Media Analysis

Trump has overwhelming support of Israeli Jews (but media and Dems aren’t going to tell you that)

A recurring theme on this site is that Americans have no idea of Israel’s real character, a rightwing society with a strong militarist authoritarian streak. Israel supporters don’t want that picture to get out in the U.S., because they will surely lose bipartisan political support for the $4 billion we send Israel every year, and the complete impunity we provide for Israel’s human rights violations. Israel needs to be as American as cherry pie.

An astonishing poll from Israel bears this idea out. Trump is backed more than three to one by Israeli Jews — 77 to 23 percent among those with an opinion. Israeli Jews love our fascistic president.

American Jews could not be more different. They like Biden by the same overwhelming proportion. Trump is losing to Biden among American Jews by 70 to 27 percent, according to Pew’s survey in early October.

American Jewish numbers are very close to the Palestinian numbers in Israel. (Palestinians are 20 percent of the citizens of Israel within the 1967 borders.) Palestinians favor Biden by 41 to 11 percent, among those with an opinion — according to the poll by the Mitvim Institute.

American Jews don’t like Trump because he is friendly to racist white nationalists.

Palestinians don’t like Trump because he is friendly to expansionist Jewish nationalists.

Israeli Jews love Trump, and could care less about his racist friends.

How can these attitudes be reconciled? After all, American Jews are the pillar for Israel’s support in the Democratic Party. They can’t; these are two diametrically-opposed political cultures. Jewish Israel is a lot like the Jim Crow south; Jews have more rights than Palestinians, including land and language, and Jews campaign for prime minister by promising voters they won’t let Palestinians into the government.

If Americans had any real sense of that political culture, a lot more of them would be critical, and would ask why our money is going to such a discriminatory society.

Chemi Shalev in Haaretz broke the story on the Israeli polling, from the Mitvim Institute. 57 percent of Israeli Jews are for Trump, 17 percent are for Biden. That’s a 77 to 23 ratio among those with an opinion. Throw in the Palestinian voters, and Trump wins 70 percent overall of the Israeli vote.

That makes Israel redder than any U.S. state, Shalev says:

Trump’s 70 percent share of the vote would have made Israel the reddest state in the Union, going on 2016 election results, above West Virginia, which gave Trump 68.5 percent of the vote, and Wyoming, where he garnered 67.4 percent.

Shalev notes that Trump crushes Biden among religious Israeli Jews — 77 to 1 percent — and among Netanyahu’s Likud Party voters — 80 to 2 percent. Those numbers are not so different from Trump’s favorability among American Orthodox Jews (83 to 13, Trump over Biden).

But the Orthodox make up only 10 percent of American Jewry. Nearly two out of three American Jews are Reform.

The bottom line is that American Jews have very different political values than Israeli Jews. And it’s evidence that the Democratic leadership is backing policies that the Democratic street is not.

Democratic leadership calls Israel a beacon of democracy, the startup nation, and a miracle and a gift and a jewel. Nancy Pelosi says the Capitol will crumble and fall before the Democratic Party walks away from Israel.

These Democratic leaders aren’t going to tell you that Israeli society overwhelmingly adores Donald Trump, because the Israel lobby is too important for the party. And Haaretz‘s reporting hasn’t shown up in the American papers, of course.

Biden is doubling down on his love for Israel these days. The Israel lobby group Democratic Majority for Israel is tweeting out pro-Israel statements by Douglas Emhoff, Kamala Harris’s husband, to Florida voters (from the Jewish Journal):

“For Kamala, Israel isn’t a political football. Its future as a secure Jewish and Democratic state is non-negotiable. I can assure you all of that.

“To this day, she always talks about visiting one of the great places of the world, the Israeli Supreme Court, which I got to go see because of her,” Emhoff said. “Now she wants to use this leadership, this platform and this opportunity to lay down roots of peace and safety for all of Israel and Israel’s children.” 

DMFI tweets Congresswoman Susan Wild from Pennsylvania, in a close race, saying Israel must absolutely not be even debated in the U.S.

“I really think that it is very important to make sure that all matters pertaining to Israel be not even a bipartisan issue but a nonpartisan issue. I feel really strongly that the people recognize that the members of Congress on both sides of the aisle overwhelmingly support Israel, overwhelmingly want to see Israel safe and secure and succeed, and recognize that we have a wonderful relationship with Israel that is not just about security—although that is obviously the most important—but a very strong economic relationship with Israel.”

