Jews voted against Trump: here’s why

Early exit polls show that 79% of Jews voted for Democrat Kamala Harris in the US presidential election, bucking a trend which delivered a clear victory to Republican Donald Trump.

Tuesday’s election delivered the highest level of Jewish support for a Democrat seen since the 2000 election, votes cast despite the Gaza war and despite Trump’s bravado about “all I have done for Israel”.

Jewish voters clearly heard the words of Harris’s Jewish husband Doug Emhoff who told them at the close of the campaign, “Donald Trump is not your friend”.

Truly, there are only two ways to be Trump’s friend: shower him with the adoration his narcissism craves; or have something he needs. Trump, as has been often noted by those who have worked with him, is entirely transactional.

As The New York Times wrote in its post-election editorial, “Trump is transparently motivated only by the pursuit of power and the preservation of the cult of personality he has built around himself“.

So, what does Trump’s election mean for the Jews?

Accepting antisemites at the table

Among Trump’s friends is media personality Tucker Carlson, known for platforming antisemites and Holocaust deniers. Trump himself has invited them to dinner.

A Trump presidency will be a place where the far-right can pursue its agenda unfettered.

Netanyahu’s friend

A former New Yorker, Trump may have had Jewish friends, although the only one that comes to mind is Jeffrey Epstein. But he is definitely more of a friend to Israel’s equally opportunistic Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu than Harris.

Most American Jews clearly do not view Trump's alignment with Netanyahu as a plus.

Bibi and Trump are two peas in a pod. Trump’s election protects Netanyahu while Netanyahu’s pursuit of judicial reform and his handling of the Gaza war are understood as forestalling his own corruption case.

Both Netanyahu and Trump support an approach of peace through force, one that overlooks the existence, let alone the rights, of the Palestinian people. This was key to the success of the Abraham Accords, a success that, thanks to Hamas, will not be repeated any time soon.

Trump has told Netanyahu that he wants the war ended by the time he takes office on January 20. What that means is anyone’s guess. Netanyahu has shown little interest in anyone’s council on how to conduct the war, not even members of his own government.

Dalia Dassa Kaye, a senior fellow at the UCLA Burkle Center for International Relations, argues convincingly that “Trump’s talk of peace is just that — talk. His policies as president left the region unsettled and prone to future conflict. There is little reason to believe a future Trump administration would look any different”.

A further isolated Israel

It is unclear whether Trump’s stance towards Iran will go beyond bluster. On the one hand, he has been a strong critic of Israel’s implacable foe, having ended Obama’s nuclear deal with great fanfare. On the other hand, Trump’s “America First” approach portends an isolationism that withdraws from Europe and weakens America’s other alliances. Although publicly congratulating Trump, French President Macron has already tweeted that “we will work towards a more united, stronger, more sovereign Europe in this new context".

This does not bode well for an Israel already suffering internationally due to its conduct of the war. US support for Israel undergirds its relations with other Western nations. But if alliances like NATO are weakened, Israel could become further isolated. It could lead to a broadening of the boycott movement as nations seek to apply pressure on Israel to end the war and the occupation.

Meanwhile, given Trump’s focus on domestic priorities, it is hard to imagine him replicating the record $17.9 billion in aid President Biden has given Israel over the past year. Biden’s direct military support has also been formidable.

Civil rights eroded

Stateside, some Jews, reeling from campus antisemitism, might be encouraged by Trump’s interest in armed suppression of protest. But it should not be lost on the Jewish people that, with the erosion of liberal democratic values, especially those of respecting diversity and free expression, Jews become less safe. It is far better to develop measures that counter antisemitism while honouring the right to political protest.

American Jews must also take pause at Trump’s expressed plan to use the military to round up millions of Hispanic immigrants and place them in mass detention camps awaiting deportation. Framed in part as a solution to the American housing crisis, the threat of such solutions is one the Jewish people have faced repeatedly ourselves. As Nina Bernstein, writing in The Forward, explains “the parallels between the declared MAGA plan and the fascist past are shocking and surreal”.

Shredding climate policy

Less remarked upon but perhaps the greatest threat from the coming Trump administration lies in his labelling climate change a hoax and his plans to shred US climate policy. A Project 2025 training video insists that the “administration will have to eradicate climate change references from absolutely everywhere”.

