An attack that lasted less than a minute on Thursday night marked a new phase in America’s standing in the Middle East. What was until that moment a tense standoff between the Trump administration and the Ayatollahs in Tehran turned into a rapidly escalating conflict, which could lead to anything from a cycle of attacks and counter-attacks to an all-out war.
Last week, only days after the deadly attack at a kosher grocery store in Jersey City, Congress approved a massive increase to the Nonprofit Security Grant Program (NSGP), which will reach $90 million in 2020, compared to the $60 million allocated in 2019.
With a single stroke of his presidential sharpie, Donald Trump sent the entire Jewish world into a frenzy, debating whether America’s 45th president had just changed the definition of Judaism in America from a religion to a nationality or race. He did not. The executive order Trump had signed on Wednesday includes nothing to indicate such a shift. The only change that could result from Trump’s executive order, which adopted a broader definition of anti-Semitism, is an easier time for those wishing to go after colleges for creating a hostile environment for pro-Israel students.
The Israeli ex-pat community makes up anywhere from 300,000 to 800,000 members. Most are concentrated in New York and Los Angeles, rendering them useless in terms of electoral strategy. So why bother with this tiny sliver of a constituency?
With just under a year to go, Trump, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, would really like to fit in another one or two major moves—a grand peace plan, greenlighting Israeli annexation of the Jordan Valley or the signing of a mutual defense treaty between the two countries.
The title of “biggest threat” to American Jews is hard to define or measure. And more importantly, it’s political. Most liberals would agree that anti-Semitism has reached new records under Trump and that the president’s response to the phenomenon has been less than adequate.
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.
