The Democrats Can No Longer Take the Jewish Vote for Granted

Aug. 26 2024

Since at least the 1930s, Jews have been one of the most reliable of Democratic constituencies. Nathan Diament believes something fundamental has changed:

American Jews supported President Joe Biden over former President Donald Trump by a margin of 61 percent to 23 percent, according to the American Jewish Committee’s annual Survey of American Jewish Opinion. (The poll was taken in March and April, before Vice-President Kamala Harris replaced Biden on the ticket.) But in the same survey, 85 percent of American Jewish adults said it’s important for the U.S. government to support Israel in the aftermath of October 7, and 57 percent reported feeling more connected to Israel or to their Jewish identity since the attack. That’s a vulnerability for Harris if her policy toward Israel or attitude toward Jewish Americans is perceived as weak.

It’s all well and good to showcase Jewish Democrats [as Democrats did at the convention], but the party owes voters an answer to a pressing question: will Harris embrace Biden’s mostly pro-Israel record, or will she succumb to radical and anti-Semitic voices in the party? If Democrats don’t demonstrate their support for Israel and American Jews, they’ll have a lot to worry about in the key swing states.

Pennsylvania, a state where Biden mustered an 81,000-vote victory in 2020, is the swing state with the most Jewish voters: nearly 434,000. . . . A poll commissioned by the Orthodox Union released August 2 showed a startling result: Pennsylvania’s Jewish vote was closely split 49 percent to 42 percent between Harris and Trump—a departure from the Democrats’ historical hold on Jewish voters.

Read more at U.S. News & World Report

More about: 2024 Election, American Jewry, Democrats, U.S. Politics

American Middle East Policy Should Focus Less on Stability and More on Weakening Enemies

Feb. 10 2025

To Elliott Abrams, Donald Trump’s plan to remove the entire population of Gaza while the Strip is rebuilt is “unworkable,” at least “as a concrete proposal.” But it is welcome insofar as “its sheer iconoclasm might lead to a healthy rethinking of U.S. strategy and perhaps of Arab and Israeli policies as well.” The U.S., writes Abrams, must not only move beyond the failed approach to Gaza, but also must reject other assumptions that have failed time and again. One is the commitment to an illusory stability:

For two decades, what American policymakers have called “stability” has meant the preservation of the situation in which Gaza was entirely under Hamas control, Hizballah dominated Lebanon, and Iran’s nuclear program advanced. A better term for that situation would have been “erosion,” as U.S. influence steadily slipped away and Washington’s allies became less secure. Now, the United States has a chance to stop that process and aim instead for “reinforcement”: bolstering its interests and allies and actively weakening its adversaries. The result would be a region where threats diminish and U.S. alliances grow stronger.

Such an approach must be applied above all to the greatest threat in today’s Middle East, that of a nuclear Iran:

Trump clearly remains open to the possibility (however small) that an aging [Iranian supreme leader Ali] Khamenei, after witnessing the collapse of [his regional proxies], mulling the possibility of brutal economic sanctions, and being fully aware of the restiveness of his own population, would accept an agreement that stops the nuclear-weapons program and halts payments and arms shipments to Iran’s proxies. But Trump should be equally aware of the trap Khamenei might be setting for him: a phony new negotiation meant to ensnare Washington in talks for years, with Tehran’s negotiators leading Trump on with the mirage of a successful deal and a Nobel Peace Prize at the end of the road while the Iranian nuclear-weapons program grows in the shadows.

Read more at Foreign Affairs

More about: Iran, Middle East, U.S. Foreign policy