Climate reporter Somini Sengupta concludes that “Trump could slow the clean energy transition to a crawl, with potentially disastrous consequences for the climate, and the world”. To paraphrase an old anti-war slogan, climate change is not good for children and other living things. Jews, it must be noted, are among living things.

The need to defend democracy

Rob Eshman, in The Forward, looks beyond this week’s election, concluding that “the ability for American Jews, or any minority, to grow and thrive doesn’t depend on the success of any single party. It depends on the health of democracy itself, which protects individual and minority rights and safeguards religious freedom and free expression”.

Trump, however, is no friend of democracy, telling a Christian conservative conference back in July that, if he is elected, “you won't have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians. We'll have it fixed so good. You're not going to have to vote”. 

Twenty years ago, in his second inaugural address, President George W. Bush declared that America’s mission is “to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture”. With the re-election of Donald Trump, that mission is now officially over.

Commenting on the European situation, French political scientist Nicole Bacharan said, “I don’t see a great future for European democracies, if there is not a strong democratic America as a rock to lean on”.

The task for Jews throughout the world is to be part of that rock, organising to protect democracy and the liberal values that have led to our thriving in the post-war era. This will be the next great struggle in America. It is already underway in Israel, going back to the 2023 protests against Netanyahu’s judicial reforms. And here in Australia, we must be vigilant as well.

RELATED ANALYSIS

Almost all voting groups shifted toward Trump, except American Jews. Why? (Rob Eshman, The Forward)
It’s not Republicans that American Jews are allergic to. It’s insecurity and extremism. Jews make up 2.4% of Americans. Without voting rights, freedom of religion, free speech, the rule of law — all the safeguards democracy affords a minority — life for American Jews would be as tenuous here as it’s been for Jews throughout the world, throughout history. And Jewish voters simply did not buy the Republican message that Harris posed a greater danger to democracy than Trump. They were not willing to risk the status quo on someone like Trump, who holds so little regard for the institutions and traditions that have long kept their community safe.

Trump’s victory throws diplomatic bombshell into Israel's multi-front war (Tovah Lazaroff, Jerusalem Post)
President-elect Donald Trump’s comeback victory Tuesday weakens diplomatic efforts to end Israel’s multifront wars in the short term and calls into question US long-term support for Israel’s military campaigns against Iran and its proxies. It’s the equivalent of a diplomatic bombshell, whose chilling effects will be felt almost immediately, and which already seems to freeze such ceasefire efforts. Netanyahu and Trump are more likely to be aligned on issues relating to the Day After the war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Had Vice President Kamala Harris won, she would have insisted on the link between a Day After plan and a two-state resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. She would also have wanted to see the Palestinian Authority return to Gaza, something that Trump would likely oppose.

Here’s what’s at stake in the Middle East under Trump’s second term (Mostafa Salem, CNN)
Ending the wars in Gaza and Lebanon and integrating Israel in the Middle East are likely to be at the top of the president-elect’s Middle East agenda, analysts said. Trump doesn’t want those wars “on his desk as a burning issue” come January 20, when he is inaugurated, Alon Pinkas, a former Israeli diplomat, told CNN. “He will say: wrap it up; I don’t need this,” Pinkas said, adding that Trump will likely ask the Israeli prime minister to “announce victory” and then strike a deal through mediators. Trump, Pinkas said, “couldn’t care less about the Palestinian issue.” During his first term, he didn’t throw his weight behind the US’ longstanding support for an independent Palestinian state, saying he would like the solution “that both parties like.” There is fear that Trump may allow Israel to annex parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, which would spell “the end of the two-state solution.”

Trump win is a victory for Netanyahu, but Israeli PM may not get it all his way (Julian Borger, Guardian)
Trump’s return not only strengthens the expansionist cause, it also reinforces Netanyahu’s standing in Israel politics and is likely to accelerate his moves towards turning Israel into a more illiberal state. On that score, he will not, for example, hear complaints from a fellow populist in Washington about his campaign to dilute the strength and independence of the judiciary. The return of a close ally to the Oval Office does not give Netanyahu an entirely free hand, however. Unlike Biden, Trump does not have to fear that the Israeli prime minister could hurt him politically at home. The new US-Israel power relationship will be more one-sided and the new president’s clout will be many times greater than his predecessors’. He has already made clear in a reported letter to Netanyahu at the height of the campaign that he wants the Gaza campaign over by the time he takes office, though Trump would most likely accept an outcome heavily weighted in Israel’s favour, including military control over the strip.