As election year approaches, President Donald Trump puts all his weight on branding the Republican Party as the most pro-Zionist party in American history

• "There are Jews who are excellent people but do not like Israel enough." Trump at the IAC conference with activist for Israel - Adela Kojev

  Photography:

  AFP

For months now, the White House has been breaking its head over the Jewish question. On the one hand, there was no Jewish president like Trump. His daughter converted, his grandchildren Jewish, his closest advisers are devout allies.

The Jewish state has a consensus that this is the best president since the state was founded, but for our brothers in America the situation is exactly the opposite. Only 20 percent of those counted there as Jews voted in 2016 and plan to repeat it in the upcoming elections. The others, and they are the vast majority, support the Democratic Party and profoundly loathe the best president who stands up for the Jewish people. So-called, with a hard-nosed back - the 2000s version.

The Jewish establishment, as well as the American media that Jews do not lack, are hostile to Trump and he simply cannot understand it. "I don't know if you know," he told a crowd gathered Saturday night for the Israeli-American Conference (IAC), "but many of you supported the previous administration. Sorry, but I don't think this administration liked Israel too much and someday someone would have to explain it ( The support for Obama; ")," the president said.

Trump and the "Shalva" band at the IAC conference // Photo: Omar Shaul

Then he mentioned the efforts of many in the Jewish community to prevent the appointment of current ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, who has made a decisive contribution to many of Trump's historic moves. "A lot of badwill and bad feelings were there," Trump pointed out rightly. "These people have to come and make them love Israel. Because there are Jews who are excellent people but do not like Israel enough," Trump added to the sentence that, because he was so right, once again bounced the Jewish establishment.

Trump already knew that later this week he would publish the new anti-Semitism campaign on campus. He brought on the activist for Israel, Adela Kojev, who filed a complaint about a mask of antisemitic activities she went through during her studies at New York University last year. However, even before it was published, an attack against a Jewish hotline again took place, this time at a kosher writer in Jersey City. The dramatic move has been swallowed up by the images of those killed from the free-weapon mastermind attack. Jews being killed on American soil once every few months is a reality that can no longer be denied.

The hard numbers speak for themselves. Eleven people were murdered a year ago in Pittsburgh. One woman was killed and three were injured in an attack on a Chabad house in San Diego. In between, hundreds of physical and verbal attacks on Jewish people and institutions occurred throughout the United States. This writer was verbally assaulted a month ago at a Washington train station after a local spotted the dome of his head.

"A step of moral clarity"

In the Jewish establishment, it is thought that Trump, in his politically incorrect statements, released the anti-Semitic demon from the bottle. There is no proof of this thesis. On the other hand, it is far more logical to assume that it is precisely his pro-Jewish and Israeli approach that is provoking a violent anti-violence response. For even the move this week took unprecedented protection of Jews in America.

"The step the president took for the first time harms Jews under Article 6 of the Important Civil Rights Act of 1965. This is an incredibly important step," says Dr. Mike Evans, a leader of the Jewish people's support of the Christian evangelical stream and who devotes his life to the war. In anti-Semitism, and a member of President Donald Trump's Advisory Committee.

A big problem for the boycott movement. Demonstration at Columbia University

"As a result of this law, any college or university that would allow the boycott movement against Israel, or anti-Semitic activists or any other cause, to harm the Jews could lose government funding. To date, this law has only affected the African-American community. Include Jews as well, a move that will create a major problem for BDS, Islamic causes that are lowering the atmosphere on campus, and anyone promoting anti-Zionism. Any institution that allows pro-Israel speakers to be unable to speak at the event because of disruptions and provocations risks a violation of the rights law. Citizen. "

Evans rejects the claims of left-wing circles in the United States - which are unfortunately played by Jews - and that the new step violates freedom of expression. "The president's move reflects moral clarity. We oppose the hatred of Jews wherever they are. There should be no freedom of expression for hatred of Jews, as anti-Semitism is at the root of the problem that Jews and the State of Israel suffer from, "Evans said.

From hatred to partnership

And if we are morally clear, then Trump's speech last weekend at the Israel-American Community Organization was a landmark for the US Jewish community and for his presidency.

When the US President arrives directly from a NATO summit in London to the Florida diplomat resort just to speak to the largest organization of Israelis abroad, it indicates that the Oval Chamber has the first Jewish president - perhaps not in origin, but certainly The thought and openness to the Jewish way of life.

True, no dramatic and new things were said in the speech, but for Trump the content was never the point - US voters understood this long ago, while Democrats and some media still insist on treating Trump as a child who makes no sense, rather than looking at the general context of his stuff.

Trump has been running an election campaign for a whole week that for a moment seems to be running for election to the 23rd Knesset at a record pace. Not only did he insist on speaking directly to a conference of an organization that defines itself as a "living bridge" between Israel and US Jewry, and a few days later to sign a boycott presidential decree on campuses receiving federal funding. He did not just listen and embrace The Jews in the warmest way possible (also physically, the Shalva band).

