Are Israelis Stupid?

Recent polling reveals that 54% of Israelis prefer Donald Trump, while 24% prefer Kamala Harris, in the upcoming U.S. presidential election.  (The remaining 22% had no preference or refused to express an opinion.)  Thus, by a broad and even overwhelming margin of more than 2 to 1, Israelis are rooting for Trump over Harris.

Nevertheless, all of us have seen a plethora of blogs and op-eds arguing that Americans who support Israel ought to vote for Kamala Harris.  Do the authors of those blogs and op-eds, many of whom are Jewish Americans, know something that Israelis do not know?

One thing we all know is that there is no obligation for Jewish Americans or for anyone else to place Israel high up on their list of issues in casting votes in a U.S. presidential election.  But the blogs and op-eds to which I refer address readers who do indeed care about Israel, and they argue that a Harris administration would be more advantageous for Israel than another Trump administration.

The strongest argument in support of a vote for Harris is that she is an integral part of the Biden/Harris administration, and that administration (it is said) has been a great help to Israel in its counterattack against Iran’s proxies and Iran itself.

It cannot be denied that the current administration has taken steps to support Israel.  Soon after October 7, 2023, Pres. Biden visited Israel to demonstrate publicly his commitment to Israel’s security.  That visit was surely appreciated by the vast majority of Israelis.

But, notwithstanding Biden’s visit, the administration has had a somewhat schizophrenic response to both Israel and Israel’s adversaries.

Even before Hamas’s invasion on October 7, the Biden/Harris administration had been following in the wayward footsteps of the Obama administration—seeking to placate Iran by failing to enforce sanctions imposed by Trump and striving for a new nuclear deal.  The new deal, like Obama’s original one, would have left Iran with lots more money and an open path to nuclear weapons after expiration.

Coddling Iran in the hope that it will behave like a normal state, which is the hallmark of the Obama/Biden/Harris strategy, is understood by the vast majority of Israelis as a huge mistake.  When Iran’s rulers lead their supporters in chants of “Death to Israel, Death to America,” they mean it.

After October 7, Biden/Harris provided Israel with “defensive” weaponry, but slow-walked and even embargoed the delivery of weapons Israel needs to mount an effective offense against its enemies.  We all know about the U.S. refusal to deliver powerful bombs to Israel; this refusal hamstrings Israel’s fully justified offensive against its enemies.

Moreover, the ability of the administration to cut off the delivery of necessary weaponry has been leveraged to urge Israel to make tactical and/or strategic decisions that make no sense.  The Biden/Harris administration, for example, publicly urged Israel not to move against Hamas forces occupying Rafah on the southern border of Gaza, because that offensive would allegedly result in the injury and death of a huge number of Gazan civilians.  But the fact is that Israel provided both warnings and safe zones to those civilians, and the incursion into Rafah resulted in large losses for Hamas and almost no civilian casualties.

There is also the constant hectoring from the administration, and particularly from Vice President Harris, regarding Israel’s obligations to comply with the law of war.  In truth, Israel does not need advice or guidance from the vice president regarding what the law of war permits and what it prohibits.  Israel has conducted its military counterattack with enormous fidelity to international war, and every fair-minded observer knows this to be true.

Finally, Harris very recently made the startling comment that a protester, who repeatedly insisted that Israel is committing genocide, had talked about something “real.”  The next day, when her campaign tried to walk back her remark, the campaign said that it’s not her position that Israel is committing genocide.  But the campaign did not say that it is a scurrilous falsehood that Israel is committing genocide.  So, Harris is officially neutral on whether Israel is committing genocide.

If the past is prologue, a future Harris administration could potentially mean that the U.S. would continue to withhold vital weapons from Israel, continue to try to force Israel to adopt foolish and counter-productive military tactics, and continue to publicly lecture Israel regarding potential war crimes that Israel will in fact never commit.

And, if past is indeed prologue, what would a second Trump administration offer Israel?

The first Trump presidency substantially benefited Israel.  The U.S. recognized a united Jerusalem as the capitol of Israel and moved its embassy there, and also recognized Israel’s claim to the strategically-vital Golan Heights.  The U.S. presided over the signing of the Abraham Accords, which represented a breakthrough in relations with moderate Arab states.  The U.S. withdrew funding (which the Biden/Harris administration restored) for the corrupt, incompetent Palestinian Authority, which to this day provides substantial stipends to the families of murderous terrorists who are in prison or have been killed.  Perhaps most important, during the first Trump administration there was no savage invasion of Israel by Hamas terrorists, probably because Hamas’s masters in Tehran feared the joint response of the U.S. and Israel to such an attack.  The obviously weak and fumbling Biden/Harris administration (see, the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan) presented no such problem for Hamas and Tehran.

There are lots of issues American voters might want to consider.  But, if Israel’s well-being is one of them, Americans should not, I respectfully submit, ignore the fact that Israelis overwhelmingly prefer Trump to Harris.  Here is another respectful submission: No, Israelis are not stupid.