Say what you will about Donald Trump, but he is not an antisemite. Yet there is a malicious campaign afoot to paint him as one.
Tablet Magazine, for example, has launched a “Trump Watch” series, complete with German Gothic script that is apparently meant to remind readers of antisemitic tabloids in Nazi Germany. Its mission: to show the “daily low-lights of Donald Trump’s attempt to use the dark forces of bigotry to become President.”
The inaugural post cites Louis Farrakhan’s praise for Trump for refusing money from Jews (as he has from virtually everyone, thus far).
The post goes further, and quotes Lloyd Grove’s absurd article at the Daily Beast, in which Breitbart is accused of inciting Twitter trolls to scare Federalist writer Bethany Shondark Mandel, who has never once been attacked by this website. Breitbart News has called on the Daily Beast to retract the article. (No one from Tablet contacted Breitbart News before regurgitating the article’s false innuendo, and wrongly associating Breitbart with bigotry.)
The next edition of Trump Watch links Trump with the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement — though it admits he has nothing to do with it. Actual quote: “Factually, of course, they’ve little in common. But facts don’t matter here because facts don’t always make sense.”
The following Trump Watch hits him for comments about the KKK, whom he had already disavowed. And the next takes up a letter signed by foreign policy experts opposed to Trump’s candidacy, and suggests “maybe something darker is taking place … Republicans with fundamentally authoritarian instincts are beginning to shoot glances at one another and to see their opportunity.”
None of the above is convincing, or even attempts to be. It is aimed at toxifying Trump among potential supporters in the Jewish community and beyond.
Never mind his daughter Ivanka’s Orthodox Jewish conversion, or Trump’s endorsement for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The man, and his supporters, must be demonized.
Take, for instance, Bill Kristol’s Emergency Committee for Israel (ECI), which did outstanding work in trying to stop the Iran deal. You might think Kristol and ECI would acknowledge Trump’s efforts to fight the deal, including his address to a large rally on Capitol Hill last fall.
Instead, ECI has waded into primary politics with a new ad this week claiming that Trump is dangerous for Israel because of his “disturbing affection for anti-American dictators.”
And earlier this week, Nefesh b’Nefesh, a non-profit organization that helps Jews who want to make aliyah (move to Israel), tweeted to Jewish Republicans who oppose Trump that “we’re here if you need us.” The tweet (for which the organization later apologized) was responding to an op-ed in the left-leaning Forward that claimed Jewish Republicans are worried about Trump because of his “nativist working class political movement,” adding that “the Jewish experience with overweening, oversensitive wannabe dictator-chieftains is not a good one.”
The article purported to speak for Jewish Republicans. But there are certainly some who support Trump as well.
Israeli Uber driver: “How did our friend do in #GOPDebate?” Me: “Who?” Driver: “Trump!” Me: “Why assume–” Driver: “You’re Jewish, like me!”
— Joel Pollak (@joelpollak) March 4, 2016
