Who's Good for the Jews? Part 2 of 3
Both parties play to their base and court extremists while their leaders reap millions. It's not an easy choice for all Americans to know whom to support
If you skipped the prior essay, “Is Donald Trump Good for the Jews”, I recently went to a debate at the 92nd St Y I think you'll find interesting. Despite the violent history of the Young Men's Muslim Association, which I cover in part 1, the evening at the Young Men’s Hebrew Association 92NY was decidedly tranquil.
Before I get into it, I broke this up into two since reading long essays online can be as enjoyable as visiting the dentist. Here I’ll focus on the Democrats.
The Pulitzer-prize winning New York Times columnist Bret Stephens sponsored the debate, “Is Donald Trump Good for the Jews,” under the aegis of his journal, Sapir (sapphire, for the Jewish color blue and biblical references). A good friend is their managing editor, it’s an excellent publication which you can receive in print for free.
It was a stimulating night, intellectually lite but interesting to see the relative merits of Rahm Emanuel and Jason Greenblatt (former Trump exec and White House advisor), two super smart, super rich guys with direct ties to the most powerful men on the planet.
Rahm has been in the public eye since 1992 when he and James Carville helped Bill Clinton beat George HW Bush by transforming the Democratic party after a string of losses dating back to 1968. It’s fair to say Rahm was one of the hinges in this massive pivot for the party. Jimmy Carter proved to be a fluke after the Watergate and Nixon’s resignation. Except Carter’s brief and much maligned interlude (and later descent into antisemitism), Republicans held the White House from after LBJ decided not to run in 1968, until Bill Clinton pushed the party to the center-right economically, where it remained until Biden’s more progressive administration. Like Carter, it ended after one term. Where Democrats go next is up for grabs.
Jason Greenblatt is lower profile than Rahm. He was a long term senior executive at the Trump organization before he joined the 1.0 administration and worked on the Abraham Accords—the biggest achievement in Middle East diplomacy since the 1978 Camp David Accords. Those accords saw the first Arab country ever, Egypt, make peace with Israel. At the time, that was unthinkable. Members of Islamic Jihad Egypt later assassinated prime minister Anwar Sadat for forging the deal.
I’m not mentioning the Oslo Accords in 1994, which Rahm worked on, as an achievement because it continues to roil the region and impact our politics at home. The founding Labor Party in Israel disappeared after Oslo turned into the Second Intifada (2000-2005). This is like saying the entire Democratic Party ceased to exist after supporting woke, identity-based candidates with little popular appeal and after lying to Americans about a president’s physical ability to lead the country and the true risks of a Chinese-created bio weapon. Yes, I think this Democratic diminishment is happening here, others disagree.
Either way, judging by thirty years of violence after Oslo, it’s fair to say it's a failure. Bill Clinton grew the US economy for upwardly mobile people like myself at the dawn of the World Wide Web, but trying to make peace with Palestinians was a well-intentioned mistake the world still pays for in blood.
Rahm Emanuel mostly projected Democratic party behaviors onto Trump:
He’s illiberal! He’s destroying the economy! He plays to his base! He's antisemitic! He's corrupt! He lies!
That these statements apply equally to Democrats, if not more so, is lost on Democrats.
non-negotiable DEI policies, anti-racism purity tests and cancel culture are illiberal
unaffordability and inflation began earlier than January 2025. Look to Reaganomics, Clinton’s NAFTA, Obama’s bank bailouts, and leftwing environmental regulations that forbid development
Democrats work hand-in-hand with the legacy media and academia to cater to one viewpoint; they won't converse with the majority of the country, which supports Republicans
it’s not Republican youth or faculty members wearing keffiyehs or inventing settler colonial theories that encourage antisemitism
look to Clinton’s and Obama’s vast wealth despite not having jobs, and Hunter Biden’s mystery income, as we all decry Trump’s very public pay-for-play presidency
lies about Covid risks for people under age 65; and its origins as a Chinese weapon
Biden's inability in his first administration, and for running again
That’s a decent list of Democratic political malpractice. None of this excuses Republican corruption, which is endemic, but until Democrats acknowledge their failures, it's easy to understand why people like Republicans more than Democrats. Part of this, I think, is Republicans don’t cloak themselves in moral righteousness, they’re at least transparent about being up-for-sale. They also do things.
