Former President Donald Trump warned American Jews on Sunday to “get their act together” before “it is too late!” for them to change their lacklustre response to his policies toward Israel in Washington (CNN).
The comment, which was posted on Trump’s social media platform Truth Social, echoes the antisemitic cliche that US Jews have dual loyalties to the US and to Israel and was swiftly condemned.
According to Trump, “no President has done more for Israel than I have,” and he considers it “slightly strange” that “our magnificent Evangelicals are far more appreciative of this than the people of the Jewish faith, especially here in the U.S.”
The ADL’s head, Jonathan Greenblatt, has said that Trump is “Jewsplaining” to the American people.
“The lectures the president gave on the US-Israel connection were unnecessary because he is popular among radicals and antisemites. There is no exchange of value taking place; rather, it is predicated on mutual concerns for each other’s safety and shared ideals. This “Jewsplaining” is repugnant and offensive. He put pen to paper.
Similar criticism of Trump’s comments came from the Jewish Democratic Council of America. “His threat to Jewish Americans and his continued use of the antisemitic dual loyalty trope fuel hatred against Jews,” the group tweeted. “We will not be threatened by Donald Trump, and Jewish Americans will reject GOP bigotry this November.”
A spokesperson for the White House, Karine Jean-Pierre, blasted the remarks as “antisemitic” and “insulting both to Jews and our Israeli allies.”
“Donald Trump’s comments were antisemitic, as you all know, and insulting both to Jews and to our Israeli allies. “But let’s be clear: for years, for years now, Donald Trump has aligned himself with extremist and antisemitic figures, and it should be called out,” Jean-Pierre said Monday.
Trump is reiterating an old argument. In a December 2018 interview, the former president maintained his position that evangelicals “love Israel more than the Jews in this country” and that Jewish Americans “either don’t like Israel or don’t care about it”
A Pew Research survey released in 2021 found that 45% of Jewish adults in the US viewed caring about Israel as “essential” to what being Jewish means, with an additional 37% saying it was “important but not essential.” Among those asked, only 16% stated they did not “care much” about Israel.
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