Shana Tova, my fellow Jews. As Yom Kippur approaches, our thoughts naturally are focused on teshuvah, acknowledging our prior indiscretions and committing once again to virtue. To that end, in this election year, we owe it to our families, fellow Jews, and country to shed our knee-jerk partisanship and consider the records of the presidential candidates objectively. The survival of diaspora Jewry depends on it.
The depraved and murderous Gazan attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7 exposed the existential Palestinian threat to the Jewish state. Similarly, anti-Jew-hatred and pro-Hamas protests that proliferated on university campuses and elsewhere immediately after Oct. 7 have many American Jews questioning whether we can continue to survive and thrive in the United States. Evil still exists, and Jews seem to be downrange of that impulse.
Much of the venom can be attributed to the predominant Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) ethos in the United States, which contends that people should be morally judged based on their skin color, sexual preference, and gender, not on their merits. According to DEI advocates, the world is divided into two groups of people, oppressors and oppressed. The oppressed must be elevated, while the oppressors must be laid low, regardless of their relative merit or morality.
Despite a history of being oppressed, Jews today are considered oppressors. After all, Jews are disproportionately accomplished and wealthy, Israel has a powerful military and a burgeoning economy, and Jews have won 22 percent of the Nobel Prizes since 1901, although they only comprise 0.2 percent of the world’s population.
Consequently, Jews are now attacked as racist, “white oppressors.” Currently, two-thirds of religiously motivated hate crimes in America target Jews, even though Jews only account for 2 percent of the U.S. population. These are clearly perilous times for us.
Enter Kamala Harris and Donald J. Trump.
Harris continually amplifies narratives that glorify Gazans and anti-Israel U.S. protesters and impugn Israel and American Jews.
According to Politico, merely two months after Oct. 7, Harris began urging Biden to be more sympathetic toward the Palestinians, “tougher” on Israel, and “more forceful at seeking a long-term peace and two-state solution.” Harris appears to be oblivious to the perversity of rewarding the Palestinians with an independent state immediately after the Palestinians murdered 1,200 Jews and absconded with hundreds of Israeli and American hostages, many of whom remain in captivity a year later.
Despite no evidence of famine in Gaza and the confirmed delivery of 313,970 tons of food there, from Oct. 7, 2023, through April 15, 2024, Kamala Harris shamefully accused Israel of deliberately starving the Gazans: “People in Gaza are starving. The conditions are inhumane. And our common humanity compels us to act … The Israeli government must do more to significantly increase the flow of aid.” Harris claimed that Israel was imposing “unnecessary restrictions” on aid delivery.
Kamala Harris has the right to disagree with Israel’s democratically elected Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but she seems to revel perversely in poking him in the eye. When Netanyahu addressed a joint session of Congress in July, Harris refused to preside over the event, as the vice president customarily does. Instead, she attended her sorority’s annual national convention. On Sunday, replying to Bill Whitaker’s question on 60 Minutes, Harris declined to call Netanyahu an “ally” of the United States.
Domestically, Harris continually expresses her empathy for anti-Israel protesters, many of whom wish to eradicate Israel and Jews from the Middle East. Just a few months ago, Harris proclaimed, “They [anti-Israel protesters] are showing exactly what the human emotion should be, as a response to Gaza.”
Shockingly, there are many indications that Kamala Harris will fill her administration with Jew-hating anti-Israel radicals. A month ago, the Harris campaign told Arab American leaders in Detroit that Keith Ellison is on the presidential candidate’s short list to become attorney general. Ellison has worked with antisemite Louis Farrakhan and the Council on American Islamic Relations, a Muslim Brotherhood–linked group that the United Arab Emirates has designated a terrorist group, but Ellison has lauded as a “civil rights” organization.
Harris’ current national security adviser, Phil Gordon, is intimately connected to Washington officials suspected of being Iranian spies. And her campaign’s liaison to the Jewish community, Ilan Goldenberg, advocated for 2016’s U.N. Resolution 2334 opposing Israeli sovereignty over the Western Wall, the restoration of funding to the Hamas-allied United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNWRA), and sanctions on Jews living in Judea and Samaria.
Harris’ record should frighten all Jews.
In contrast, Donald Trump consistently has supported Israel and Jewish Americans. Yes, Trump can be mercurial, harsh with critics, and downright dislikable to others. But his record speaks for itself.
Trump recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel 76 years after her formation and moved the U.S. Embassy to the holy city. His administration also mediated the Abraham Accords, resulting in the Islamic UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan recognizing Israel’s sovereignty and establishing full diplomatic relations with the Jewish state.
Trump imposed sanctions on Iran, starving it of the capital needed to fund its anti-Israel terrorist proxies. The former president also cut off aid to the Palestinians and consistently affirmed Israel’s right to defend itself from attacks by Hamas, Hezbollah, and other Iranian surrogates. As a result, the Middle East was relatively peaceful during Trump’s term.
Trump blocked various U.N. Security Council resolutions designed to denounce and weaken Israel. He also had a strong friendship with Netanyahu. Frankly, the list of actions taken by the Trump administration to support Jews and Israel goes on and on.
On this Yom Kippur, I urge all Jews to engage in teshuvah: discard your partisan preconceptions and dispassionately evaluate the records and statements of Kamala Harris and Donald J. Trump. If we do this sincerely, the choice is clear.
READ MORE:
One Year After Oct. 7, American Voters Face Stark Foreign Policy Choice
One Year After Oct 7., the Heartbreak and Hope of Israel and the Jewish People
The Lion of Judah Unleashed
