Trump and the Jews

President Trump’s speech at an antisemitism summit at the District of Columbia is being called — wait for it — antisemitic. The 45th president speculated that if he were to lose to Vice President Harris, “the Jewish people would have a lot to do with a loss.” He lamented the “Democrat hold, or curse, on you,” meaning American Jews. He said any Jew who plans to vote for Ms. Harris “should have their head examined.” Yet our Maggie Hroncich, who was there, reports that Trump also declared “My promise to Jewish Americans is this, with your vote, I will be your defender, your protector, and I will be the best friend Jewish Americans have ever had in the White House.” He also ventured that “If I don’t win, I believe Israel will be eradicated.” Referencing Ms. Harris, the 45th president lamented that 60 percent of Jews plan to vote “for somebody that hates Israel.”Behind Trump’s bluster is a record of unrivaled support for the Jewish state. His administration moved the American embassy to Jerusalem, recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, withdrew from the articles of appeasement with Iran, stood with the Jewish state against the International Criminal Court, and concluded the Abraham Accords. Prime Minister Netanyahu called him “the best friend Israel has ever had in the White House.”What of his rival, Ms. Harris? This week she crowed to the National Association of Black Journalists that “one of the things that we have done that I’m entirely supportive of is the pause that we’ve put on the 2,000-pound bombs” that Congress has ordered the White House to send to Israel. She spoke of the “leverage we’ve used” to pressure the Jewish state. Her running mate praises the anti-Israel protesters who have plunged campuses into chaos.Trump took a different approach, declaring in the spring that “To every college president, I say remove the encampments immediately. Vanquish the radicals and take back our campuses for all of the normal students.” In his speech on Thursday, he named the “unceasing, bloody war to obliterate the Jewish state and drive Jews out of the Holy Land.” He wondered whether a Harris administration would be committed to levying that fight. We understand that Trump’s rhetoric — and the specter of scapegoating Jews for an electoral loss — make some Jews uneasy. His breaking of bread at Mar-a-Lago with Kanye West and Nick Fuentes was an error. So too is the 45th president’s support of North Carolina gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson. Still, on the major issues facing the Jewish world, Trump’s policies are better than the vice president’s.

Trump and the Jews

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