At the convention of the Republican Jewish Coalition in Las Vegas, presidential nominee Donald Trump made the astonishing statement that if Kamala Harris were to win the election, Israel would cease to exist, and he repeated that claim in the presidential debate. In a media interview, Trump also repeated a previous calumny: that American Jews who vote for the Democratic Party should have their heads examined. Against this background, and the oft-repeated claims that the Republican Party is more supportive of Israel than the Democratic Party, we should take a closer look at the current face of Trump’s party.
There is no need to go way back to the days of Abraham Lincoln, the abolitionist who today is generally regarded as an outstanding liberal. Suffice it to compare Trump’s party to the party of George H.W. Bush, who could hardly be perceived as an outstanding liberal, to see how far the GOP has drifted from its liberal principles in recent years. It is hard to believe it is the same party.
The administration of Bush, America’s 41st president, excelled at diplomacy. It managed to leverage the collapse of the Soviet Union to unite Germany and keep NATO intact. Bush and his secretary of state James Baker managed to build on these successes to form a coalition against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, save Kuwait, and take advantage of that coalition to kick-start a dialogue between Israel and a Palestinian delegation in Madrid.
The current configuration of the Republican Party can in no way be compared to that of the campaign days of McCain and Romney who, regardless of their conservative worldview, understood America’s unique role as the leader of the free world.
Today, even hawkish Republicans, such as former member of the House of Representatives Liz Cheney, have been cast out of the party. Romney himself chose not to run for reelection as senator from Utah. An indication of the current stance of the party is the fact that both Cheney and her father, former VP Dick Cheney, not only made it clear they will not be voting for Trump, but went as far as announcing that they will vote for Harris.
GOP and Likud abandon liberal-conservative values
This process mirrors the one taking place in the Likud Party, which was founded by the Revisionists, most of whom were true liberals. Today, not one of Jabotinsky’s or Begin’s intellectual progeny supports the Likud. Like Trump’s GOP, the Likud is no longer an ideologically liberal-conservative party, but rather a party that perpetuates a personality cult centering on a corrupt leader who has managed to establish hegemony and whose sole purpose is to satisfy his own personal ambitions – money, honor, and power.
Today’s GOP is divided into two main camps: Evangelical Christians and MAGA (Make America Great Again) supporters. During Trump’s last term, the evangelists wielded great power, causing Trump to pick Mike Pence as vice president and Mike Pompeo as secretary of state. Since then, Pence has declared that he does not support Trump.
This time Trump picked JD Vance as his running mate. Vance is a member of the MAGA faction, which promotes the isolationist and anti-democratic “Project 2025,” prepared for Trump by The Heritage Foundation think-tank. Should Trump win the election, the MAGA movement will likely be the dominant element in his administration.
The Israeli Right enjoyed the support of the evangelists thanks to the latter’s theologically based support for Israel’s domination in the Holy Land, as well as to their alliance against the Muslim world, an alliance based on the racist theory called Judeo-Christian civilization. In contrast, the MAGA movement is isolationist in essence and shows no interest in either forming alliances with or leading the free world.
Were its members to hold power, it is likely that they would quickly diminish the longstanding US ties with Israel. They might prefer a right-wing party that resembles them in Israel, but they will probably not be engaged in the region.
Trump's first term
During Trump’s first term, the evangelists adopted the positions of the Israeli Right. They removed Jerusalem as a focal point of future negotiations, brought Pompeo to declare that settlements in the West Bank are not illegal under international law, and presented Trump’s “Deal of the Century” peace plan, which included the preservation of existing settlements and the annexation of 30% of the West Bank. Only after this plan failed did the creative initiative by the UAE lead to the signing of the Abraham Accords.
The accords marked the end of the ambition to annex land, which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu demanded when he had Trump’s support. October 7 shattered the illusion that a normalization of relations between Israel and additional Arab countries can be achieved without attending to the Palestinian problem.
Isolation approach
The isolationist approach of the MAGA movement will come at a high cost. Fortunately, there is a much better scenario for Israel than a Republican administration based on evangelists or isolationists: a Democratic administration committed to leading the free world, which can be counted on to strengthen alliances with countries in need of America’s support such as Israel, Ukraine, NATO members, Taiwan, and South Korea. Such a Democratic administration will understand the limits of military power, though it may use it to back diplomacy, as President Joe Biden has done by publicly standing by Israel time and again.
An administration led by Kamala Harris, like the Biden administration before it, would invest in diplomacy in the Middle East and try to assist Israel in reaching regional normalization that includes a road map to Palestinian statehood – a clear Israeli-Zionist interest. In accordance with its core values, such an administration would prefer a liberal Israel over an authoritarian one.
In clear contrast to the evil image that the right is trying to apply to Harris, the energetic candidate is deeply committed to Israel’s safety, a fact she proved again and again throughout her career as state attorney-general, senator, and vice president. As president, Harris’s foreign policy would largely overlap with Biden’s to include a strong commitment to Israel’s security, as well as an understanding that the policies of the most right-wing coalition in Israel’s history fly in the face of both Israel’s and America’s interests. This is the prevailing view among Democrats and among American Jews.
The messages released by the Harris campaign during the DNC in Chicago proved that Harris has no intention of giving factions within the party that are not committed to Israel’s security, or those that oppose Biden’s support of Israel, the ability to influence party policy. This is also reflected in the platform of the Democratic Party, which emphasizes its commitment to Israel’s security.
We liberal Israelis should be worried about what kind of Republican administration we will get, and how president Trump will act on a given day. We would be sleeping well at night with Harris and Tim Walz at the helm, running an administration that is committed to Israel yet at the same time understanding that right-wing coalitions here must not be allowed to wage hopeless wars that make it impossible to set a course toward a peaceful future for Israel, Palestine, pro-Western Arab countries, and the rest of the free world.
The writer is J Street Israel’s executive director. He has served as an Israeli diplomat in Washington and Boston and as a political adviser to the president of Israel.