1.
Democratic Jewish leaders and activists have surprised me in recent days by being gracious toward Republican Jewish leaders and activists. One example: Mark Stanley, of the National Jewish Democratic Council, told me that he “respect[s] the fact” that notable Jewish Republicans ended up giving very little support to GOP candidate Donald Trump and that some of them even opposed him. Republican Jews planned to use Hillary Clinton’s race for a “third Obama term” as a tool with which to sway Jewish voters their way. But when Trump was nominated as the Republican candidate, many of them balked and decided to stay this election out.
Yesterday morning I observed Jewish Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz shaking the hands of elderly Jewish voters at the local Broward County JCC. She also noticed that Jewish Republican leaders drew a line of acceptability, and placed the Trump candidacy beyond that line. I asked both: could this be an opportunity to begin an era of more civility in Jewish political discourse? The puzzled look I got from both taught me that this passing thought was probably an overstatement.
2.
The 2016 race was essentially an Israel-less election: Israel was absent from the campaign trail, from the political debate, from the presidential debates. There were few cases in which Israel played a part in down-the-ballot races – congressmen and congresswomen attacked for their support of the Iran deal was the most common outlier of this sort. But compared to previous races and Israel’s visibility in them, 2016 was quiet.
Back in 2012, when Israel was very much under discussion, I ” target=”_blank”>erratic and inconsistent positions concerning the country.
Aspect two is the policy aspect: Since Israel was not under discussion, no candidate felt a strong need to demonstrate his or her devotion to Israel. The result of that is a lack of need for the candidates to commit themselves to specific policy positions concerning Israel. So Israel and its supporters could not pocket any political achievements with the candidates prior to election day.
3.
A notable event happened to me – I will not even say where, since the person involved begged me not to reveal her identity.
So, as you already know, I’ve spent the past ten days traveling from North Carolina to Florida, through Charlotte, Charleston, Savannah, Jacksonville, Orlando, Palm Beach, and more. In many of these places I attended Jewish gatherings. That is, places in which Jewish Americans congregated.
In one of these places there was a fairly large group of Jews, all of them Democrats, all of them visibly supportive of Clinton, noticeably dismissive, even disgusted, with Trump. All – except one (or maybe more, but I know only of one). When the event was nearly over, a lady approached me and whispered at me.
“Hi, I am also Israeli.”
– That’s good to hear, I said, but why are you whispering?
“Oh,” she said, “that’s because I want you to know that we aren’t all like this.”
– Like what?
“You know, not all of us are voting for Hillary. We Israelis don’t vote for Hillary.”
– Really?
“Yes, but I work here, and I don’t need trouble. Among Israelis we can speak about this freely, but if they” – she looked at the other people in the room – “knew what we think they would freak out.”
4.
Unlike the above mentioned American-Israeli, Israeli-Israelis have remained consistent in their support of Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump in the last ” target=”_blank”>surveys released in recent days. As ” target=”_blank”>Israel’s problem with the Democratic Party: “For relations between Israel and the Democrats to remain strong, one of two things needs to happen: Either Democrats’ attitudes and Israel’s policies must converge, or Democrats must become convinced that weakening support for Israel will come with a political price. Mr. Netanyahu and Mrs. Clinton will have to find out which it is to be, or else the drift will continue.”