True, he made these moves because they might serve him, but beyond that, these gestures teach more than Trump does, like the other presidents who looked at Israel and the Jews through political or religious prism; For Trump, the Jews are part of the family (also because of his Jewish daughter Ivanka and her husband Jared, who exposed him to their rich religious world).

His speech this week - from speech to prominence to Israel and undisputedly, even at the cost of a possible clash with the First Amendment to the US Constitution and freedom of expression - indicates Trump's transformation over the past three years: from a candidate who looked at Jews and Israel with suspicion of rivals, to a president who sees them as partners A thing.

America's second capital

Trump, therefore, used the second anniversary of his recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, to declare - even if not explicitly - Jerusalem as America's second capital.

His signing of the BDS order would make Judaism a national religion in the US federal government's lexicon, and it is also a gesture that other groups in the American public did not receive, and if so, in the most limited way.

How important is it for Trump to show and wave these gestures? The answer is - a lot, because he has to reinvent himself and can't rely on the goodness of voters and the booming economy.

Trump is entering the most fateful year of his life, in which he will have to be elected on his own and not because of dislike of a previous administration. The speech and decree, which also essentially defined anti-Zionism as anti-Semitic, is a tribute that will serve it well in the polls, especially when Florida's Jewish electorate is scaling the scales - and deciding where its 29 electorate will go in 2020, The identity of someone who was sworn in on the steps of Capitol Hill on January 20, 2021.

His arrival at the conference, the signing of the decree, and his decision to stand as clearly as possible with a bloc of voters who, for the most part, are not part of his ideological camp, are the culmination of a process in which President Trump has become more identified than any other president in modern history with Jews in the United States and the State of Israel in particular. .

"The Jewish state has never had a better member of the White House than your president, Donald J. Trump," he stated in a speech, emphasizing in a natural way that Jews in America may have the Jewish state, but their president is on the Potomac River.

These words go well with President George Washington's famous letter to Jews, stating that "Tolerance is a natural right conferred on every citizen group, it has ceased to be a privilege granted from one group to another. This is because, to our delight, the US government does not give a hand To hatred and persecution and demands from the groups of citizens who live under his protection to act as good and supportive citizens, and nothing more. "

Not "I" but "you"

This process that Trump underwent on his way to such a large identification with Israel and the Jews began, as mentioned, a little differently. When he declared his presidency in 2015, many thought he was entering the race as a media gimmick to capture the limelight as he did in his reality show, or alternatively, to use the campaign to leverage his business.

Whether or not he really wanted to run for president, Trump was surprised by his sudden popularity with America II. He realized that his strength was in the perpetual campaign that the people were content with giving the president a good reason to rise in the morning as a citizen of hope and pride.

The people also understood something the media refuses to understand: talking to voters is not enough, talking about voters is not enough. Instead of focusing on "I", Trump focused on "you" and so he won. Indeed, Trump haters would also agree that he is the kind of America's shaping president - those who have signaled a period change and also a change in worldview.

Trump has become the Republican Party of Corporations and the Rich, and successfully branded it as one that cares about the simple fact in factories. Trump has transformed his party from such a free-trade advocate into one that does not hesitate to impose sanctions and tariffs on China's big rival.

Trump has also succeeded in creating a new coalition of voters that includes not only the regular Republican base, but also independent and anti-establishment voters who charmed him for not playing by the rules, and not bound by the political corps as on the Democratic side.

But Trump cannot assume his electoral coalition will remain firm this time around, too, and polls show that his situation in key countries is extremely fragile, especially if Democrats elect Joe Biden as their candidate.

The first "Jewish" president

In this context, the fight against the BDS announced by President Trump this week is likely to be a rolling battle over the federal government's designation, and the significance of the US Constitution. On the one hand there will be Trump and Republicans, who argue that freedom of speech is also a freedom not to support expression when it does not serve the interests of the federal government.

On the other hand, there will be Democrats, led by Congressmen Ilhan Omar and Rashida Talib, who insist that the first amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibits the administration from condoning resources and interfering with content taught and promoted on public campuses.

Trump is betting that the Supreme Court will eventually face him. The Court will say that the First Amendment allows for a free and even blatant opinion market, and every private citizen has the right to express any opinion, even the most outrageous, but the First Amendment does not require the US administration to be neutral on the matter.

His decision to change the rules, and make the Republican Party the one that fights the war for minorities and Jews in particular, may mark another sign of Trump's attempt to "steal" Democrats one of the elements they most identify with.

Whether he wins or loses a battle for consciousness, the general lines of the campaign were outlined this week. The battle for America's psyche began in Florida. The first "Jewish" president put all his weight on branding the Republican Party as the most pro-Zionist party since President Harry Truman's campaign in 1948, and on November 3, he hopes it will serve him - and America - well.