As millions of Americans struggle to come to terms with the election of Donald Trump, late-night comedians have had a run of material. With newscasters and politicians urging Americans to give Mr Trump a chance to prove himself as a leader for all Americans last week, comedian Seth Meyers took a different tack.
Addressing the audience of his popular late-night show, Meyers acknowledged that Mr Trump, who has been endorsed by the Ku Klux Klan among other extremist groups, should be given a chance before playing a clip from CNN announcing that contentious conservative Steve Bannon had been appointed as the White House chief strategist. “OK, there was your chance,” Meyers said. “Goodbye chance.”
Americans have been justifiably concerned about what Mr Trump will do in office because the neophyte politician spread aggressive sentiments on the campaign trail. Will Mr Trump build a wall on the southern border of the United States with Mexico? Will he create a deportation task force and round up illegal immigrants? Will he create a registry for Muslims? These outlandish populist proposals got him elected, but speculation remains as to whether Mr Trump will try to turn them into reality.
The appointment of Mr Bannon to a senior position, however, indicates that Mr Trump will pursue the polarising strategy that characterised his campaign. A former Hollywood executive and senior strategist for Goldman Sachs, Steve Bannon is famous for his role as executive chairman of Breitbart News, a highly influential website that regularly publishes racist, misogynistic, Islamophobic and anti-Semitic material.
In addition to Mr Bannon, Mr Trump has appointed other controversial figures. Former General Michael Flynn, who said in February that fear of Muslims is “rational”, has been tapped as national security adviser. Jeff Sessions, an Alabama senator, has been nominated as attorney general. Mr Sessions is so controversial that a Republican-controlled senate rejected his appointment to be a federal judge due to a series of racist remarks he made about black people in the 1980s. In recent years, Mr Sessions has shifted his racism towards Muslims with public objections to the National Endowment for the Humanities distributing books on Islam to public libraries.
Will minority groups use these appointments to unite and resist the obvious rise of white nationalism in the White House? Take the American Jewish community as one example. While the majority of American Jews are shocked by the recent White House appointments, the reaction of the pro-Israel lobby is particularly intriguing.
The mainstream Jewish community in America is finally waking up to the natural bonds that exist with American Muslims. This was clearly articulated in a statement by Anti-Defamation League executive director Jonathan Greenblatt last week. Addressing a conference on anti-Semitism, Mr Greenblatt said of Mr Trump’s idea to create a Muslim registry: “The new administration plans to force Muslims to register on some master list. As Jews we know what it means to be forced to register. I pledge to you that because I am committed to the fight against anti-Semitism that if one day Muslim Americans are forced to register their identities, that is the day that this proud Jew will register as Muslim.”
Such comments come as joint Muslim-Jewish task forces to combat Mr Trump and his advisers are being created throughout the US. At the same time as this positive cooperation is blooming, the pro-Israel lobby is supporting Mr Trump’s announcements or, at the very least, not rejecting them.
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) has been quiet on Mr Bannon’s appointment, citing a policy of “not taking positions on presidential appointments”, while pro-Israel surrogates such as Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz have defended Mr Bannon against allegations of anti-Semitism and racism. The Zionist Organization of America even invited Mr Bannon to speak at its annual gala. Last week, Mr Dershowitz said: “I think we have to be very careful before we accuse any particular individual of being an anti-Semite.” This statement is absurd considering Mr Dershowitz has regularly levelled the charge of anti-Semitism at those advocating a non-violent boycott of Israel over its treatment of Palestinians.
This type of cognitive dissonance has long been a facet of Zionist support in the US but under Mr Trump, American Jews will have a difficult time watching pro-Israel leaders embrace the Trump administration’s cast of advisers. They now understand how a movement such as the alt-right can be anti-Semitic and pro-Israel at the same time.
As an ideology that advocates the relocation of Jews from the West, Zionism has long made bedfellows with virulent western anti-Semites. With Israel’s warm support of Donald Trump, American Jews will have no choice but to come to terms with this dark aspect of the ideology.
The silver lining is the realignment of the Jewish and Muslim communities in the US that is already taking shape, and the potential for a constructive cooperation against racism in America, Israel and abroad. Cooperation across minority groups in the US, while historic and unprecedented, will be the most constructive way to challenge the rise of white nationalism in the Trump White House.
jdana@thenational.ae
