For Caring Jews, Trump Is Both Angel And Devil

In dealing with a contradictory ally, David Ben-Gurion offered a creative approach worth noting... Also: a one-minute clip from our Zoom interview with Rabbi David Wolpe.

“Prime Minister Trump.” That’s what many Israelis are calling the U.S. president these days.

Many of us are truly grateful for President Trump’s full-voiced support for Israel in its conflict with enemies who seek its destruction. At the same time, we are deeply worried by his aggressive efforts to establish America’s first autocratic presidency.

Where are we to turn? It might be helpful for us to consider the deep dilemma that David Ben-Gurion faced in 1939.

When Hitler launched World War II on September 1 with the invasion of Poland, the leader of the Jewish community of pre-Israel Palestine, Ben-Gurion feared for the more than nine million Jews of Europe. Hitler had made clear that he sought to destroy European Jewry. It was also in 1939 that Great Britain issued the so-called White Paper, a policy to severely limit Jewish immigration to Palestine for five years, and then ban immigration entirely. This was seen as a death blow to efforts to free the Jews of Europe. But the British were leading the fight against the Nazis and desperately needed support in that effort.

In response to this quandary, Ben-Gurion issued this famous statement: “We will fight the war as if there were no White Paper, and we will fight the White Paper as if there were no war.” Indeed, Jews in Palestine protested against the British effort to close off immigration and thousands volunteered to serve in the British Army in the fight against Hitler.

Sadly, though, to a large extent Ben-Gurion and the Jews of Palestine made little difference on both fronts. But the concept of supporting certain positions of a government while opposing others is perfectly reasonable, particularly at a time like now when many Americans view Donald Trump as either a savior or devil. Those conflicting feelings are heightened among Jews who think of the president not as one or the other but, at times, as both.

Trump has made unabashedly clear his full support of Israel in this war. He blames the suffering of Gazans on Hamas, which has made no effort to protect their own people in tunnels or bomb shelters, and counts on high civilian death tolls to increase world pressure on Israel. Trump is the world leader most adamant in backing Israel’s pledge to destroy Hamas – to the extent that it no longer has a presence in Gaza. And the president may well be willing to provide Israel with the political support and direct military equipment necessary to attack the nuclear sites deep within Iran, the Jewish State’s most dangerous enemy. It’s hard to imagine Kamala Harris allowing such a provocative act.

No wonder many Israelis have taken to calling the president Prime Minister Trump.

But Trump is also the president who in his ongoing quest for regime change represents the greatest threat to U.S. democracy, the rule of law, and moral and ethical standards in the nation’s history. Among those Americans fearful of the current administration’s dramatic grab for power are the majority of the Jewish community. They understand in their kishkas that Jews prosper in democratic societies. No country in history has treated Jews as well as the United States, a land pledged to uphold equality, dignity and human rights as set out in the Constitution. But those freedoms are being challenged as the president seeks to rewrite, if not cancel, the Constitution itself.

Extremism, whether from the left or the right, has long spelled trouble and persecution for Jews. Those who created, wrote and are now putting into action Project 2025, the plan Trump claims he never heard of, are dismantling federal agencies and favoring a return to power of a white Christian America, a dynamic that tends to unleash bias against Jews and other minorities.

Add to that Trump’s compulsion of seeking revenge on his real and perceived enemies, and flaunting the law by pardoning January 6 rioters because they support him. Newly emboldened, some are bringing charges against those who prosecuted them. There are also cases of attempts by January 6 rioters facing previous charges for crimes like murder or pedophilia to have those charges dropped as well.

On the international level, Trump’s unpredictability and primary focus on what is best for him, though not necessarily for the country, has resulted in a stunning, 180-degree turn in America’s approach to the war in Ukraine. The president is insisting falsely that Kiev initiated the conflict and that Ukraine president Zelensky is a dictator. He also asserts that Russia’s Putin should be aided rather than reviled for his role in the deaths of tens of thousands of Ukraine citizens in the last three years. Europe, fearful for future security, is reeling from being abandoned by its longtime ally, the U.S., as Trump seems prepared to grant Putin his wish to control most of Ukraine.

Consider: If Trump could turn so quickly on one ally at war, he could do the same to another, namely Israel. With his impulsive nature, he can make a bold pronouncement, like calling for the U.S. to take over Gaza, empty it of its two million citizens, and create a French Riviera-like paradise. And then walk it back a few days later. But the president’s power over Jerusalem is so strong now that its government caved to White House pressure and voted against the Ukraine-led United Nations resolution condemning Russia for launching the war three years ago. Why couldn’t Israel at least have abstained, as 65 other countries did? To turn on Ukraine, fighting an existential war to prevent a blatant Russian takeover, is shameful for a Jewish state that takes pride in its humanitarian values and is itself fighting an existential war.

What we are left with is a critical situation that demands thoughtfulness, strategy and nuance. Opposing Trump for who he is, regardless of what he does – like championing Israel today – is as unhelpful as supporting him full-throttle when he is on a path to dismantle the rule of law at home. In the end, an America that is abandoning its deep-seated commitment to promote and support democracy around the world signals danger as well for the Jewish state.

Perhaps it’s time we take a lesson from David Ben-Gurion.

Note: A Minute With Rabbi David Wolpe

Here is a 60-second clip from my February 18 Zoom interview with Rabbi David Wolpe, the first of a series of live Zoom interviews I plan to host this year for paid subscribers. If you are a free subscriber and thinking of upgrading to paid – just $36 a year –now is the ideal time to step up by clicking HERE.

Watch video clip HERE.