In the course of this wild presidential election campaign, Donald Trump has regularly outdone himself with outlandish statements on everything from immigration to gender equality to American foreign policy. His reticence to admit fault or even walk back over-the-top comments is a major part of his brand appeal. But there is one issue on which the Republican nominee has had to change his position on the campaign trail: Israel.
It is no secret that American politicians must openly embrace the United States’s special relationship with Israel if they want to climb the ranks. If you are not considered sufficiently “pro-Israel”, regardless of your political party, there is no hope of becoming president in contemporary America.
As an outsider presidential candidate, Mr Trump began his run for the White House with several comments that challenged Tel Aviv’s special position. In February, Mr Trump said he would not rush to take sides in future Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations.
This surprisingly rational position on the moribund peace process sent shock waves through the pro-Israel establishment. By March, however, Mr Trump had radically changed his position and was headlining the annual conference of the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac), the main Israel lobby.
In the course of the Trump presidential campaign, however, anti-Semitism has swiftly risen to the surface. As a public figure, Mr Trump has a chequered history of anti-Semitic statements. In the 1990s, a former Trump employee alleged that Mr Trump said: “I have black guys counting my money! I hate it. The only kind of people I want counting my money are short guys that wear yarmulkes every day.”
During his presidential campaign, the statements have become more explicit. In a speech to the Republican Jewish Coalition he used several offensive stereotypes such as: “You’re not going to support me because I don’t want your money.”
In June, Mr Trump posted a photo to his Twitter account of Hillary Clinton against a backdrop of 100-dollar bills and a Jewish Star of David. Reporters later traced the image to a neo-Nazi website. The Trump campaign never fully explained how neo-Nazi propaganda ended up on the candidate’s official Twitter feed, which is one of his main channels of communication.
Mr Trump’s supporters have similarly engaged crass anti-Semitism. After Jewish journalist Julia Ioffe wrote a critical profile of Mr Trump’s wife Melania for GQ magazine, she was inundated by a wave of online anti-Semitic threats that were spearheaded by neo-Nazi Trump supporters.
Despite many calls for Mr Trump to denounce the anti-Semitic attacks on Ms Ioffe, the candidate refused. The Republican National Committee was even forced to suspend its official live chat function on its YouTube page during its national convention after it was flooded with anti-Semitic messages.
Trading in stereotypes about Jewish people fits neatly with Mr Trump explicit racism against other minorities such as Mexican and Muslims. The ease at which Mr Trump can generalise about entire religious groups in advocating for racist legislation should be a concern for all Americans and especially the Jewish and Muslim communities.
Now that he is the Republican nominee, Americans must realistically consider how his rhetoric could translate into policy if he wins in November. This is not an issue for one minority but all minorities.
One would think that the anti-Semitism clouding Mr Trump’s campaign – and the candidate’s reticence to forcefully denounce it despite his daughter Ivanka having converted to Judaism – would force the Israel lobby to reject Mr Trump.
While pro-Israel supporters have generally bemoaned Mr Trump’s rise, some influential Jewish leaders have warmly embraced him. Sheldon Adelson, the Republican mega-donor and one of Israel’s strongest supporters in the US, has publicly backed Mr Trump for president and pledged $100 million (Dh 367m) to his campaign. This counterintuitive embrace of Mr Trump highlights the schizophrenic nature of mainstream American Jewish identity.
Despite a vibrant history in the US, many Jews are raised with an identity based on affiliation with Israel (a foreign country) and memory of the Holocaust (which did not directly affect American Jews). The central role that Israel plays in American Jewish life now appears to be translating into an embrace of politicians that have anti-Semitic tendencies but are pro-Israel.
This type of support for Israel has not come out of thin air. One of Israel’s main partners in the US is the evangelical Christian community. One of the movement’s leaders, pastor John Hagee, has repeatedly explained that evangelical support for Israel is based on a reading of Christian scripture that describes how the land of Israel (including the West Bank and Gaza) must come under Jewish control as a prerequisite for the messiah to return and then forcibly convert or kill all non-Christians.
As such, Mr Hagee and his hundreds of thousands of followers have invested heavily in Israel’s settlement enterprise and in entrenching America’s special relationship with Tel Aviv.
In contemporary American politics, a politician such as Donald Trump can seemingly be pro-Israel and harbour anti-Semitic tendencies while winning the support of the Israel lobby. This should be a cause of concern, especially given Mr Trump’s authoritarian tendencies and racist rhetoric about other minorities.
jdana@thenational.ae
On Twitter: @ibnezra
