Diaspora Jews face tough choices
American Jews face a tough choice. Another Donald Trump presidency might be better for Israel, but not for the US. Jews elsewhere face similar dilemmas.
Diaspora Jews face some tough electoral decisions. Many feel they must choose between their interests as Jews and their interests as citizens. These used to be aligned but have diverged as the West’s commitment to liberal decency has declined.
After the Holocaust, Jews found two homes, Israel and liberal democracy. Diaspora Jews are often seen as left-leaning, but it is more nuanced. More accurately, Jews tend to vote for the party they see as the more democratic. The Holocaust was not just a product of racism, but also totalitarianism, so Jews see democracy as their greatest protector.
The choice is particularly stark for America’s seven million Jews. Anti-Semitism dwells at both ends of the political spectrum, but presently there seems to be more in the Democratic Party, which American Jews traditionally support. The party’s Far Left (including Islamists), especially its younger cohorts, are vociferously anti-Semitic and anti-Israel. President Joe Biden has been deceitful and duplicitous in his treatment of Israel. He has supported it with one hand, threatened it with the other, and undermined it with that invisible third hand that conniving politicians always seem to possess.
However, another Donald Trump presidency threatens US democracy, about which Jewish voters care deeply. I am unsure what it means that a fink such as Trump remains a serious contender, but it is nothing good. Trump’s authoritarian instincts and support from the racially tinged Far Right are everything at which Jewish voters should baulk. He might be better for Israel, but certainly not for America.
Jews are grappling with three intertwining questions.
Who would be better for Jews right now? Surging anti-Semitism has created immediate problems. Is it safe to wear a kippah? Are synagogues and Jewish businesses being threatened or attacked? Is anti-Jewish hate speech being normalized? Can Jews attend their places of work and study un-harassed? Are governments acting, in word and deed, to protect Jews? Are Jewish children safe at school?
Few American Jews have had to ask such questions. These were their grandparents’ concerns, from which life in democratic America was supposed to liberate them.
Who is better for Israel? Most Jews support Israel but have had the luxury of not having to think too much about it because US support for Israel has been bipartisan. That is still the case, but this could change with demographic shifts, the Democratic Party’s tilt to the Left, and the Republican Party’s renewed flirtation with isolationism.
Israel’s existence makes Jews everywhere safer. Rising Jew hatred is making many Jews consider moving to Israel for sanctuary. That makes Israel’s existence, security, and success, a more pressing concern in American Jews’ lives than previously. They might be too busy with their own lives to care about Middle East politics, but Middle East politics cares about them. American politics, too.
Who is better for American democracy? This never used to be a real question. Yet, that is where we are with Trump. He is a narcissist and a liar. Even if he proclaimed a greatly pro-Israel policy, the chances of him reversing it, on a whim, or when it suits him, are high. He also has isolationist instincts.
So, what do you do if, like many American Jews, you think Trump is better for Israel but bad for America, and for the democratic system that protects them? Or if the more democratic party is also the most anti-Semitic? Or when there are no liberal parties anymore?
NOT JUST AMERICA
Jews in Canada, Britain, Australia, and France, are facing similarly difficult questions, albeit without the Trump element.
Canada’s 400,000-strong Jewish community is facing rampant anti-Semitism. Although oft-imagined to be a bastion of decency, seal-clubbing Canada has a long anti-Semitic history. It took only 5,000 Jewish refugees between 1933-1948, the fewest of any Allied nation. It was among the countries that in 1939 turned away the MS St Louis, a ship carrying over 900 Jewish refugees trying to escape Nazi extermination. The Canadian Government apologized for this in 2018, which did not help the 274 on that ship who died in Nazi death camps.
After many decades of improvement and prosperity for Canadian Jews, Canada has reverted to its anti-Semitic mean. It has imported Islamism - and the war within Islam between moderates and Islamists - through a lax immigration policy. Canada takes in about half a million immigrants a year, a huge number on a per capita basis. Such rapid immigration makes proper vetting impossible and assimilation barely necessary. Muslims, including extremists, have become a significant political demographic to which politicians pander with their customary lack of shame. As everywhere, the Far Left have adopted their cause.
Canada, under Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, has taken morally despicable anti-Israel positions at the United Nations. It has called for a ceasefire that would benefit the murderous Hamas terror group, and halted weapons exports to Israel to make it harder for the world’s only Jewish state to defend itself. The country is pushing the boundaries of what constitutes a liberal democracy.
