The Blogs: Jewish Members of Congress Should Not Treat Us Like Children

In a Times of Israel blog post published on Friday, November 1, 2024, perhaps deliberately published just before the Tuesday election, four Jewish members of Congress (Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Brad Schneider, Kathy Manning and Greg Landsman) explain why they believe that Kamala Harris is the better choice for President for pro-Israel voters.

One of the authors, Brad Schneider, represents my own district – and I know that he is as staunchly pro-Israel and fighter against antisemitism as any member of Congress. Indeed, he is a leader on this subject; we are lucky to have him in Congress on these issues. Our district has been blessed with strong pro-Israel Members from both parties, as one of Mr. Schneider’s predecessors was Republican Mark Kirk – who as both a Representative and later as Senator was one of the persons most responsible for the development and deployment of Iron Dome.

That said, the new blog post by these four Jewish Representatives is profoundly disappointing – mostly cherry-picking only those favorable points about Harris, ignoring those points that give rise for concern, and misrepresenting certain points about Donald Trump. This is not to say which candidate Jewish voters should select, but rather to urge that such choices should be based on an honest review of the merits and demerits of the candidates, not this non-nuanced, gerrymandered presentation by elected officials. That the authors are partisan is not an excuse for treating their constituents – and the wider audience they seek to influence with their article – as children unable to judge the full record.

To be clear, I really, really, really dislike Donald Trump. Of the 17 Republicans vying for the Presidential nomination in 2016 primaries, he was by far my last choice; if there had been forty candidates, he would have been my 40^th choice. He has no business ever being President of the United States – now or in 2016. I am more than well aware of his substantial and serious Many and Manifest Faults and Flaws (MMFFs), and just about every word that comes out of his mouth is cause for significant concern.

But, despite constant repetition, he did NOT call “neo-Nazis ‘very fine people,’” as asserted by the blog post. (See here for a more nuanced and accurate description, with the full quotations in context, of what Trump actually did say – which certainly does not give him a pass on support for white nationalists but does not justify misrepresenting his comments either). As Jews facing antisemitism, we know that repeating a lie over and over again – including falsely claiming that Israel commits “apartheid” and “genocide,” or that it is a “settler colonialist state,” does not make it any truer.

For that matter, President Biden has said that the anti-Israel protesters – who call for the eradication of Israel – “have a point.” In fact, he said that more than once, from the main stage at the DNC Convention in Chicago in August 2024 and in North Carolina in March 2024.

Yes – one can parse those statements and quite properly point out that he was talking more about the need for more aid to Gaza, not support for eliminating Israel (even though the protesters themselves were protesting not for aid convoys but for the destruction of Israel), but the same is true of Trump’s “very fine people” comment. The point is that for the Representatives to cite this example as a reason to vote against the other candidate is dishonest; they assume that the pro-Israel voters to whom the article is directed are too ignorant to know the truth or to appreciate any nuance.

Similarly, the Representatives’ blog article asserts that Republicans voted against aid for Israel, even though they know that the Democrats’ proposed bill also included aid for Ukraine and that the Republicans objected to tying them together – and further know that an Israel-only aid bill would have been strongly supported by those same Republicans. I firmly believe that the Republicans were very wrong in their vote on the as-presented bill because Ukraine deserves and needs all the aid that the United States can give it to fight against Russian aggression – just as Israel does. But to pretend – as the Representatives do – that the Republicans opposed aid to Israel is disingenuous at best.

It cannot be fairly denied that the Trump Administration included some of the most important pro-Israel actions taken by any administration – Democrat or Republican. One does not have to give Trump himself credit for them – and we certainly can have legitimate concerns about what will happen in a second term by his unhinged personality – but it is dishonest to pretend that these events did not occur on his watch as the blog post does:

Abraham Accords: Generations of Presidents of both parties insisted that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict had to be resolved before progress could be made on regional peace and developments, including especially during the Obama Administration when Secretary of State John Kerry lectured Israel: “There will be no advance and separate peace with the Arab world without the Palestinian process and Palestinian peace. Everybody needs to understand that. That is a hard reality.” Credit must be given to the Trump Administration for rejecting this age-old canard and leading efforts for peace agreements with Arab states.
Embassy to Jerusalem: Congress passed the Jerusalem Embassy Act in October 1995. For 23 years, the Clinton, Bush, and Obama administrations all deferred the move, as permitted under the Act. Facing assertions that such a move would further inflame tensions and cause violent reactions, which never occurred, the Trump Administration made the move. This was more than merely symbolic – it was a recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
Recognition of Israel’s sovereignty of the Golan Heights: In 2019, the United States became the first nation to recognize the Golan Heights as being under the sovereignty of Israel. Whether or not one agrees that Israel should have sovereignty over the Golan Heights, since it was acquired by war (albeit a defensive war – see my earlier article citing authority supporting sovereignty), there is no legitimate debate that this action by the Trump Administration was strongly pro-Israel.
Department of Education Adopts IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism: By Executive Order on December 11, 2019, President Trump mandated that the Department of Education consider the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism in evaluating discrimination claims involving antisemitism in schools, primarily at the university level but in K-12 public schools as well. Notably, despite revoking most Trump Executive Orders, the Biden Administration did not revoke this one.

