This is a scenario some are now looking at, as Pete Buttigieg, even younger and less experienced than Obama was at the time, is having his moment. The 37-year-old mayor of South Bend, Indiana is surging in Iowa, the first state to vote in February. He is now polling at 25 percent, leaving Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders in a tight three-way race for second place.
Orthodox Jews are Trump’s strongest—and only—reliable support base within the Jewish community. Polling shows that more than half of those identifying as Orthodox voted for Trump in 2016. The president also enjoys strong approval ratings within the Orthodox community since taking office. This unlikely political alliance, between a segment of the population focused on family values and religious insularity and the flamboyant New York businessman-turned-politician, has many explanations:
J Street, the left-leaning pro-Israel lobby, wrapped up its three-day conference in Washington, DC last week. In an email to supporters summing up the meeting (and making a pitch for donations), the group’s president Jeremy Ben-Ami announced, “We’ve changed the conversation” about Israel, noting that the conference brought the issue of Israel to the Democratic presidential race agenda and that candidates have discussed, among other issues, their plans to “employ U.S. leverage to combat settlement expansion.” Or, in other words, J Street made using American foreign aid to Israel into an issue Democrats are willing to fight for.
Many in the pro-Israel community joined for a collective oy vey moment last week when leading Democratic candidate Elizabeth Warren added her voice to a growing choir of progressives threatening to use America’s aid to Israel as a means of influencing Israel’s policy in the West Bank. Looking at the Democratic field, here’s where we stand: Three of the four frontrunners are threatening to cut U.S. aid to Israel. Biden stands alone in his refusal to join.
As always, Jewish voters will make sure their candidate is pro-Israel, in the broadest meaning of the term, and then they’ll move on to decide based on issues such as health care, the economy, gun control, etc., like any other voter. All candidates in both parties pass the pro-Israel test.
No less surprising than Trump’s decision to withdraw forces from Northern Syria, following a single phone call with Turkey’s Erdogan, was the new defiant energy this move injected in the Republican Party. After sticking with Trump as he struggled to explain the Ukrainian affair, members of his party suddenly found their voice.
As we approach the first yahrtzeit of the Pittsburgh attack, it may be worthwhile taking a moment to look at what has been done, and what still needs to be done, to make sure it is a commemoration of past evil, not a turning point in American Jewish life.
Accusations of treason, disloyalty and espionage are nothing new for the president. In the aftermath of the Ukraine call affair and the impeachment process triggered by it, Trump hurled these accusations at the whistleblower who first reported the issue, and at those who shared the information with the whistleblower.
By now, it’s probably safe to assume that most Americans following the results of last week’s elections in Israel have already figured out the main theme: The winner is the candidate who secures a coalition, not necessarily the head of the party that got the most votes.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Donald Trump are using similar tactics to attack the media and question the democratic process.
Israeli Elections Round Two see Netanyahu and Blue and White Gantz going head to head, with President Trump coming into fold
