliminating U.S. aid to Palestinians will cause large numbers of Jewish voters to support his re-election.

He also promotes the agreement between Israel, Bahrain and the UAE as promoting “peace” in the region. What he ignores, and most American Jews understand very well, is that peace requires an accommodation with the Palestinians. As The Washington Post (Sept. 29, 2020) stated editorially, “Israel won’t be secured by accords with the likes of Bahrain; only a two- state settlement with the Palestinians can ensure it remains a Jewish democratic state. In that sense the dawn of Mideast peace that Mr. Trump sought to proclaim will become possible only if he is defeated in November.”

Israel’s Influence in Washington

Indeed, the recognition of Israel by the UAE is an indication of Israel’s influence in Washington and the feeling by UAE leaders that the way to get closer to the U.S. is to be conciliatory with Israel. The Economist (Sept. 12, 2020) notes that, “when Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) agreed to establish diplomatic relations on August 11th it seemed like a straightforward deal. The countries had been moving closer for some time. Israel quietly works with the Gulf states to counter Iran. The UAE’s decision to become just the third Arab country to recognize Israel, despite the occupation of Palestinian lands, reflected these warmer ties. There was more to it than that, however. It has since emerged that the UAE is in talks with America over an arms deal that will include weapons such as the F-35, which America has hitherto only sold to close allies.”

Hafar Susskind, the president of Americans for Peace Now, points out that diplomatic relations between Israel and the UAE and Bahrain comes” ...at a time when his (Netanyahu) government continues to entrench the occupation and undermine even the hope of a two-State solution. Normalization is great for the venture capitalists who will benefit from it, but does nothing to remedy Israel’s existential problem: its conflict with the Palestinians and the occupation that does so much damage.”

It is, Susskind declares, “...hard to celebrate when the occupation continues and deepens. As Netanyahu and his aides are discussing normalization with their Emirati counterparts, they are also advancing plans to build a settlement in the strategic area of the West Bank known as E-1, the corridor between Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley. As they negotiate with Dubai and Abu Dhabi, Israeli officials are pushing plans for a settlement in Givat Hamatos on Jerusalem’s southern border. These settlements strike at the heart of any plan for a contiguous and viable Palestinian state.... Although the UAE agreed to normalize relations only if Netanyahu committed to halting preparations for West Bank annexation. Both the prime minister and alternate prime minister, Benny Gantz, say they are committed to formally annexing large parts of the West Bank in the future.... Normalization with the Arab world is welcome, but not as a tool to normalize the occupation...”

“Next, the Palestinians”

In an editorial headlined “Next, the Palestinians,” Washington Jewish Week (Sept. 24, 2020) notes that, “the accords, and some of the language in them, also put the vexing Israeli-Palestinian conflict into very sharp focus. That focus is likely to increase if, as predicted, a stream of neighboring countries establishes relations with Israel. Increasingly, it is becoming more and more important for Israel...to figure out a way to engage meaningfully and comprehensively with the Palestinians in an all-out effort to end the conflict.”

In contrast to President Trump, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden used mis Rosh Hashanah message to focus on the religious significance of the occasion. He discussed the Rosh Hashanah themes of reflection and renewal along with his broader commitment to advancing Jewish values throughout the world. He said, “These are the days of awe that give us a chance to restart, to speak up...What kind of country do we want to be. Both of our faiths, yours and mine, instruct us not to ignore what’s around us.” Biden recalled a lesson his father instilled in him as a child—-that silence is complicity—-which he said helped him to understand the vow that “Never again” should a genocide like the Holocaust be permitted to occur. He highlighted how he decided to run after watching neo-Nazis marching in Charlottesville in 2017 and being appalled at what he called the president’s “equivocations” in condemning racist and anti-Semitic violence. His only mention of Israel was when he said, “We can pursue peace in the world, including by remaining a steadfast ally of Israel.”