Currently pending before Congress is the Antisemitism Awareness Act which codifies the Executive Order, as discussed here. In light of the emergence of the “Liberated Ethnic Studies” curriculum in K-12 schools – and as approved in Minnesota by Harris’s running mate, Tim Walz in his role as Governor (see my recent article on that subject), Jewish voters can have legitimate reason to be concerned about what a Harris-Walz Administration would do regarding the Executive Order or Congressional consideration of the pending legislation.

Nikki Haley as U.N. Ambassador: The Obama Administration seriously betrayed Israel at least twice – first with the Iran deal (the JCPOA; I was in D.C. with AIPAC the day before the congressional vote to lobby against it) and then when it failed to veto U.N. Security Resolution 2334 – which was the occasion for my very first Times of Israel blog post. Whatever Haley’s merits or faults since she left that post, there is no denying that pro-Israel Americans felt she was a breath of fresh air and a truth-teller on the U.N. stage. At the 2018 AIPAC Policy Conference, Haley was the superstar of the hour – every mention of her name resulted in an ovation and her own appearance resulted in a prolonged standing ovation. She called out the hypocrisy of the U.N., especially on the seriously misnamed Human Rights Council.

Regarding the JCPOA, the Trump Administration withdrew from it. As much as I strongly opposed the JCPOA and the dishonest way it was put through Congress, I was ambivalent about the withdrawal once it had been in effect for a period of time and Iranian enrichment (even as it seriously cheated) was reduced at least temporarily. I do not include that withdrawal, therefore, as a separate item because it has pros and cons, but the blog post by the four Members is less than honest in omitting any reference to it in their discussion.

Withdrawal of UNRWA Funding. The United States was – and is again – the largest funder of UNRWA, giving more than $300 million annually, far more than the EU or any other nation. Even before the revelations of Hamas’s penetration of UNRWA following the 10/7 pogrom, it was clear that UNRWA was deeply and fatally flawed. Its schools teach hate and antisemitism, a form of child abuse that dooms yet another generation of Israelis and Palestinians to bloodshed and pushing a two-state solution farther and farther away. It was and remains corrupt. In 2018, the Trump Administration ceased funding for UNRWA, only to have that funding restored by the Biden Administration. Perhaps the Representatives disagreed with Trump and Haley on this, but it is not mentioned in their article.
Peace to Prosperity Plan – in 2020, the Trump Administration released “Peace to Prosperity: A Vision to Improve the Lives of the Palestinian and Israeli People.” Unlike every other peace proposal by Democratic and Republican administrations since 1948, this proposal at least made the attempt to require that the Palestinians, not just the Israelis, make concessions for peace. It called for a two-state solution. While it had its own flaws, it was the first – and still the only – attempt to break the paradigm of only pressuring Israel for concessions without any expectations of the Palestinians. It was a bold and unprecedented initiative.

That is seven, perhaps eight if one includes withdrawal from the JCPOA, strongly pro-Israel actions – not just rhetoric – that occurred during the previous Trump Administration. Perhaps one can make a similar list for the Obama Administration (the $3.8 billion Memorandum of Understanding, for example) and Biden Administration (military support for Israel following 10/7, albeit tempered by lectures, threats and redlines that apply only to Israel, and false equivalencies), but for the Representatives to pretend they did not occur and to simply demonize Trump as an antisemite is dishonest at best.

The Representatives’ blog post appropriately highlights that the potential First Gentlemen, Doug Emhoff, is Jewish and has been an outspoken advocate against antisemitism. Fair enough – but it is equally true that Trump’s daughter, son-in-law, and grandchildren are also Jewish – and that his daughter and son-in-law were actively engaged in accomplishing at least some of the items in the above list; they actually made a difference in a pro-Israel way. If Harris’s husband is a reason for pro-Israel voters to select her and an indicator of her pro-Israel qualities, Trump’s Jewish family is equally a reason, whatever other faults might find with them or their business dealings (which are indeed subject to critical review).

The 2020 election had the highest voter turnout in U.S. history – according to the U.S. Census Bureau, 66.8% of eligible voters participated in the election. More than 158 million votes were cast, with some 81.2 million for Biden compared to some 74.2 million for Trump. That means that more people put a check-mark next to Trump’s name than had voted for any other Presidential candidate in history, except Biden. I believe that most of these voters supported neither Biden nor Trump; neither drove that level of support except among their much smaller bases. Rather, it is more likely that the extremely high turnout was created by people voting against the candidate that they feared most.

That may well happen again in 2024. Voters will be asked to choose the lesser of two evils – and it may well be that a Harris Administration is the lesser on that measurement in light of Trump’s MMFFs, especially if tempered by a Republican majority in either house (especially the Senate). But wouldn’t it be nice if we actually had a candidate or two that we could affirmatively support instead of voting against the other candidate out of fear?

Unfortunately, the Representatives’ blog article in Times of Israel does little to alleviate these concerns. While I understand that these Democrats prefer their party’s candidate and have legitimate concerns about a potential Trump Administration – as do I – they have a responsibility to represent their constituents – and Jewish Americans – with more honesty and nuance than they demonstrated in this article. We are not children. We can appreciate the pros and cons of each candidate, without this kind of cherry-picking. We deserve better.