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In a shift, Democrats are focusing their Jewish campaign on Israel policy
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Democrats are emphasizing President Joe Biden’s pro-Israel chops in their campaign for Jewish votes, a twist for a party that has long made domestic policy front and center in its efforts to get out the Jewish vote.
An online ad released by the Jewish Democratic Council of America released Monday contrasts Biden’s visit to Israel early in its war with Hamas against former President Donald Trump’s recent mocking of Israel’s leadership for mishandling the war and his praise for Hezbollah. The video is entitled “President Biden: The leader the world needs.”
“Trump turned his back on Israel,” the narrator says. “Joe Biden is a steadfast friend and supporter of Israel and defender of American Jews.” The ad will target Jewish voters in Nevada, Georgia, Arizona and Pennsylvania, all swing states with relatively substantial Jewish communities.
On Friday, the Democratic National Committee took a similar tack on a press call ahead of the Republican Jewish Coalition’s annual conference. The RJC conference featured speeches by eight presidential candidates, including Trump, whom polls show to be the strong frontrunner.
“Donald Trump is a disaster for American Jews and for Israel,” U.S. Rep. Jake Auchincloss, a Jewish Massachusetts Democrat, said on the DNC call. Auchincloss, a military veteran, referred to military officials who worked for Trump in his first term who said they stopped him from making dangerous decisions. “He is dangerous for the security of Israel and his ascension to a second term in office would make our closest ally in the Middle East less secure and make American Jews less safe.”
Democrats, who continue to garner between two thirds and three quarters of the Jewish vote in national elections, traditionally have focused their Jewish campaigns on domestic issues, reflecting the party’s common ground with many American Jews on issues like government-subsided health care, abortion rights and immigration policy.
In the Trump years, another emphasis has been the former president’s alliances with the far right, including some notorious antisemites.
Republicans have long made Israel the premier issue in their campaigning among Jews, in part because for decades Israel has been led by right-leaning governments more in sync with Republican foreign policy.
Trump especially pleased the right-wing pro-Israel community with his taboo-shattering policies, including moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, cutting of funding to the Palestinians and pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal. Republicans also have singled out for attack a small but growing group of progressives in Congress who are sharply critical of Israel.
Those dynamics appear to be changing. Biden’s unabashed support for Israel since Hamas’ deadly Oct. 7 invasion stood in contrast to congressional Republicans who were distracted by a bruising House leadership battle that delayed the passage of a resolution standing with Israel and the delivery of emergency defense assistance to Israel. Some Republicans and political conservatives were moved to praise Biden.
“The contrast of leadership in this moment of crisis could not be more stark,” JDCA’s CEO, Halie Soifer, said in a statement. “Joe Biden has stood unequivocally with Israel and American Jews, while Donald Trump mocked Israel and praised terrorists.”
At the RJC conference, leading Jewish Republicans said Trump would easily withstand Democratic attacks on his Israel record, arguing that his actions were louder than his words.
“I am so looking forward to having this debate about who stands better with Israel and who’s got a better record,” the RJC CEO, Matt Brooks, said at a press gathering. “And I will put Donald Trump’s record over Joe Biden. I will put Nikki Haley’s record over Joe Biden’s.”
Haley, Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations , is running for president and also spoke at the RJC conference.
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The post In a shift, Democrats are focusing their Jewish campaign on Israel policy appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Smotrich Says Defense Ministry to Spur Voluntary Emigration from Gaza
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich attends an inauguration event for Israel’s new light rail line for the Tel Aviv metropolitan area, in Petah Tikva, Israel, Aug. 17, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
i24 News – Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said on Sunday that the government would establish an administration to encourage the voluntary migration of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip.
“We are establishing a migration administration, we are preparing for this under the leadership of the Prime Minister [Benjamin Netanyahu] and Defense Minister [Israel Katz],” he said at a Land of Israel Caucus at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament. “The budget will not be an obstacle.”
Referring to the plan championed by US President Donald Trump, Smotrich noted the “profound and deep hatred towards Israel” in Gaza, adding that “sources in the American government” agreed “that it’s impossible for two million people with hatred towards Israel to remain at a stone’s throw from the border.”
The administration would be under the Defense Ministry, with the goal of facilitating Trump’s plan to build a “Riviera of the Middle East” and the relocation of hundreds of thousands of Gazans for rebuilding efforts.
“If we remove 5,000 a day, it will take a year,” Smotrich said. “The logistics are complex because you need to know who is going to which country. It’s a potential for historical change.”
The post Smotrich Says Defense Ministry to Spur Voluntary Emigration from Gaza first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Defense Ministry: 16,000 Wounded in War, About Half Under 30
A general view shows the plenum at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, in Jerusalem. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
i24 News – The Knesset’s (Israeli parliament’s) Special Committee for Foreign Workers held a discussion on Sunday to examine the needs of wounded and disabled IDF soldiers and the response foreign caregivers could provide.
During the discussion, data from the Defense Minister revealed that the number of registered IDF wounded and disabled veterans rose from 62,000 to 78,000 since the war began on October 7, 2023. “Most of them are reservists and 51 percent of the wounded are up to 30 years old,” the ministry’s report said. The number will increase, the ministry assesses, as post-trauma cases emerge.
The committee chairwoman, Knesset member Etty Atiya (Likud), emphasized the need to reduce unnecessary bureaucracy for the wounded and to remove obstacles. “There is no dispute that the IDF disabled have sacrificed their bodies and souls for the people of Israel, for the state of Israel,” she said. Addressing the veterans, she continued: “And we, as public representatives and public servants alike, must do everything, but everything, to improve your lives in any way possible, to alleviate your pain and the distress of your family members who are no less affected than you.”
Currently, extensions are being given to the IDF veterans on a three-month basis, which Atiya said creates uncertainty and fear among the patients.
“The committee calls on the Interior Minister [Moshe Arbel] to approve as soon as possible the temporary order on our table, so that it will reach the approval of the Knesset,” she said, adding that she “intends to personally approach the Director General of the Population Authority [Shlomo Mor-Yosef] on the matter in order to promote a quick and stable solution.”
The post Defense Ministry: 16,000 Wounded in War, About Half Under 30 first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Over 1,300 Killed in Syria as New Regime Accused of Massacring Civilians
Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad speaks during an interview with Sky News Arabia in Damascus, Syria in this handout picture released by the Syrian Presidency on August 8, 2023. Syrian Presidency/Handout via REUTERS
i24 News – Over 1,300 people were killed in two days of fighting in Syria between security forces under the new Syrian Islamist leaders and fighters from ousted president Bashar al-Assad’s Alawite sect on the other hand, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights on Sunday.
Since Thursday, 1,311 people had been killed, according to the Observatory, including 830 civilians, mainly Alawites, 231 Syrian government security personnel, and 250 Assad loyalists.
The intense fighting broke out late last week as the Alawite militias launched an offensive against the new government’s fighters in the coastal region of the country, prompting a massive deployment ordered by new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa.
“We must preserve national unity and civil peace as much as possible and… we will be able to live together in this country,” al-Sharaa said, as quoted in the BBC.
The death toll represents the most severe escalations since Assad was ousted late last year, and is one of the most costly in terms of human lives since the civil war began in 2011.
The counter-offensive launched by al-Sharaa’s forces was marked by reported revenge killings and atrocities in the Latakia region, a stronghold of the Alawite minority in the country.
The post Over 1,300 Killed in Syria as New Regime Accused of Massacring Civilians first appeared on Algemeiner.com.