The Trump campaign is making a concerted effort to raise its number of Jewish votes to as much as 35%, which could have an impact on such swing states as Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania. In an article entitled “Why Jews Should Vote For Trump,”. (The Times of Israel (Sept. 13, 2020) Norm Coleman, chairman of the Republican Jewish Coalition and former U.S. Senator from Minnesota, writes: “Virulent anti-Semitism that now flows from the lips of the ascendant progressive leadership of the Democrat Party, including Ilan Omar, Rashid Tlaib and AOC. President Trump’s record is a story of perseverance and success in the face of overwhelming opposition. ...Taking the U.S. out of the Iran treaty, recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, recognizing Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights, he began discussions with the Israeli government about the extension of Israeli sovereignty in the West Bank.”

Definition of anti-Semitism

Coleman argues that “the administration has spoken out forcefully against anti-Semitism” and that it has “adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of anti-Semitism which specifically includes both traditional anti-Semitic tropes and anti-Israel elements such as dehumanizing and demonizing Israel and seeking destruction of the Jewish state by the BDS movement...Virulent anti-Semitism, which once stood only on the fringe of the Democrat Party is now very much at the center of that party.” Of Donald Trump, Coleman declares that, “There. Has never been a better friend of Israel and the Jewish community in the White House.”

Matt Brooks, executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition, argues that Donald Trump can defeat Joe Biden by getting 30-35 per cent of the Jewish vote in Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania. In Brooks’ view, he can get to that number by running on his record as “the most pro-Israel president ever.” The key, says Brooks, is for Trump to increase his share of the Jewish vote from 25% in 2016 to 30-35 % this year in battleground states. The Republican Jewish Coalition is spending $10 million for the largest outreach effort ever undertaken in the Jewish community.

Brooks argues that, “We don’t need to get a majority of the Jewish vote. There is no question that this election is going to be a nail biter. It’s going to be an incredibly close election...Florida is a terrific test case. Ron DeSantis won the governorship in Florida in 2018 with 40,000 votes over Andrew Gillum...He also increased his share of the Jewish vote to 35% in his election, a shift that was more than enough to give him the margin of victory and I think the Governor even talks about how his increase in the Jewish community and the support that he got was decisive in him winning the election.” In September, Governor DeSantis signed legislation authorizing the creation of a “Florida Stands With Israel” specialty license plate.

Cabinet meeting in Israel

DeSantis stressed his pro-Israel record in Congress in the 2018 race and soon after he was elected, he held a cabinet meeting in Israel. The Daytona Beach News Journal said that he did so in part to help Donald Trump’s re- election campaign. Still, most Jews remain liberal. Frank Newport of Gallup reports that 64% of Jews are liberal, much higher than the overall 25% among the general population, making Jews the most liberal of any major religious group in the country. Another 36% of Jews are moderates, with 20% describing themselves as conservative, compared with 37% of the total population. According to Pew Research, 42% of Jews say that President Trump favors Israel too much.

The Washington Post (Sept. 23, 2020) quotes President Trump as saying that “Jews stick together” and “care only for themselves,” according to current and former senior White House officials describing how the president privately described different racial and religious groups.

For their part, the Democrats maintained a strong pro-Israel position. The party platform eliminated the term “occupation” to describe Israel’s role on the West Bank. It condemned the BDS movement, but also opposed legislation that would penalize the movement, citing free speech concerns. There was mention of “Palestinian rights,” although there was no criticism of Israel. The Democrats were critical of President Trump’s abandonment of the nuclear agreement with Iran. It is clear that criticism of Israeli policy is growing among many Democrats. The defeat of Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY), the strongly pro-Israel chairman of the House Foreign Affairs. Committee, in the Democratic primary, despite financial support from pro-Israel PACs, is an indication of this trend.

Anti-Semitic tropes

The group Democratic Majority for Israel said that President Trump is trafficking in an anti-Semitic trope of dual loyalty. Daniel B. Shapiro, former U.S. Ambassador to Israel and a supporter of the Biden campaign, said that, “Trump has been trying every day for four years to turn Israel into a wedge issue with American Jewish voters and he can’t even move it out of the margin of error.” Stash Cotler of the Jewish Political Action Committee says that, “The implication that American Jews share some kind of ‘dual loyalty’ is textbook anti-Semitism. It’s really scary seeing the president using this kind of rhetoric. Trump seems unable to grasp the simple fact that Jewish Americans are Americans, period.”

