Published: 18 May 2020
Last updated: 4 March 2024
HISTORICALLY, THE FACTORS most likely to affect those voting for president are the personality of the candidates – think ultra-cool Obama Vs stodgy Mitt Romney, the American economy – immortalised in Bill Clinton’s catch phrase “it’s the economy, stupid”, and various aspects of domestic policy, notably abortion and guns.
Rarely is foreign policy particularly significant. A notable exception was Ronald Reagan’s 1980 victory over Jimmy Carter during the Iran hostage crisis. The spectre of 52 American citizens held hostage by the demonised Ayatollah Khomeini provided ample fodder for Reagan’s campaign to paint Carter as weak and ineffectual. Carter’s essential role in the Camp David Accord, which brought about peace between Israel and Egypt, hardly factored in.
In that context, it is easy to assess the likely effect of Donald Trump’s Middle East Peace Plan on his chance of re-election: negligible. Most Americans are not particularly concerned about the Israel-Palestine conflict. Only 34 percent can even find Israel on a map, despite their government spending billions annually in military aid to Israel.
There are two ways in which events can have an impact on an election: directly, by causing a change in voter preferences, or indirectly, by changing the views of those who, in turn, have the capacity to influence voters. To evaluate the potential direct impact of Trump’s plan, it is important to recognise that, among American voters, there are two main factions who care about Israel. I am leaving aside America’s Muslim community, 0.8% of the population, whose vote would have been long lost to Trump from his relentless Islamophobia.
To evaluate the potential direct impact of Trump’s plan, it is important to recognise that, among American voters, there are two main factions who care about Israel.
The larger faction is the evangelical Christians who consider the establishment of Israel as an essential harbinger of the return of Christ. These are voters who are entirely in the pocket of Trump and the Republicans. Their allegiance is steadfast, irrespective of the annexation of settlements, Palestinian rights, or where borders are drawn.
What they do want is a strong and secure Israel and the rhetoric to go with it. The Republicans have been leveraging the loyalty of this constituency for years, long before Congressional Republicans invited Netanyahu to give a major address in 2015, the first ever from a head of state without consultation or approval from the Oval Office.
The other faction is America’s significant Jewish population. Although the US arguably has the world’s largest population of Jews, they amount to less than three percent of the total. In 2016, nationwide, Trump received 29 percent of the Jewish vote.
His alignment with the Israeli Right and the leading role of Trump son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner in forging the so-called “Deal of the Century” is unlikely to lose him any of that support.
At the same time, it is hard to imagine that many of the 71 percent of Jews who supported Hillary Clinton did so because they thought the horrifically Islamophobic Donald Trump would be insufficiently hard-line on the Middle East. This degree of support is no aberration. Since Bill Clinton’s election in 1992, Democrats have consistently received over 70% of the Jewish vote.
The larger of the two factions is the evangelical Christians, who are entirely in the pocket of Trump and the Republicans. The other faction is America’s Jewish population. In 2016, nationwide, Trump received 29 percent of the Jewish vote.
RealClearPolitics, a political news site and polling data aggregator, identifies six “battleground states” for the coming election. Only two of them have a Jewish population greater than two percent: Pennsylvania (2.3 percent) and Florida (3.3 percent). Biden is polling ahead of Trump in both, as he is in all but one of the battlegrounds.
Will the Trump-Kushner plan lead to a history-making swing among Jewish voters in any of those states? I would put the probability right on the line separating extremely unlikely and impossible.
There are various thought experiments one can play around this topic. Imagine a division in US politics separating, for example, those who support or oppose a strong NATO, the Paris Climate Accord, and an Environmental Protection Agency that does its job.
Does the addition of Trump’s enabling the Netanyahu agenda move anyone across that line? Unlikely. How about the Jewish pundits, ranging from Thomas Friedman to David Brooks, Paul Krugman to Jonah Goldberg? None of them have switched sides over Trump’s deal.
If Mideast policy will have scant impact on the voters or the punditocracy, one area of influence remains: money. While we all hate to see the words “Jew” and “money” in the same sentence, the fact remains that, among the ten families making the largest political contributions in 2016, six of them were Jewish.
Their affiliation breaks down along the lines of Jewish voting, two Republicans, four Democrats. It is likely that the big Democratic donors were fully committed to defeating Trump well before the Mideast plan.
Will the Trump-Kushner plan lead to a history-making swing among Jewish voters in any of those states? I would put the probability right on the line separating extremely unlikely and impossible.
Michael Bloomberg, for example, increased his contributions from US$20 million in 2016 to over US$40 million in the 2018 mid-terms, playing a significant role in the Democrats winning control of the House of Representatives that year.
The right-wing funders, the millionaire bundlers as well as the big-shot billionaires, are aligned with the Israeli Right and will share the goals of Trump’s Mideast deal. Among them, Sheldon Adelson, Trump’s biggest 2016 donor with a fortune of US$37 billion, leads the pack. Along with other aspects of a shared far-right agenda, these wealthy donors will seek Trump’s re-election to provide Netanyahu the support he needs to fulfil long-held goals with regard to the West Bank and Palestine.
It is relevant that, for the next six months, Israel’s new “emergency national government” can make law only in respect to Covid-19 and West Bank annexation. Writing for New Israel Fund, Mickey Gitzin (its director in Israel) explains that an early start-date for annexation was established to “ensure that annexation can be carried out while Donald Trump — whose so-called ‘peace vision’ greenlights unilateral Israeli annexation in the West Bank — is still in office”.
Netanyahu has pledged to fulfil his annexation promise in “a couple of months”. However, the global community will not be on board and a call for international sanctions could extend into the future, well beyond Trump’s current term of office.
Netanyahu has pledged to fulfil his annexation promise in “a couple of months” and US ambassador David Friedman has promised speedy US recognition of Israel’s sovereignty over annexed areas. However, the global community will not be on board and a call for international sanctions could extend into the future, well beyond Trump’s current term of office.
Vocal and steadfast US support will be essential to damper such repercussions. Given that there is a strong push for the Democratic Party platform to condemn any unilateral annexations, the American Jewish Right will be further incentivised to return Trump to office. And, they can be expected to increase spending to do so.
There are factors that might emerge that could affect the above analysis. There could be reverberations from a new and unparalleled Palestinian intifada in reaction to the annexation, perhaps accompanied by viral images of a brutal Israeli crackdown. This could certainly be damaging to Trump.
Less certain is whether his rhetorically challenged presumptive Democratic opponent, Joe Biden, could take advantage of it. Absent that, look for Sheldon Adelson and his ilk to increase their spending but, otherwise, to see little electoral impact from Trump’s “deal of the century.”
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Democrats’ stand on annexation poses a dilemma for Israel (Times of Israel)
Not only because Joe Biden may soon sit in the White House, but because his party’s opposition to a unilateral move is rooted in bipartisan support for Israel
Sen. Feinstein: Annexation to lead to consequences for Israel's security (Jerusalem Post)
"America's relationship with Israel is founded upon a shared set of democratic values, including the need for a negotiated two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians"
‘Annexation will be a death blow for American-Jewish support of Israel’ (Haaretz)
What do young, Israel-loving U.S. liberals think about potential Israeli annexation of West Bank settlements? Haaretz speaks to some to find out if this could be the end of a beautiful friendship
