By Glenn Sacks / GlennSacks
Jewish Democrats are deeply divided on Israel’s actions in the Israel-Hamas War in Gaza. Republicans have seized on the events following Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel as a wedge issue they can use to win Jewish votes in November, and they designed the newly-released 2024 GOP PLATFORM: MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! with this goal in mind. However, in pandering to American Jews with exaggerations and mischaracterizations, the MAGA platform will repel many Jewish voters.
The GOP platform promises to “deport pro-Hamas radicals and make our college campuses safe and patriotic again.” But many American Jews understand that most of the campus pro-Palestinian demonstrations the GOP so stridently condemns feature a disproportionate percentage of Jewish students and activists, and have often been led by Jewish groups such as Jewish Voice for Peace, IfNotNow, and others.
The GOP platform makes no mention of the Israeli human rights abuses that are driving protests both in the United States and in Israel. Many American Jews support a ceasefire in Gaza and a meaningful improvement for Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, and oppose prejudice against Arabs and Muslims. However, the word “ceasefire” never appears in the GOP platform, nor do “Palestinian” or “Islamophobia”.
Moreover, under the guise of combating antisemitism, the GOP grievously distorts the motives and actions of pro-Palestinian protesters. While it would be naive to claim that there’s no antisemitism in America, if one takes a close look at pro-Palestinian activism, it’s clear that much (though not all) of what is being labeled “antisemitism” is instead criticism of the Israeli government and its actions.
To pick one recent example, the pro-Palestinian activists at the recent Adas Torah Synagogue protest in Los Angeles were widely denounced as “antisemitic”. Some prominent media and political figures even called it a “pogrom” or a “hate crime.”
In reality, the protesters–some of whom were Jews–were there to oppose a marketing event by a real estate company that Adas Torah was helping to sell land in what the United Nations and most countries consider to be illegally-occupied Palestinian territory. This is hardly an unreasonable position–in fact, Julian Shapiro, who runs a real estate company similar to the one targeted in the protest, says, “We would never sell a property in the West Bank. We don’t think it’s the right thing to do.”
Moreover, the low level violence of the day wasn’t an attack on Jews, as was widely reported, but instead clashes between pro-Palestinian protesters and pro-Israel counterprotesters.
To be fair, it’s not just Republicans who have distorted and pandered over the Ada’s Torah incident–numerous Democrats, including President Joe Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris, have made misleading and grossly exaggerated claims about the event.
Many Republican leaders are using rhetoric similar to that in the GOP platform. Former president Donald Trump says the Democratic Party “hates Israel”, and Karoline Leavitt, national press secretary for the 2024 Trump campaign, calls the Democrats a “full-blown anti-Israel, antisemitic, pro-terrorist cabal.”
Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson condemns campus protesters for spreading the “virus of antisemitism.” California senate candidate Steve Garvey describes the Adas Torah protest as “literally a hate crime”, and Florida senator Marco Rubio condemns an “outpouring of antisemitism.”
Jews are only 3% of the American population–why is the GOP pandering to us so vigorously?
American Jews are more likely than the average American to follow politics and to vote, and are more likely to build, participate in, and contribute money to political movements and campaigns. This is amply demonstrated by the disproportionate role Jews have played in many prominent liberal causes.
For example, Martin Luther King often praised the role of Jewish organizations in the civil rights movement. One week before he was murdered, King told a Rabbinical Assembly, “Probably more than any other ethnic group, the Jewish community…has stood as an ally to the Negro in his struggle for justice.”
Jews have also been instrumental in the growth and success of the labor union movement, the American Civil Liberties Union, and many others.
Jewish-Americans have been a liberal voting bloc dating back to Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal. Republicans believe they can win the allegiance of Jewish voters by combating alleged antisemitism and by unflinchingly defending Israel and its hawkish leadership.
According to the Pew Research Center, American Jews are much more likely to have incomes of $100,000 or more, and less likely to have an income of $30,000 or less, than Americans of any other religious affiliation. Republicans believe American Jews’ general prosperity will lead them to embrace the GOP message of lower taxes and less government.
There are no doubt many Republicans who are genuinely concerned about Jewish Americans, and who have been taken in by the GOP’s misrepresentations of post-October 7 events. But the GOP platform insults our intelligence, and should cost the GOP more votes in November than it gains.
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Glenn Sacks
Glenn Sacks is an educator who has traveled extensively in Russia and the former Soviet bloc. His columns on Jewish issues, politics and education have been published in the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today and many other publications.
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