The November Dilemma: When American And Israeli Priorities Clash

Will the election require Jews to choose between ensuring democracy at home and bolstering security for Israel?

On display: One candidate looking back to better days and one looking forward to brighter times.

Donald Trump says Jews who vote Democrat hate Israel, are bad Jews, and that only he can end the current war and protect Israel. He says Jews will be to blame if he loses the election. The former president has vowed to continue to “fully support” Israel as he did in office and maintains that he would solve the Mideast conflict with a phone call, though he has not explained how. But Trump has openly discussed his plans to remake the U.S. government in ways similar to autocratic leaders he admires in Hungary and Poland who tout their “illiberal democracies.”  Trump has said he plans to disregard the Constitution, seek revenge on his political enemies, and implement many more changes that would weaken, if not shatter, the framework of democracy as we know it. 

His opponent, Kamala Harris, is committed to protecting democratic principles and seeking to move American society away from the “us vs. them” social divide that Trump promotes through falsehoods and fear in his political policies and campaigns. Harris supports women’s reproductive rights, a strengthened NATO, economic growth and the peaceful transfer of power. She has pledged to combat anti-Semitism, strengthen Holocaust education and “continue to stand with the people of Israel and its right to defend itself from those that threaten its existence.” She has also expressed concern about the suffering of Gazans in empathetic ways that indicate a deeper impatience with Israel than Joe Biden, who may be the last openly avowed Zionist Democrat in the White House for quite some time.

So come Election Day in less than a month, do American Jews have to choose between voting for either an assured democratic U.S. or a Jewish state enthusiastically supported by the White House? 

For many Israelis, the answer is simple. The editor in chief of The Jerusalem Post, Zvika Klein, didn’t pull any punches when he wrote a recent column titled “Harris As President Could Be A Disaster For Israel And The Jewish People.” He cited the vice-president’s “alignment with progressive critics of Israel, her support for the Iran nuclear deal and her soft stance on anti-Israel rhetoric” that “suggest a drastic shift in U.S. policy that could jeopardize both Israeli and American security interests.”

Klein may be sounding an alarmist bell, but he is far from alone. In addition to fears about Harris, most Israelis want to see Trump back in the White House because they are grateful to him for moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, launching the Abraham Accords and making clear his support of the government in Jerusalem. Benjamin Netanyahu surely is hoping for a Trump win. That may explain, in part, why the prime minister has been accused of stalling on a cease-fire with Hamas, hoping to continue the war until November and a Trump election, which would ease the pressure on him. 

But a number of Israelis, including key security officials, would prefer a Democrat in the White House. They believe Trump is too unstable, transactional, impulsive and unpredictable to rely on in critical situations, making decisions based on his personal relationships with world leaders – especially autocrats he admires and may see as models – rather than on a firm commitment to strengthen democracies around the globe as well as at home. 

For the last nine decades American Jews have remained liberal, voting for Democrats by a wide margin. They also have a track record of solid support for Israel, but tend not to view the Jewish state as a top-tier issue at the polls. At least that was true until October 7 of last year, when they were shocked and shaken by Hamas’s barbaric attack on Israel, the resulting war and the unprecedented spike in anti-Semitism here and around the world. It’s still likely that Harris will garner 65 to 70 percent of the Jewish vote, with many convinced that she will promote liberal values and maintain strong support for Israel. And that Trump’s combative personality, pledges and agenda disrespect our national democratic culture and norms in ways that invoke parallels to authoritarianism, if not neo-fascism. 

In addition to strongly suggesting he will not accept the election vote if he loses, Trump has increasingly embraced white, Christian nationalism, which believes the Founding Fathers wanted America to be a Christian nation. He promised an evangelical group in February that he would protect the country from “the left, which wants to tear down crosses.” He has not apologized for or denounced anti-Semites that he has hosted, or disavowed a number of statements he has made over the years that traffic in anti-Jewish tropes, often about money and disloyalty.

(How ironic and confusing that Democrats appear to be outspoken against anti-Semitism and softening on Israel while Republicans enthusiastically support Israel but seem to tolerate or ignore anti-Semites.)

