Former President Trump painted a dire image of the impact of a Kamala Harris presidency on the way forward for Israel and the safety of Jewish individuals in the US as he courted Jewish Republicans on Thursday and urged them to persuade their non-GOP buddies to assist him within the November election.
“Kamala Harris is the candidate of the forces that need to destroy Western civilization and Israel,” he advised about 1,000 members of the Republican Jewish Coalition gathered on the Venetian Las Vegas for his or her annual management summit. “If Kamala Harris wins, terrorist armies will wage an unceasing conflict to drive Jews out of the Holy Land. … Israel will not exist.”
The previous president spoke through satellite tv for pc simply days after six Jewish hostages kidnapped throughout Hamas’ Oct. 7 assault on Israel have been discovered executed in an underground tunnel within the southern Gaza Strip, together with Hersh Goldberg-Polin, a 23-year-old Berkeley native. A spotlighted desk set with linens, china and glasses was left empty — to represent the hostages who stay in captivity in addition to those that had been killed — in the course of the Wednesday evening dinner.
This comes after months of Democratic divide concerning the Biden administration’s response to the assault and Israel’s subsequent response, which has killed tens of 1000’s of Palestinians within the Gaza Strip.
Trump, noting that he acquired roughly 1 / 4 of the Jewish vote within the 2020 presidential election, stated he anticipated to obtain about 50% in November due to actions he took whereas president, reminiscent of transferring the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and negotiating the Abraham Accords, below which Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates acknowledged Israel’s proper to exist. The settlement was later expanded to incorporate Sudan and Morocco.
“I solely ask you who’re the 50% of Jewish people who find themselves voting for these individuals who hate Israel and don’t just like the Jewish individuals,” Trump stated.
The previous president has confronted fierce criticism about his personal statements and actions, reminiscent of saying “there have been very high quality individuals on each side” after white nationalists marched by means of Charlottesville, Va., chanting, “Jews is not going to substitute us!” and eating with a Holocaust denier at his residence at Mar-a-Lago in Florida.
In a press release, Morgan Finkelstein, nationwide safety spokesperson for the Harris marketing campaign, stated, “Donald Trump has made it apparent he would activate Israel in a second if it suited his private pursuits, and actually he has finished so previously.”
Harris, she added, “has been a lifelong supporter of the state of Israel as a safe, democratic homeland for the Jewish individuals. She has an unwavering dedication to the safety of Israel and can all the time arise for its proper to defend itself.”
She additionally stands “steadfastly in opposition to antisemitism each at dwelling and overseas and can do the identical as president,” Finkelstein stated.
The Republican Jewish Coalition, or RJC, which was based practically 40 years in the past below a distinct identify, goals to attract Jewish voters into the GOP fold. Although it’s unlikely that Jewish American voters would change social gathering allegiances in giant numbers, if Republicans are capable of make small inroads in battleground states, it may have an effect on the result in November.
“We have been created for this second,” stated former U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman of Minnesota, the group’s chairman, on the gathering. The occasion was rife with harsh criticism of the Democratic nominee, together with audio system who referred to as her “silly,” a “Marxist Islamist” and an “antisemite” — though Harris’ husband, Doug Emhoff, is Jewish.
Main RJC gatherings sometimes unfold on the Venetian, a mega-resort created by billionaire Sheldon Adelson, one of many group’s and Republicans’ main donors, and a detailed ally of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier than Adelson died in 2021.
Thursday morning, Adelson’s widow, Miriam, launched Trump.
“He sees what I see — the world is in opposition to us and we’d like a superb good friend,” Miriam Adelson stated. “He’s our greatest good friend. He’ll save us. And I’m eagerly awaiting for him to enter the White Home and to avoid wasting the Jewish individuals.”
The donors and different RJC members who attended the four-day occasion heard from a slew of distinguished GOP leaders together with Govs. Greg Abbott of Texas and Doug Burgum of North Dakota and Sens. Rick Scott of Florida and Joni Ernst of Iowa. In addition they took half in a poker event.
Republicans have lengthy been making an attempt to make inroads amongst Jewish voters, who’ve overwhelmingly voted Democratic in American presidential elections for practically a century. Roughly 7 out of 10 have supported Democrats in presidential elections since 1968, in accordance with the nonprofit American–Israeli Cooperative Enterprise. Though Joe Biden simply received the Jewish vote in 2020, some polls urged Trump did higher than he had 4 years prior.
