Former President Donald Trump slammed American Jews for stopping working to support Israel, according to remarks released Friday from an interview for a podcast by Barak Ravid, an Israeli journalist for the left-leaning online publication Axios.
Invoking what both CNN and Politico are calling “antisemitic tropes,” Trump stated that American Jews “either do not like Israel or do not care about Israel,” provided the fact that Jews extremely chose Barack Obama and for Joe Biden, both of whom have put pressure on Israel to make significant concessions.
A recent poll by the non-partisan Jewish Electoral Institute discovered that “Israel is the most affordable policy top priority for Jewish citizens.”
Trump has long felt that he has been ill-treated by the mainstream Jewish neighborhood, in spite of moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, withdrawing from the Iran nuclear offer, and brokering the Abraham Accords in between Israel and a number of Arab next-door neighbors. Advocates say these achievements make him the most pro-Israel president in U.S. history since Harry S. Truman, who recognized the Jewish state shortly after it stated self-reliance in 1948.
Many American Jews vote Democratic, though Trump increased the Republican share of the Jewish vote to roughly 30%.
In 2015, Trump stirred controversy when he called Jews who voted Democratic “disloyal,” provided the Democratic Party’s shift away from its conventional assistance for the Jewish state.
Trump’s remarks about the American Jewish community for Ravid’s podcast, Unholy, are provoking controversy as soon as again.
To name a few comments, Trump declared that Evangelical Christians “like Israel more than the Jews.” A 2013 survey by the Pew Research Center found that “on some measures, Jews’ sensations for Israel are equated to or even surpassed by those of white evangelical Protestants.”
In addition, Trump stated that the New York Times “dislikes Israel,” and admired the reality that the paper is hostile to Israel, adding: “They’re Jewish individuals that run the New york city Times.” He was describing the Sulzberger family, which has Jewish roots, however whose owners have actually been associated with mainline Protestant denominations for a number of generations.
Noting the anti-Israel shift of the Democratic Celebration, Trump likewise said that Israel utilized to have “outright power over Congress,” however no longer does. Though Israel when enjoyed more comprehensive bipartisan support, it never ever had “absolute power” over Congress.
Critics declare that Trump is invoking the concept of Jewish control of American politics– an idea that is typically considered as antisemitic. Several Democrats and journalists proclaimed shock and scary at Trump’s comments on Friday afternoon.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the current e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. His current book, RED NOVEMBER, informs the story of the 2020 Democratic governmental main from a conservative viewpoint. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.