Britain is in hospice care. Its 275,000 Jews are concerned. British voters have for years said they want fewer immigrants, and more control over who can enter. Governments on both sides of politics have ignored voters’ wishes. The result is that Islamism is now mainstream and the government’s policy towards Israel has an unmistakable anti-Semitic stench. The commentariat classes are more scared of being called racists, or of losing the Islamist vote, than they are of the Islamists taking over.
The ruling Conservative Party, this week under Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, has failed utterly. The British Labor Party, led by Keir Starmer, will win power later this year and find creative ways to make things worse. His party is deeply stained with anti-Semitism. Britain’s fall may be imminent. Fortunately, the country no longer matters.
In Australia, which has a small Jewish community of 100,000 people, Jews have not traditionally voted as a block. That may be changing. The ruling Australian Labor Party, under dishwater-dull Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, has failed to take a strong stance against anti-Semitism, and offered only limp support for Israel. The government’s appeasement of its Leftist base has left many Australian Jews bitter and disaffected. The government keeps calling for a ceasefire that is against Israel’s interests, and it is considering recognizing a Palestinian state unilaterally. Australia has shown Israel that it is an unreliable ally that cannot be trusted. Its Asian neighbors are taking note. It is a foreign policy catastrophe.
Australia has likewise imported Islam’s civil war through immigration. In a perfect act of moral debauchery, the government refuses to acknowledge this for fear that racist anti-Semites will call them Islamophobic. The government has cynically sold out Australian Jews to win votes from supporters of the Australian Greens, a quasi-Stalinist party popular with clueless inner-city types. I wish I were making this up.
France’s 500,000 Jews, the largest population in Europe, also feel threatened. While the government did ban “pro-Palestinian” rallies, anti-Semitic hate crimes have soared. Jews are scared to go out. The French Government under President Emmanuel Macron, whose foreign ministry obviously lacks competent legal advisors, has told Israel that it will be committing war crimes if it attacks Hamas in areas with civilians, and if it moves civilians out of harm’s way. In other words, Israel has no right to defend itself. That is reprehensible.
France’s problem with Islamism is noteworthy for another reason. Unlike the Anglosphere’s approach to immigration, which is to develop multicultural societies consciously, France has always taken assimilation seriously. Its approach is to be fiercely secular and to make everyone who immigrates become French. The aim is a multi-ethnic, but largely monocultural state. This approach has failed, too. The naivete of thinking you could reason with Jihadism is astounding. It is like they have never read a book or looked out the window.
It is grim. Many diaspora Jews are confused about how they should vote and what they should do. The liberal democratic homes that they cherish and to which they have contributed so much, are disappearing without a fight. Many are asking themselves if they should get an Israeli passport for insurance.
The answer is probably yes.
In the Moral Clarity pipeline…
Colonialist imperialist nonsense: The idea that Israel is colonialist and imperialist is the most absurd of all the nonsensical lies perpetrated about the Jewish state.
The Middle East psychiatry clinic: One would need to be unmoored from reality and morality to think the Palestinian Authority (PA) is a moderate and acceptable alternative to the Islamist Hamas, yet that is what most governments think.
You are wrong. I’m a Jewish American who doesn’t feel threatened by Donald Trump. I feel much safer with him than Biden. My Jewish friends feel the same way.
I agree with many of the comments that expressed disagreement with your judgment of Trump. He may not be the person you want at the dinner table. He is often transactional in his approach to politics. But he has learned quite a bit from his first term mistakes and even with them, it is remarkable what he achieved. He is certainly NO danger to democracy, whereas Biden with his low-life duplicity is, and Biden is also no friend of the Jews. He talks the talk, but does not walk the walk. For all his faults, Trump engineered the Abraham Accords while Biden and co. want to establish a Palestinian state which would be a disaster for Israel, the Palestinians and America. Trump and the Republicans are not isolationists. Speaker Johnson got the money for Israel through Congress while Biden is holding up arms shipments and stabbing Israel in the back every chance he gets. On top of which Biden is dumb and senile and an inveterate liar. Trump may not be articulate about policy, but he does not lie and he is good for the Jews, even has Jewish grandchildren. On top of which he is more pro-Israel and pro-Jewish than the Jews who still dumbly vote Democrat. Those Jews will never move to Israel. Instead they will finance the ivy league colleges that hate them. On top of everything the Democratic Party is bringing fascism to America under the banner of progressive equity which is killing the country in every way. They have weaponized the DOJ, FBI, DHS and God knows what else, polluted the universities, quasi-monopolize the media, and lie through their teeth. The choice is obvious. The rest of your article is spot on.