Every four years Jewish Republicans assert that this will be the election that finds Jewish voters giving the Republican presidential candidate a significant spike. But not since George H. W. Bush received 35 percent of the Jewish vote in his 1988 victory over Michael Dukakis has a Republican candidate for president received more than 30 percent. (Four years later, Bush had only 11 percent of the Jewish vote in his loss to Bill Clinton.)

Donald Trump won 24 percent of the Jewish vote in 2016, and 30 percent in 2020. His strongest support in the Jewish community has come from Orthodox Jews – about one in 10 American Jews – with an estimated 75-85 percent voting for him in 2020. They have based their votes for Trump on pragmatic policies, especially regarding Israel, while giving him a pass on his immoral behavior, multiple legal convictions and coarse, demeaning rhetoric. “I’ve said this for a long time,” he told Israeli journalist Barak Avid in 2021, that “the Jewish people in the United States either don’t like Israel or don’t care about Israel.”  Trump has gone further lately. His recent comment that if he is not elected next month, “the Jewish people would have a lot to do with a loss,” has caused fear among Jews of increased anti-Semitism from fervent Trump loyalists.

Deep Concern About Iran

Most Jews, like most other Americans, have made up their mind on which presidential candidate they are going to vote for next month. That means a significant majority of the Jewish community will vote for Harris, with Orthodox Jews the exception – and the more fundamentalist they are in observance, the more likely they are to vote for Trump. That leaves only a small segment of Jews who are wavering, undecided about their presidential choice. Most likely the Number One concern for these holdouts is Israel, its safety and future.  And as the Mideast war has escalated and now includes direct attacks between Israel and its most dangerous, existential enemy, Iran, the holdouts tend to see the former president as the only candidate who may well encourage and support an attack on Iran’s nuclear sites. Only Trump, with his blunt, brash and unpredictable behavior, could stare down the Ayatollahs, according to many who lean toward voting for him. 

It does seem unlikely that a Democrat in the White House would give the green light for, or participate in, a major assault on Iran’s nuclear sites. But Trump, who cannot be judged by the norms of other political leaders, may be willing to take on the Islamic revolutionary state and risk a worldwide conflict. The fact that he seems not to have consistent policies, and often changes positions to whatever seems best for him at the moment, may work in Israel’s favor – at least in the short-term – say those who seem willing to cast their lot with him. 

To be clear, the Biden administration has repeatedly said it would never allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon, and it is likely Harris would maintain that position as president. And the Biden-Harris White House has been as fully supportive of Israel in a time of war as any U.S. administration, providing extraordinary military advice and support, arms, aircraft carriers, a nuclear submarine, repeated warnings to Israel’s enemies – “Don’t” –  and a personal visit by the president to Jerusalem at the outset of the war a year ago. 

The fact is that Iran appeared to be most afraid of Trump’s tough-guy persona during his tenure in the White House, especially when he withdrew the U.S. from the Obama-initiated, 2015 Iran nuclear agreement, calling it “the worst deal ever.” Trump’s move was praised by Netanyahu, who had long warned the world of the threat of a nuclear Iran and aggressively opposed the deal. But the bitter politics over that agreement continues nine years later. Trump’s critics point to the fact that without international monitoring, Iran speeded up its efforts to produce nuclear arms, now said to be only weeks from completion. His supporters say the threat of wide-scale military action against Iran will be effective again if he wins in November. 

Don’t Ignore West Bank Violence

Michael Koplow, chief policy officer at the dovish, American-based Israel Policy Forum, doesn't view the election as presenting only a binary choice of voting for U.S. democracy or Israeli security. He says he, too, wants to see “an American government more hawkish toward Iran.” Koplow, whose weekly analysis on Mideast issues is read and admired by conservatives as well as liberals for its sharp insights, told me he is confident of Kamala Harris’s support for Israel. “But that doesn’t necessarily mean Democrats believe Israel can do whatever it wants without consequences,” he said, raising the question of how one defines assuring the security of Israel. 

