Trump and Israel: More embarrassment

It seems like only yesterday that then-President Donald Trump appeared before the Republican Jewish Coalition and referred to Benjamin Netanyahu as "your prime minister" despite the fact that, by definition, everyone there was American, not Israeli. It wasn't a slip of the tongue. Lamenting that American Jews tend to vote more often for Democrats, in the same speech he proclaimed that voting for them again “would cripple our country and very well could leave Israel out there all by yourselves" and then suggested that “maybe you could explain that to some of your people who say ‘Oh, we don’t like tariffs.’” This was happening at the same time as Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., was under fire from the right for suggesting that some American Jews have "dual loyalties," but somehow Trump didn't hear any condemnation from his fellow Republicans.

Omar was excoriated for tweeting that the Israel lobby was "all about the benjamins," but when Trump told a Jewish audience during the 2016 campaign that “you’re not going to support me, because I don’t want your money," that didn't cause the GOP to gasp in horror. As usual, if Trump says it it must be OK. (And let's note that Omar apologized in both instances. Trump has never apologized for anything in his life.)

It has always griped Trump that Jewish Americans didn't vote for him in large numbers, since he believes he has delivered more for them than any leader in the history of the world. He had tasked his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, with solving all the problems in the Middle East which he apparently believed he'd done by moving the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and signing the Abraham Accords, a diplomatic normalization agreement between Israel, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates. But in 2020, nearly seven in 10 Jewish voters went with Joe Biden.