The Israeli polling (from a thinktank called Mitvim) raises the question: Why would anyone wants to be such close friends of Israel? It is another authoritarian rightwing country somewhere across the sea. The polling also belies the line from liberal Zionists like J Street, that the only problem with Israel is Netanyahu; when in fact the alternative, Benny Gantz, pushes the same anti-Palestinian policies.

The sad truth is that if Biden wins, Israelis will like him fine. Because his policies won’t be so different from Trump’s — except on the Iran deal. The polling indicates a battle ahead inside the Democratic Party, and in American Jewish life too.

6 Comments
Most Voted
Newest Oldest
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

<i>”Why would anyone wants to be such close friends of Israel?”</i>

Historically, two of the main reasons people support blatant criminality are (1) bribery, and (2) blackmail. Sadly, there is plentiful evidence that both are operating in this instance. Sadly, this too is ignored by the corporate press.

“If Americans had any real sense of that political culture, a lot more of them would be critical, and would question, why our money is going to such a discriminatory society.”
_____________________________________________________

This article soundly make the case that if and when Palestinians set armed struggle aside and make civil rights their goal, Israel’s money would soon be made conditional.

Fear of Iran has broad popular support in Israel. If that is your one issue, support for trump makes sense. I take efrayim halevy’s optimism regarding the nuclear deal because my preference for avoiding confrontation and also i don’t believe Iran’s imams can be overthrown with ease, and the american people wanted a deal with iran, want to resign from the job of policeman of the world and i tend to understand that point of view. But it is a very essential issue to israelis, so i accept their priorities. The question where i disagree with israelis is their equanimity with the settlements. I happen to think that when push comes to shove hamas could agree to a 75 year hudna, in exchange for full withdrawal and only token implementation of the right of return. But to get to that deal would require a real political leap by the israeli public and it is not in the cards. After the 2nd intifada it would take a leap. Even in 1995 the will of the majority was opposed, today it’s dismissed as utopian. Therefore i propose that joe biden devote his middle east diplomacy energy to create a modus vivendi to end the siege of Gaza.

1 of 2
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/10/01/opinions/uae-and-bahrain-deals-hanan-ashrawi/index.html
Oct.1/20 by Hanan Ashrawi

“The UAE & Bahrain deals: normalizing the abnormal”

EXCERPT:
“The agreements between the United Arab Emirates (UAE) & Bahrain on the one hand & Israel on the other, brokered by the Trump administration & signed at the White House on Sept.15, attempted to normalize the abnormal despite their misleading declarations about realizing peace.

“In fact, they succeeded in normalizing occupation, oppression, annexation, & grave violations of international law, including international humanitarian law.

“We must call things by their real name. The UAE & Bahrain agreed to open regular diplomatic ties with Israel, but these were not ‘peace treaties.’ They ended no wars, as the three countries have been engaging in secret security, intelligence,& economic deals for years. The agreements merely brought out into the open the clandestine relationships they had forged.

“The UAE & Bahrain turned the Arab Peace Initiative — the 2002 agreement by Arab countries not to recognize Israel until it accepted a Palestinian state, among other conditions, on its head & undermined the political leverage of the Arab consensus, dropping the prerequisite of normalization that Israel must first leave all Arab territories it occupied in 1967, primarily Palestine. These agreements realized the long-term objectives of both the US administration & Israel to reposition the latter in the region as a major political, military, economic, & intelligence power. (cont’d)
.

2 of 2

“In addition to creating divisions within the Arab League and undermining its leverage, these agreements also created a rift between the people and their rulers. The Arab people across the region, including in the Gulf, have overwhelmingly expressed their opposition to normalization with Israel so long as it continues to occupy Palestine and oppress its people. Despite the regimes’ attempts at suppressing any signs of dissent, this passionate opposition has found expression in a variety of ways over the past few days, including demonstrations, social media protest, and widely adopted petitions.

“The normalization drive led by the US administration is exacerbating dangerous fault lines within the region and enhancing an artificial polarization along sectarian divides. It exploits and strengthens identity politics along sectarian and ethno-religious lines to redefine alliances while redrawing the lines separating friend and foe, enemy and ally, based on the distorted Trump-Netanyahu worldview.”