There is more to “Israel security” than defending it militarily, Koplow said, offering a wider and deeper perspective on what’s best for the Jewish state. While asserting that the Biden administration has been unmatched in terms of short-term security for Israel, he noted that those who truly care about Israel being a democratic and Jewish state must come to understand that “Israeli security” entails dealing with the Palestinians in a realistic, political way. For now, Israel is focused on defanging Hamas and Hezbollah, but it is unrealistic and unsafe to envision “the day after” with an overburdened IDF tasked with controlling all of Gaza and much of Lebanon, and millions of hostile residents. Koplow said “it’s important for Israel – not just Palestinians” – to seek a path toward a two-state solution, however distant that may seem today, and that Democrats are more likely than Republicans to try to build on that idea.

While there is more talk about a two-state solution – pro and con – now than in the last 10 years, none of the parties are being realistic, according to Koplow. He believes the U.S. and Western allies must recognize that an independent Palestinian state willing to exist alongside Israel in peace is only an aspiration at this point. But he says the subject must be discussed and sustained in incremental steps as part of a long-term strategy. Israelis, too, in light of the current conflict, can no longer continue to fool themselves that the Palestinian issue can be kicked down the road. 

“The very difficult first steps for Israel,” Koplow said, are to address and deal with the sharp increase in Jewish settler violence and outposts in the West Bank. And the Palestinians must “build some credibility on their side that they can bring about positive change.

“Otherwise,” Koplow said, “nothing will change and the hope of a better future will be destroyed.”

David Or Goliath?

As the election nears, many Jewish Democrats are more hopeful than certain that Kamala Harris will maintain the level of support for Jerusalem that Joe Biden has shown. For those who say they don’t feel Harris cares about Israel in her kishkes the way Biden does, Michael Koplow agrees. “But the kishke quotient should be about policy, not necessarily emotional resonance,” he said, observing that unlike Democratic leaders today, Biden, who likes to talk of his meetings with Golda Meir, is of a generation that remembers Israel as David – not Goliath – the underdog that employed smarts, courage, resilience and strength to survive and prosper.

Many older American Jews resonate with that image of Israel as well. But the truth is that dramatic changes in Israeli policies that weaken and threaten to further erode democratic values have also eroded support among younger generations here in the U.S., including Jews, some of whom view Israel as more Goliath than David – and not only regarding its treatment of Palestinians. 

The immediate crisis that began last October 7 has pushed aside, for now, memories of the bitter, near civil war over judicial reform that took place within Israeli society the previous year. Tens of thousands of critics of the Netanyahu government’s effort to increase its legal authority took to the streets in protest week after week. Most American Jews, like most Israelis, worried that Israel had become more extremist with its most right-wing government in its history. That government continues to appear driven by its two anti-Arab firebrand ministers, national security minister Itamar Ben Gvir and finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, who threaten to leave the coalition if Netanyahu agrees to a cease-fire with Hamas or lets up on its attacks on Hezbollah. Such a move would bring down the government, making Netanyahu vulnerable to a possible jail term if he is out of power and found guilty of various charges of bribery, fraud and, perhaps poetically, breach of trust.

Most American Jews, like most Israeli Jews, care deeply about the values of democracy and believe it is the vital core of national cohesion. Many believe that a strong, democratic America aligns with and helps ensure a strong, democratic Israel; others assert that the form of liberal democracy in both countries needs to be revised and reshaped to strengthen the executive branch. 

Yossi Klein Halevi, an award-winning journalist and author, and senior fellow of the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, seemed to sum up the current situation in an interview almost three years ago. “The Trump paradox is that he was a blessing for Israel and a curse for American Jewry,” he told The New Yorker editor David Remnick. “His administration negotiated the Abraham Accords, Israel’s first genuine normalization with Arab countries. And he existentially threatened the liberal order that allowed American Jewry to thrive as no other diaspora. That’s Trump’s Jewish Legacy.”

The Harris counter to such a divided legacy may be a corrective to the authoritarian impulses within the Netanyahu coalition, moving the government back toward the center of Israeli society, to the respect Israel has long merited in the international arena and to the welcoming embrace of American Jews.

In the end, we in the electorate will have to decide whose vision is best – for America and for Israel.