A guide to highlight some of the races that we are paying attention to as we approach election night 2020.
Covering up Israel’s true right-wing nature today is a key feature in biased coverage by the New York Times and the rest of the U.S. mainstream media. Failing to convey the Jewish Israeli enthusiasm for Donald Trump is only the latest example.
Eric Edelman and Eliot Cohen, two Republican neoconservatives, endorse Joe Biden saying he will foster bipartisan support for Israel. And don’t worry about the Iran deal. Biden can’t easily return to the deal, Edelman assures a “Jews for Biden” event, because Trump has now set the terms and Dem leaders including Schumer and Menendez don’t like the deal.
Forty percent of Arab American voters cite race relations as most important issue in election, and 70 percent have positive view of anti-racism protests, according to an Arab American Institute survey of voters. Just 5 percent of Arab American voters say solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is their top issue– a number not dissimilar from surveys of Jewish voters.
All eyes will be on Biden vs. Trump next Tuesday night, but there have been races all over the country where Israel has been a factor this election year. Here is a guide to the results Mondoweiss will be paying close attention to on election night 2020.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US ambassador David Friedman announced amendments to US accords, sought by Trump’s biggest backer, Sheldon Adelson, that will allow US taxpayer money to be spent in Israeli settlements. Adelson seems to want to get as much out of Trump in what time remains.
Battle for Jewish voters. Trump brags of his “Yiddishkeit.” And on a Biden campaign call, Sarah Hurwitz, former Michelle Obama speechwriter, tells about the day she crunched into a wall at the White House so as not to get in Joe Biden’s way and the vice president said “Kid, you don’t have to do that,” as a demonstration of Jewish values of giving dignity to everyone you meet.
While the focus remains largely on the presidential election, November brings with it hundreds of local and state races that are equally consequential, and show the rising power of the Palestine movement.
The struggle for Palestine is inextricably linked to the struggle against the authoritarian regimes in the Middle East. Recent moves by Gulf monarchies to normalize with Israel will only make their rule more unpopular and empower the BDS movement.