Only Israel: Leading Jewish groups, including the American Jewish Committee, AIPAC, and the Jewish Federations, have not criticized Trump’s appointments of men who have promoted bigotry, because they do not want to alienate the president-elect on the only issue they really care about: supporting Israel. Though some Zionist groups have stood up for human rights in America.
Listen up. Racist nationalism feeding on fear and economic discontent directed by an obviously-corrupted leadership with a creative approach to truth is really dangerous. This is not the time to be patient or to normalize the fact of the Trump presidency.
The Israel lobby seems to losing power before our eyes. Trump aide Steve Bannon blew off the Zionist Organization of America despite its patron Sheldon Adelson giving $25 million to the Trump campaign; and Alan Dershowitz warned that if Jewish supporters of Israel divide and allow an American election to become a referendum on Israel, “we could lose.”
Jewish Americans passed a big test by voting overwhelmingly against Trump. But a major question is yet to be answered: Will Trump’s aggressively Zionist agenda sway their opinion during his administration?
“I paid a military security price every day as a commander of CENTCOM because the Americans were seen as biased in support of Israel,” said James Mattis, the retired Marine general Donald Trump has suggested will be his Defense Secretary.
Phil Weiss says that Jewish status is changing with the Trump election, but comparisons to the Holocaust are overblown and self-involved: “I can’t diminish that reaction, but no one with any influence is talking about a registry for Jewish names, as they are for Muslims. Or restrictions on Jewish emigration, as they do for Muslims. Or talking about the problems in the Jewish religion– as the new national security adviser and top strategist Bannon do. We misread history if we think that is coming to the US. Other dangers are much closer.”
The day after the election Wikileaks published an email from Stu Eizenstat, an ambassador to the Jewish community, to Clinton’s foreign policy wunderkind Jake Sullivan scrutinizing activism in favor of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) at Princeton. Why did top figures in the Clinton campaign spend energy looking into how the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement was engaging this “sleepy campus?” Because it was trying to please donors in 2015, rather than wrestling with progressive causes.
Alan Dershowitz whitewashed Stephen Bannon a few days ago, but now belatedly discovers Bannon’s ‘anti-Muslim, anti-women’ bigotry is disqualifying
Alan Dershowitz’s boyhood neighborhood of Borough Park Brooklyn went overwhelmingly for Trump, because of the presence of Orthodox Jews. While US Jews overall went 75 percent for Hillary Clinton. This signals giant division among secular and Orthodox Jews over Israel.
Trump’s foreign policy is up for grabs and neoconservatives are desperately cultivating him for hawkish, pro-Israel ends. Even Bill Kristol of the Never Trump camp says Trump could be Reagan or Truman!