Israel: Please Pray for America.

In case you haven’t noticed – the United States, Israel’s closest ally, is going through an ongoing spasm of creeping fascism driven by the wants and needs of President Donald Trump.

I appreciate this may be hard to accept for Israelis who support Trump, given he has done so much for Israel. From the Abraham Accords, to moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, to the “hard line” on Iran and the strike on its nuclear capability, to its stalwart support against Hamas, Trump’s America has stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Israel.

That being said, so many American Jews who lost sleep, cried and practiced kriah after October 7th, struggle with our angst and anxiety that turns inward to our own country: the United States of America.

As Donald Trump and his enablers, blind loyalists, useful idiots and cult devotees attack the rule of law, try to limit free speech, turn a blind eye toward attempts to corrupt our judicial system and gleefully support efforts to take retribution against Trump’s perceived enemies, we wonder, “What is happening to the America we once knew?”

I appreciate two things can be true at the same time. Trump may be great for Israel but Trump may also be a “clear and present danger for the United States. Israel and the U.S. are inexorably linked which is why we need your help and prayers. As President George W. Bush said: “America stands with Israel because we share the same values. We believe in human dignity, freedom, and democracy.”

American values are under attack from within. We need Israel’s moral guidance now, more-than-ever.

Consider the following:

Under the guise of “protecting” American citizens from illegal immigrants, the government’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) is wantonly killing American citizens, violating civil liberties and creating chaos to use as a pretext for invoking the Insurrection Act.

Google the names Alex Pretti and Renee Good, two Americans murdered by the administration’s stormtroopers in Minneapolis. Know that a president invoking the Insurrection Act would allow the use of the U.S. military to “restore order when states can’t or won’t.” That is, the U.S. military could be commanded to attack the United States!

The Trump administration is “pulling the pin and blaming others for the explosion.”

In her book No is Not Enough, Canadian author Naomi Klein reminds us that authoritarian systems thrive when fear allows governments to normalize extreme enforcement as “security.”

Trump and his administration continue to delegitimize American democracy — in order to sow doubts about the upcoming 2026 mid-term elections — by peddling the tired “snake oil” that he did not lose the 2020 presidential election. 

Last week, the FBI raided Fulton County, Georgia’s election offic,e seizing 2020 ballots and voter rolls. Never mind Trump was caught on tape, 60 days after the election, beseeching Georgia’s election officials to “…find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have…”

Ignore the fact that Trump’s team lost all five of its major legal actions, with not one finding any fraud. Forget about the four independent legal processes, including a state hand-recount and a machine recount of 5 million ballots.

This is an attempt to claim the elections were rigged without evidence, undermine trust in voting systems, and condone the refusal to accept certified electoral outcomes.

In her book The Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt warns: “The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is …. for people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction…and the distinction between true and false…no longer exist.”

Trump and his minions excel at excoriating the press, especially when asked questions that might even slightly probe the Administration’s narratives. 

Trump himself has called media “the enemy of the people.”  When he doesn’t like a media question from certain reporters, he simply labels it “fake news.” Trump has encouraged distrust of independent reporting especially if it does not “toe” the Trump line.

He has used his administration to attempt to revoke broadcast licenses and silence critics who speak under the protection of the United States Constitution’s right to freedom of speech.

Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a scholar on fascism and authoritarian leaders, alerts us to the fact that “Authoritarian leaders believe they are above the law, and they also believe that they are above the truth in that they reserve the right to determine what is truth and what is fiction.”

Trump has a long history of dabbling in antisemitism and denigration of Jews.

Some of his “top antisemitic hits” include his hosting dinner for Kanye West and Holocaust-denier Nick Fuentes, who has called for a “holy war” against Jews and compared the 6 million Jews killed by the Nazis to “cookies being baked in an oven.” Then there is Trump’s comment to his then-chief-of-staff, four-star general John Kelly: “Well, Hitler did a lot of good things.” Or his noting that if he lost the 2024 election, “The Jewish people would have a lot to do with a loss.”

And it’s not just Trump. Just last week, in his statement on Holocaust Remembrance Day, Vice President J.D. Vance did NOT mention Jews as the victims and Nazis as the perpetrators of The Shoah.  This was clearly a deliberate and noxious decision.

And before we give too much “credit” to the president and the vice president, don’t forget Gregory Bovino, the recently demoted Border Patrol leader and “face” of the ICE raids on people of color. Bovino, he of the Nazi cosplay haircut and long green military coat which looks remarkably like that worn by Nazi leaders — was removed after the murder of Ms. Goode and Mr. Pretti. Soon after, he went on an antisemitic rant against an Orthodox Jewish prosecutor for observing Shabbat.

Trump and his Administration have encouraged and turned a blind eye to paramilitary or extralegal violence. 

Starting in his 2020 campaign debate with Joe Biden, when pressed on what he would say to the Proud Boys to condemn them and other white supremacist and militia groups, Trump said he would tell them to “…stand back and stand by.”

Trump has referred to the January 6^th rioters as “patriots” and “my people.” He pardoned all of his people. Whether convicted, fined and/or imprisoned, they were pardoned. Many of Trump’s “my people” wore black “Camp Auschwitz T-shirts emblazoned with a skull and crossbones at the January 6 insurrection.  Others wore shirts with the acronym “6MWE.”  The full meaning: “6 million wasn’t enough.”

It’s a scary time in America. People from other countries are called “garbage,” immigrants have been described as “poisoning the blood” of America, rapid deployment “strike teams” sow chaos in our cities and towns and murder U.S. citizens in cold blood.

This is not the America I grew up in.

This is not the America I pledged allegiance to as a child.

This is not the America that proudly displays the Statue of Liberty.

This is not what America has meant to so many around the globe.

Israel, please pray for America. G-d knows we need it.