Asked at a press conference on Tuesday about Congresswomen Rashida Tlaib’s and Ilhan Omar’s most recent display of anti-Israel vitriol, President Trump responded that “Jewish people that vote for a Democrat—I think it shows either a total lack of knowledge or great disloyalty.” David Wolpe comments:

It is the mark of a well-managed mind that one can hold principles that are independent of the people who espouse them. So it is possible to believe, simultaneously, in the following: (1) the move of the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem was both necessary and overdue; (2) some of the statements of Representatives Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar and some of the organizations and individuals who support them are anti-Semitic; (3) the president’s statement . . . is both foolish and dangerous.

The accusation of disloyalty has a long history in the Jewish experience. Those who have hated Jews, from the biblical stories of Egypt onward, have catalyzed their nefarious plans by declaring the disloyalty of Jews to whatever country they inhabit. In Germany, despite having fought for the country in World War I, Jews were [during the 1930s] treated like a cabal of traitorous outsiders. That trope is one of the most reliable ways to mobilize anti-Jewish sentiment. In this paranoid, delusional world, Jews are not native—they are interlopers and disloyal ones at that.

[T]he danger of accusing Jews of disloyalty—since over 70 percent of Jews vote Democratic, wisely or not—cannot be remedied by other aspects of his presidency that Jews find congenial or praiseworthy. . . . The president should have the maturity and graciousness to admit he ought never have suggested that Jews are disloyal to their country or their tradition. That is not a judgment for a president [to make].

Yasir Arafat was often quoted as saying that his “strongest weapon is the womb of an Arab woman.” That is, he believed the high birthrates of both Palestinians and Arab Israelis ensured that Jews would eventually be a minority in the Land of Israel, at which point Arabs could call for a binational state and get an Arab one. Using similar logic, both Israelis and their self-styled sympathizers have made the case for territorial concessions to prevent such an eventuality. Yet, Yoram Ettinger argues, the statistics have year after year told a different story:

Contrary to the projections of the demographic establishment at the end of the 19th century and during the 1940s, Israel’s Jewish fertility rate is higher than those of all Muslim countries other than Iraq and the sub-Saharan Muslim countries. Based on the latest data, the Jewish fertility rate of 3.13 births per woman is higher than the 2.85 Arab rate (since 2016) and the 3.01 Arab-Muslim fertility rate (since 2020).

The Westernization of Arab demography is a product of ongoing urbanization and modernization, with an increase in the number of women enrolling in higher education and increased use of contraceptives. Far from facing a “demographic time bomb” in Judea and Samaria, the Jewish state enjoys a robust demographic tailwind, aided by immigration.

However, the demographic and policy-making establishment persists in echoing official Palestinian figures without auditing them, ignoring a 100-percent artificial inflation of those population numbers. This inflation is accomplished via the inclusion of overseas residents, double-counting Jerusalem Arabs and Israeli Arabs married to Arabs living in Judea and Samaria, an inflated birth rate, and deflated death rate.

The U.S. should derive much satisfaction from Israel’s demographic viability and therefore, Israel’s enhanced posture of deterrence, which is America’s top force- and dollar-multiplier in the Middle East and beyond.