The idea that appealing to Jewish voters on the basis of support for Israel, particularly the policies of the right-wing government of Prime Minister Netanyahu, is, it seems, a recipe for defeat and a complete misunderstanding of the motivation of Jewish voters. Recent public opinion polls show that Donald Trump has a 29% approval rating among Jewish voters and a 69% disapproval rating. Polls show that only. 4% of American Jews consider Israel the most important voting issue. Health care is put at the top of the list by 43% and 29% cite gun violence and 21% point to Social Security and Medicare (Polls by Ruderman Foundation).

American Jews are increasingly critical of Israel’s more than 50year occupation and its denial of political rights to millions of Palestinians. The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, a right-wing Israeli think tank, issued a report in July cited by Philip Weiss in Mondoweiss (Sept. 18, 2020) entitled, “American Jewry In Transition: How attitudes on Israel May Be Shifting.” It found that one quarter of American Jews believe that Israel is “racist and colonial” and that its system is similar to “apartheid.” It found that 31% would vote for Reps. Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar “regardless of Israel lobby views of the two congresswomen as anti-Semitic.” And the idea that anti-Semitism is coming from America’s progressive movement is rejected by most American Jews. This study found that 51% found the right- wing and white nationalist groups were the main source of anti-Semitism and only 12% believed that the left was largely responsible.

Appeal to Christian Zionists

The Trump administration’s embrace of Israel’s maximalist positions may have more to do with its appeal to Christian Zionists than to Jews. U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman refers to the relationship between Israel and the U.S. as “an altar of holiness,” and the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem as a “shrine.” At a ceremony in Jerusalem, he declared that Israel “was on the side of God.” making the Israeli state “holy,”. and therefore, a legitimate object of worship. This has been accompanied by the virtual canonization of those who embrace its occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Miriam Adelson, the wife of billionaire casino mogul, Sheldon Adelson, and a major contributor to the Trump campaign, proposed that the story of Donald Trump, “hero and patriot,” ought to be added to the Bible.

President Trump may find support for his views among a small group of ultra- Orthodox Jews and Evangelicals but if he thinks that this is the way to appeal to large numbers of American Jews he is mistaken. At the 2019 conference of J Street, the liberal pro-Israel lobbying group, Rabbi Ayelet Cohen of the New Israel Fund said that American Jews are losing interest in Israel, are tired of fighting over Israel, and that rabbis are quietly dropping Israel from Hebrew school curricula and no one is noticing.

Clearly, there is now a major transformation in the thinking of American Jews which politicians in both parties seem not to have noticed. More and more respected Jewish voices are being heard calling for a “one-state” solution. Peter Beinart, an editor of Jewish Currents, stirred much controversy with his article in The New York Times (July 8, 2020) headlined “Why I No Longer Believe in a Jewish State.” Since Israel has occupied the territory which would become a Palestinian state, the only way forward, he argues, is to create a single state with equal rights for all, regardless of religion or ethnic background.

Palestinian rights

Beinart writes: “I knew Israel was wrong to deny Palestinians in the West Bank citizenship, due process, free movement and the right to vote in the country in which they lived. But the dream of a two-State solution that would give Palestinians a country of their own let me hope that I could remain a liberal and supporter of Jewish statehood at the same time. Events have extinguished that hope.”

At the present time, about 640,000 Jewish settlers now live in East Jerusalem and the West Bank and, argues Beinart, “...the Israeli and American governments have divested Palestinian statehood of any real meaning. The Trump administration’s peace plan envisions an archipelago of Palestinian towns scattered across as little as 70% of the West Bank, under Israeli control...If Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fulfills his pledge to impose Israeli sovereignty in parts of the West Bank, he will formalize a decades-old reality: In practice, Israel annexed the West Bank long ago.”

