US President Donald Trump. Could lose interest in Israel too
Photo: Reuters
Prof. Yossi Shain
Photo: Amit Magal
US Jews’ identity crisis increasing in Trump era
Op-ed: The passionate embrace that the new American president is receiving from the Israeli government and the great hatred towards him among liberal elements and many in the American political center could lead to an even bigger split among the American Jewry.
There is a big, dangerous gap between the passionate embrace US President Donald Trump is receiving from the Israeli government and the great amount of hatred towards him among liberal elements and many in the American political center. This situation could create an even bigger split among American Jewry, which mostly votes Democrat.
If until today even J Street supporters defined themselves as Zionists and found a common ground with AIPAC, in the Trump era the Jewish American Left is taking one step forward and beginning to see the Israeli Right and its supporters as the “evil forces,” which they must to break off from. Some of them are already planning protest marches ahead of next month’s AIPAC conference. Prof. Gordon Lafer, one of the prominent activists for workers’ rights, wrote that the Jews were simply being crushed on the inside.
After the great rift with Obama, loss of support from the Democratic Jews and indifference on Trump’s part will leave Israel without its most important ally (Photo: AFP)
The United States is drifting away from institutionalized politics. Trump has announced that he is the leader of a “movement,” that he is returning the mandate to the people and cutting himself off from Washington’s rotten politics. The Democratic and liberal forces are flooding the street, but have no leadership following Hillary Clinton’s defeat. In light of Bernie Sanders’ success, they are now stressing that they too are a “revolutionary movement” prepared to fight Trump’s movement to the bitter end. In such a situation, the American political system’s ability to restrain cases of anti-Israel and anti-Jewish hatred is impaired.
There is a danger that the identification created by the American Left between Israel and Trump’s “evil regime” will put centrist Democrats, who usually support Israel, on the defensive. The progressive populists are asking: How is it possible that you, as Democrats, identify with a racist country like Israel which support’s Trump’s evil regime? On the other hand, radical right-wing elements in the Trump camp are reiterating that the liberal intellectuals leading the protest against the president are led by “Jewish traitors.” While in the radical left anti-Semitism is reflected in “the new Israel hatred,” in the radical American right there are signs of a renewal of “the old anti-Semitism.”
The fear that pro-Israel liberal Jews will get carried away to a dangerous place in their criticism against Israel, as well as against the main Jewish establishment in their country, must ring alarm bells in Jerusalem. The Israeli government must understand that many Jews are at a crisis point, and prevent the situation from deteriorating.
Many Orthodox Jews, and members of the old generation who grew up in the shadow of the Holocaust, voted for Trump, but most of the young Jews voted for the Democrats. The older and more religious generation supports the Israeli Right and sees the Jewish “tribalism” as matching the idea of “making America great again.” On the other hand, many of America’s liberal Jews, particularly the young ones, have lost the communal Jewish focus in their lives. They see Trump’s election as a threat to “the Jewish moral ethos,” which is the foundation of their Jewish identity. Most of them are not members of Jewish congregations, others are in mixed marriages, and even the Israeli nationality, which served as an important identity element for the American Jewry, is wearing out.
Important parts of the Jewish American Left and Center, which have lost the “romanticization of Zionism” in recent years, are in a deep identity crisis. There are those in the Netanyahu government who argue that liberal Jewry is disappearing, and is no longer a stable source of support for Israel, and the Israeli Right is relying on the more religious audiences – but that is simplistic approach.
In order to preserve the identification with Israel among large publics in America, there is a need, first and foremost, for Jewish coherence. With the absence of Jewish coherence, Israel’s non-Jewish support may lost interest in it. Trump could lose interest in Israel too, as he has already declared that if his son-in-law Jared Kushner can’t solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, “no one can.” After the great rift with former President Barack Obama, a combination of loss of support from the democratic Jews and indifference on Trump’s part will leave Israel without its most important ally.