Democrats like Rahm Emanuel aren’t making positive prescriptions for anything other than throwing the world's most disappointing gender reveal party. Guests are told the child has no gender, or there are a handful of genders, so it’s up for grabs for the little they until age six, then let the psychotherapy, surgeries and hormones begin! As enforced by law! Which you are helpfully branded a “transphobe” if you criticize.
My favorite part is the Democrats have dedicated their political and intellectual capital to liberating Palestinians so they can become the Islamic terrorists they voted for in 2005. In turn, this makes American activists behave like soft-core terrorists as they attack university staff, deface property, deny students access to facilities and, as of today, assassinate Jews and Christians in the street.
Call me crazy, but I don’t think Palestinians and college students turning into jihadis will reduce violence. If you think I'm cynical or being too broad, I invite you to study how Islamist liberation ideologies impact people. Not sure where to begin? Try Manhattan fall 2001.
Democrats also care passionately about climate change in vague, scary ways as they drive to Trader Joe’s in gas-guzzling Subarus because they are positive THE WORLD IS ENDING any day now, except, um, not like today while they buy frozen dumplings, and probably not like tomorrow tomorrow, since they need to eat them, just, like… eventually.
Yes, the climate is 100% changing for the worse and we need to transition to renewable energy yesterday, but I don’t think traumatizing children, building more cars or slapping green logos on corporate ads solves the problem. If Democrats were capable of building public transit infrastructure, encouraging truly organic local farming and reshoring manufacturing so we have less fossil-fuel dependent supply chains and crop growth, I would be a huge fan.
Unfortunately, despite many turns at bat, Democrats can't make contact with the ball.
On the other side was Jason Greenblatt, a soft-spoken Orthodox Jewish lawyer and father of college-age kids. If you're a chill dad debating Rahm Emanuel, you will remain silent for long stretches of time. Unfortunately, the otherwise thoughtful Bret Stephens didn't restrain Emanuel.
When Rahm wasn’t referring to himself, his family, or to the presidents he’s worked for, or making unfunny self-referential jokes, he offered a clear and shallow argument:
As a private citizen, Trump hosted dinners with virulent antisemites Kanye West and Nick Fuentes. In his first administration he didn’t sufficiently condemn neo-Nazi marchers at Charlottesville. More recently, he’s thrown Israel under the bus by not visiting Jerusalem during his Gulf tour. He also made a bilateral deal with the Houthis, who attacked Israel the very day of the debate.
Later, the IDF bombed Yemen’s ports in response. A few weeks ago, the IDF took out the country’s only airport. The USA didn't restrain Israel and did sell it ordinance without Biden-era restrictions. To be fair to Emanuel, he noted that much of the friction with the Trump administration is Netanyahu’s fault.
All of Rahm’s comments are fair observations about Donald Trump the man, whose ego is the only north of his moral compass, if he has one. But how reflective are they of Donald Trump the policy maker? That was Greenblatt’s counter. Since Greenblatt was interrupted by Rahm expounding about himself, I’ll note:
Combating antisemitism is a signature focus of Trump’s administration, which, terrifyingly, is even more urgent
Trump has unequivocally supported Israel’s war against Hamas, and even freed a hostage, versus Biden’s eventual policy that there are very fine people on both sides
Trump has pressured universities to end discrimination against American Jews and Israeli students, while also fighting academic sympathizers of Islamism, versus Democrat’s rationalization and support of violent Islamists since they use the word “colonialism” and appear to have darker skin than Israelis
Seriously. Beyond the easily refuted colonial term (Judaism predates Islam by millennia) perceived skin color is the only reason I can think of to explain why otherwise good-hearted, Civil Rights Movement-oriented liberals choose illiberal, violent and yes transphobic Palestinian sovereignty as their movement du jour, versus any other movement on earth.
