Donald Trump Is Jewish Americans’ Best Option | Opinion

My great-grandfather was a Holocaust survivor. Many of us believed that the kinds of atrocities he lived through in Eastern Europe couldn’t happen again, a history that we vowed never to forget. That was just 79 years ago.
On Oct. 7, 2023, the world changed for the Jewish community. Israel experienced the most deadly attack in its history, and it marked the most Jews killed on any one day since the Holocaust. At that moment in time (and since), every Jewish person in the United States who feels any connection to Israel became a single-issue voter. This doesn’t mean that Jewish voters will vote exclusively on the most pro-Israel candidate (if both are pro-Israel), but it does mean that Jewish voters will look at insufficiently pro-Israel politicians and singularly disqualify them from their votes over the issue. When presented with two pro-Israel politicians, many will revert to voting on the other issues affecting them, like the economy.
Over the last year, there has also been a scourge of antisemitism across America’s institutions of higher education. This level of hatred and ignorance should disturb everyone. When I visited Israel late last year (post Oct. 7), one of the issues that worried Israelis the most was the unrest over Israel’s war with Hamas on American college campuses. Specifically, they were worried about the safety of Jewish students, and losing U.S. support for defeating the terrorists that launched the deadly attack. What Israelis marveled at was that the most ignorance and hatred was coming from what should be our most enlightened citizens, our college students, and professors. This struck a chord with me.
Onto the 2024 presidential election. The argument against former President Donald Trump is that he says incendiary things. The fact of the matter is that Trump is an equal opportunist and says things that are uncouth when he feels that anyone presents a personal affront to him. Trump has at times expressed frustration that groups of Americans (including Jewish Americans) that prospered under his administration won’t break out of old habits and make their voting blocks competitive for both political parties. Will expressing this frustration win him any votes? No. Do these statements make him any less pro-Israel? No.
An argument I hear often from my liberal friends is that a particular politician cannot be anti-Israel because their spouse or relatives are Jewish. In the presidential election, Vice President Kamala Harris’ husband is Jewish. Let’s look for comparable examples. In the United Kingdom, Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s wife is Jewish. Starmer has taken a tough stance on Israel and is actively considering an arms embargo against them (an idea that VP Harris has also floated). You wouldn’t know it by his decades of anti-Israel posturing, but Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is also Jewish. Being Jewish alone does not mean that someone (or their spouse) would be a good leader for the Jewish community.
Antisemitism is one of the oldest forms of religious or racial hatred, and it comes from both the far left, and far right. The difference is that the Democrats have given it a platform in Congress with politicians like The Squad.
President Trump believes in “peace through strength” as the strongest possible deterrent to global aggression. Importantly for the Jewish community, Israel wouldn’t be engaged in a multi-front war with Iranian proxies if Trump were in the White House. How do we know this? During the Trump administration, there were no new wars around the globe; many countries feared his unpredictability, and he strangled Iran economically with heavy sanctions. Additionally, when Trump gets back in the White House, he will not handcuff Israel in their war against Hamas.
President Trump was the most pro-Israel president in history. He recognized Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights and moved the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Most significantly, Trump helped broker peace in the Middle East through the Abraham Accords, where the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan forged new diplomatic and economic relations with Israel.
We need a president who will stand up to Iran. During his administration, Trump withdrew from the disastrous Iran nuclear deal and heavily sanctioned them. Given a second term, he will do so again, cutting off their money supply to fund terrorist proxies around the globe. We also need a president who will make all college students feel safe and able to express themselves politically and religiously.
As Steve Rosenberg, a Jewish Democrat from Pennsylvania, recently said on Fox News, Jewish Americans face an existential threat and should vote accordingly. He ended his interview by stating, “There is no prize for being on the last train to Auschwitz.” Rosenberg will be voting for President Trump.
America and Israel were more prosperous, Jewish students felt safer on college campuses, and peace was being forged in the Middle East just four short years ago.
Brandon Maly is chair of the Dane County GOP in Wisconsin.
The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.