Former President Donald Trump is capitalizing on the Israel-Hamas war to attack President Joe Biden over his increasing frustration with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu—as a small, but potentially impactful, coalition of Jewish voters have distanced themselves from the Democratic Party.
Former US President Donald Trump speaks to the press as he arrives for his trial for allegedly ... [+]
Trump has previously accused Biden of having “totally abandoned Israel,” he told reporters in Georgia earlier this month, after telling conservative radio host Sebastian Gorka in March that “any Jewish person that votes for Democrats hates their religion.”
Trump has also sought to blame Biden’s increasing frustration with Israel for enabling pro-Palestinian protesters, alleging Tuesday the contentious demonstrations at Columbia University and other college campuses in recent weeks are “really on Biden,” who he said has “the wrong signal…wrong tone….wrong words” and “doesn’t know who he’s backing.”
Trump’s increasingly incendiary rhetoric toward Biden’s Israel policies comes as Biden risks angering two core pillars of his base with opposing views of the Israel-Hamas war: progressives who believe Biden has not gone far enough in opposing the violence and some Jewish Democrats who are staunchly pro-Israel.
While the large majority of Jews still identify as Democrats, their alignment with the president’s party has slipped in recent years, dropping eight percentage points since 2020, according to Pew Research—margins that could be enough to sway the election in a race polls suggest is extremely close, with Biden and Trump polling within less than one point of each other.
That’s especially true in swing states such as Pennsylvania, which has the largest population of Jewish voters of any of the seven swing states and is seen as crucial to Biden’s path to securing the 270 electoral votes needed to win the election.
Biden has carefully and gradually upped his criticism of Netanyahu in recent weeks, while at the same time condemning the rise in blatant displays of antisemitism often associated with pro-Palestinian protests.
In a statement Sunday marking the Jewish Passover holiday, Biden said his “commitment to the safety of the Jewish people, the security of Israel, and its right to exist as an independent Jewish state is ironclad,” while also condemning harassment and threats against Jewish students on college campuses.
"Any Jewish person that votes for Democrats hates their religion, they hate everything about Israel, and they should be ashamed of themselves," Trump told Gorka. “The Democrat Party hates Israel.”
A coalition of Jewish leaders sharply condemned Trump’s criticism of Jewish Democrats in the Gorka interview. “Accusing Jews of hating their religion because they might vote for a particular party is defamatory & patently false,” Anti-Defamation League Director Jonathan Greenblatt wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. “Serious leaders who care about the historic US-Israel alliance should focus on strengthening, rather than unraveling, bipartisan support for the State of Israel.” Trump has repeatedly been accused of fueling antisemitism throughout his time in politics. He told an audience at the Republican Jewish Coalition’s 2015 Presidential Forum “you want to control your politicians,” which critics say was an allusion to the antisemitic conspiracy that Jews are involved in a shadow campaign to influence society and world order. Trump has also played into conspiracies involving billionaire philanthropist and Democratic donor George Soros that critics say stem from the same trope, suggesting Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg was motivated to bring criminal charges against him by donations from Soros to a PAC that backed Bragg’s 2021 campaign. In 2022, Trump drew bipartisan outrage when he hosted white nationalist and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes and Kanye West, on the heels of repeated antisemitic rants from the rapper, at Mar-A-Lago for dinner.
22%. That’s the share of Americans who say Biden is favoring the Israelis too much in the Israel-Hamas war, according to Pew Research data that shows Americans are divided in their opinions of the president’s handling of the war. Twenty-one percent said he is “striking the right balance,” while 16% said he is favoring the Palestinians too much and 40% said they’re not sure.
Trump’s attacks on Biden’s Israel policies is a play to both his conservative Christian base, staunch Israel backers, and Jewish voters who want the U.S. to show unwavering support for Israel. Biden has treaded carefully in publicly criticizing Netanyahu, making clear he wants to see Israel take a more targeted approach to its military strategy to spare civilian lives, but has stopped short of making any changes to U.S. policy toward Israel. Biden signed a $95 billion foreign aid package Wednesday that includes $26 billion in support for Israel and humanitarian aid for Gaza. And while Trump has criticized Biden’s response to the war and accused the president of abandoning Israel, Trump has also said Israel should seek a swift end to the conflict and that it is “losing the PR war.”
Columbia University has been shaken by intense pro-Palestinian protests that reached a boiling point over the weekend when students set up a “Gaza Solidarity Camp” on campus, inciting outside agitators and prompting multiple incidents of antisemitism and harassment of Jewish students. More than 100 protesters were arrested on campus over the weekend, sparking a wave of protests at other colleges in New York and across the country in solidarity with the arrested students. Republican lawmakers in Congress have reacted to the tensions by blaming Columbia University president Nemat Shafik for failing to rein in the protesters, while 27 Senate Republicans in a letter to Education Secretary Miguel Cardona and Attorney General Merrick Garland this week called on the Biden administration to “restore order” to campuses. .
The protests on college campuses are a byproduct of the anger within Biden’s progressive base over what some view as a failure to take a more hardline stance against Israel’s attacks on Gaza. But the Biden camp reportedly views the protests as representative of a small subset of voters who share a sentiment that ultimately will not affect his standing with his younger base, Politico reported Wednesday, citing anonymous campaign aides. “What is happening in Gaza is not the top issue for [young voters]. It’s not going to be for the vast majority of young voters the thing that’s going to determine whether they vote or how they vote,” one aide told the outlet. While polls consistently show Biden is losing support among younger voters, the Israel-Hamas war does not appear to be a top concern among the cohort. Just 2% of respondents in a March Harvard Youth poll said the Israel-Hamas conflict was their top concern in the 2024 election.
Further Reading
Trump Says Israel ‘Losing A Lot Of Support’—Urges Israel To ‘Finish Up’ Hamas War (Forbes)
Trump Says Israel Must Finish War In Gaza And Is ‘Losing The PR War’ (Forbes)
Biden Calls Netanyahu’s Approach In Gaza ‘A Mistake’ Amid Widening Rift With Israeli Leader (Forbes)