In reality, Beinart writes, “Israel has all but made its decision: one country that includes millions of Palestinians who lack basic rights. Now liberal Zionists must make our decision, too. It’s time to abandon the traditional two-state solution and embrace the goal of equal rights for Jews and Palestinians. It’s time to imagine a Jewish home that is not a Jewish state...Equality could come in the form of one state. That includes Israel, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem...or it could be a confederation that allows free movement between two deeply integrated countries.

“Israel makes no sense”

Actor-writer Seth Rogen declared in a radio interview that, “Israel makes no sense. “Rogen. grew up in Canada, went to Jewish schools and summer camps. His parents met while working on a kibbutz in Israel. On July 27, he appeared on the Marc Maron podcast promoting his new movie, “An American Pickle,” which looks at Jewish life in the U.S. Maron, who is also Jewish, raised the idea of Jews living in many places in the world after the Holocaust, but not in Israel. Rogen replied, “I think that’s a better strategy—-you don’t keep all your Jews in one basket. I don’t understand why they did that. It makes no sense whatsoever. It would be nice to live somewhere that is not part of the Christian apocalyptic prophesy—-maybe settle somewhere that the Christians don’t think you all have to die in order for the apocalypse to happen.”

Maron asked, “Do you want to live in Israel?” Rogen answered, “No.”. Maron responded: “I’m the same way and we’re going to piss off a bunch of Jews. For some reason my mother, who’s not religious, her generation, they’re kind of hung up on Israel, and they’ve found some comfort in it. I’ve been there —-I couldn’t imagine living there.” Rogen replied: “If it is truly for the preservation of Jewish people, it makes no sense, because you don’t keep something, you’re trying to preserve all in one place, when that place has proven to be pretty volatile.”

Beyond this, said Rogen, “I also think that, as a Jewish person, I was fed a huge amount of lies about Israel my entire life. You know, they never tell you that, by the way, there were people there. They make it seem like it was just sitting there...the doors open literally. They forgot to include the fact to every young Jewish person, basically, oh, by the way. There were people living there. I don’t understand it at all. I think for Jewish people especially, who view themselves as analytical, and who view themselves as people who ask a lot of questions and really challenge the status quo—-what are we doing?”

“Paradigm Lost”

In his book “Paradigm Lost: From Two-State Solution To One-State Reality,”. Professor Ian S. Lustick of the University of Pennsylvania writes: “...the one-State reality does not mean ending the struggle against the occupation , it simply means ending the occupation in a different way—-not by unattainable withdrawals but by honoring Palestinian rights to be full citizens in their own land, deserving of suffrage , equal representation, and equal command of natural resources. Only in pursuit of such goals that serve the interests of Jews and Arabs will alliances be enabled capable of defeating Jewish ethnonationalism.”

The changing attitudes of American Jews with regard to Israel may not yet be widely understood. As Americans are increasingly focusing on racial disparities in our own society, more and more American Jews are making an analogy between our treatment of minorities and Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. Other Jewish Americans are lamenting the fact that Jews, who have been the victims of persecution, now find themselves persecuting others.

In this connection, Sen Bernie Sanders (Ind-Vt) said that anti-Semitism is not abstract for him. He declared, “I am Jewish and very proud of my heritage.” His father emigrated from Poland to escape discrimination. Those in his family who remained in Poland after Hitler came to power were murdered by the Nazis. As a result of their experience, Sanders says, Jews have a special role to play: “Jews who have been victims of discrimination for centuries must help lead the effort in fighting back against hatred and racism wherever and whenever we see it.”. That, in Sanders’ view, includes Israel and its treatment of the Palestinians.

Half-century of occupation

What he sees, says Sanders, is a Palestinian people crushed and humiliated”. by a half-century of occupation.” He urges “ending the occupation and enabling Palestinians to have independence and self-determination in a sovereign, independent economically viable state of their own.”

It is values such as these which are likely to be reflected in the 2020 election as the American Jewish alienation from Israel’s increasingly right- wing government continues to grow. Slowly, politicians in both parties will come to understand this new reality. *

ALLAN C. BROWNFELD