The GOP argues that the occasions of Oct. 7 and the US’ response will make extra Jewish voters rethink their political allegiance, probably sufficient to make a distinction in battleground states reminiscent of Pennsylvania. 4 years in the past, Biden received the Keystone State, which has roughly 300,000 Jewish voters, by about 80,000 votes.
“This has been an enormous wake-up name to lot of my buddies who’re very pro-Israel and who’re Democrats who spend their time as volunteers lobbying members of Congress to assist Israel,” stated Jeff Miller, an RJC board member and longtime advisor to former Home Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield).
They have been already disturbed by feedback made about Israel by the Democrats’ progressive wing, notably the “Squad,” and extra just lately by Harris’ feedback earlier this yr warning Israel to not launch a significant navy operation in Rafah, the place the hostages’ our bodies have been recovered, he stated.
Rob Eshman, the previous editor of the Jewish Journal who’s now a senior columnist on the influential Jewish American on-line newspaper the Ahead, stated he was skeptical that many Jewish voters on both aspect would change their viewpoints based mostly on the occasions of the final 11 months, or final week.
“I don’t suppose it’s going to vary anyone’s views. … There’s a huge distinction in coverage between Trump and Kamala in terms of the right way to deal with these points,” he stated. “It does elevate the feelings round it. It’s simply so terrible.”
Three audio system on the gathering stated that they’d voted for Democrats all their lives and nonetheless believed in lots of the social gathering’s values, reminiscent of abortion rights, however that the current occasions in addition to the pro-Palestinian protests on faculty campuses have made them determine to forged their vote for Trump within the fall.
Shabbos Kestenbaum, a registered Democrat who says he helps the Inexperienced New Deal, a $15 minimal wage and a lady’s proper to decide on, stated he can not assist Harris due to the administration’s response to antisemitic acts associated to some protests and different actions that he believes present the social gathering’s disdain for Jews.
“I didn’t assist Trump in 2016. I didn’t assist Trump in 2020. Hell, I didn’t assist Trump six months in the past,” stated Kestenbaum, a Harvard Divinity College graduate who’s suing the college for its response to antisemitism on campus within the aftermath of Oct. 7. He spoke on the Republican Nationwide Conference, and stated he provided to talk on the Democratic Nationwide Conference however was rebuffed. “The Democrat social gathering has taken the Jewish vote and Jews with no consideration for too lengthy.”
Democrats have been involved concerning the Democratic divide concerning the administration’s response to the disaster within the Center East, notably earlier than final month’s Democratic Nationwide Conference in Chicago, when Harris formally accepted the social gathering’s presidential nomination.
Whereas there have been protests outdoors the conference and at the very least one disruption within the corridor, the battle was not the spoiler of the occasion that some feared it could be. And Harris’ tone and message when she addressed delegates after accepting the nomination tried to bridge the divide by recognizing the necessity to stand by Israel whereas additionally acknowledging the plight of harmless Palestinians.
“I’ll all the time arise for Israel’s proper to defend itself, and I’ll all the time guarantee Israel has the power to defend itself, as a result of the individuals of Israel must not ever once more face the horror {that a} terrorist group referred to as Hamas triggered on Oct. 7, together with unspeakable sexual violence and the bloodbath of younger individuals at a music competition,” she stated on Aug. 22.
“On the identical time, what has occurred in Gaza over the previous 10 months is devastating. So many harmless lives misplaced. Determined, hungry individuals fleeing for security, again and again. The size of struggling is heartbreaking,” she stated. “President Biden and I are working to finish this conflict, such that Israel is safe, the hostages are launched, the struggling in Gaza ends and the Palestinian individuals can understand their proper to dignity, safety, freedom and self-determination.”
A number of households of hostages have spoken out in assist of the Biden-Harris administration’s try and dealer a cease-fire in alternate for the discharge of hostages, together with Goldberg-Polin’s dad and mom, who delivered emotional remarks on the DNC.
However the households of the hostages, like Jewish voters and every other group, will not be monolithic about their views on a two-state resolution or an effort to eradicate Hamas to attempt to make sure an assault like that which occurred on Oct. 7 by no means occurs once more.
Republicans at their social gathering’s nominating conference additionally tried to focus on their assist for Israel, that includes College of North Carolina fraternity brothers who protected an American flag from pro-Palestinian protesters who sought to take it down; an Orthodox Jewish faculty pupil who spoke about his determination to show away from the Democratic Occasion; and Orna and Ronen Neutra, the dad and mom of an American hostage who spoke about how Trump referred to as them after their son was taken captive by Hamas.