You’ll note that in all other irredentist or simply one-sided conflicts with a totalitarian state, the fighting parties are seen as having similar skin color so they are mostly ignored by the left.
China/Uyghurs, Sudan/South Sudan, Eritrea/Ethiopia, Syrian civil war, India/Pakistan, Mexican cartels, Venezuela, Iran, Turkey/Kurdistan, Iraq Shia/Sunni militias don't rile up college students, the liberal media and domestic terrorists.
If you agree that the Levantine Hebrew Bible predates the Arabian-peninsula Koran by over a thousand years, which no one disputes, that means claims of colonialism aren’t relevant, or if they are, they refer to the Islamic conquest of the region in the 600s AD. So if it's not colonialism, what makes Palestinians vs. Israelis different from other territorial struggles?
Spolier: if you think judging people by skin color is a bad idea, keep reading.
Rahm later made an argument that one of the Trump administration’s letters to Harvard didn’t include the word “antisemitism.” If you read the missives, they write about not letting protesters wear Covid-style masks; they demand schools hold their students accountable for property crimes, acts of violence and Civil Rights violations; and they demand schools foster viewpoint diversity so students encounter a wide variety of perspectives, not only anti-Western dogma that shuns dissent.
The administration is also withholding federal funds to enforce these rules since violations of the Civil Rights Act are easily ignored and take years to prosecute, as we’ve seen with repeat violators like Harvard University dating back a decade.
All of these measures combat antisemitism—and other forms of bigotry and exclusion. This is like how protecting black people by enforcing integration laws and safe-guarding them from violence combats racism. Do you need to use the words “fighting racism” or “combating antisemitism,” or do you need to implement policies that achieve measurable results?
It’s a dumb argument, but he made it several times.
There’s a larger, related discussion now on the left that goes like this: by Trump’s protecting Jews on college campuses, Jews are angling for even more discrimination. On top of that, the current Prime Minister of Israel is responsible for fanning the flames of global antisemitism.
Blaming a person for others’ behavior, like blaming a woman for male predation, is morally baseless. It blames the victim. A teenager understands this dynamic. For some reason, this doesn’t apply to Jews. I’m also hard pressed to find a nefarious goal behind Trump’s insistence that schools add more viewpoints and diminish antisemitism.
Antisemitism has emerged as a potent cudgel for the right. Why? I think it’s because the left refuses to acknowledge it, and their culpability in spreading it. Had Claudine Gay shut down Harvard encampments on day one and strictly enforced anti hate speech codes, Elise Stefanik would have had nothing to talk about, or even need Congressional hearings.
Gay didn’t so Stefanik did. That sums it all up.
Fighting the discrimination of American citizens should be bipartisan. I invite Democrats to do something about fire bombing Josh Shapiro’s home, murdering an Israeli and American Jew in DC and making all Jewish college students cower under the full weight of academic approbation.
Greenblatt also argued that Trump has Jewish grandchildren. The oldest of which, 13-year-old Arabella, will presumably go to college in four or five years. If I was the most powerful person in the world and had a deaf grandchild soon applying to schools that refuses to offer sign-language services, I would withhold federal funds until they enfranchised deaf students. If those schools also had faculty dedicated to harassing deaf students while teaching that deaf people are on the wrong side of history, I would do everything I can to force them to change.
OK, that’s a lot for now. To spare your eyes, which, like mine, undoubtedly need reading glasses, I’ll wrap up analysis of the debate in the next and final essay.
For now, my point is not that Democrats are all bad and Republicans are all good. Both parties are vulnerable to critique and all Americans should be “skeptically patriotic” when it comes to who wields power in this country, be it a political party, a charismatic leader, a university president or a media source.
Reducing the world to good/bad binaries gets the left into trouble with the illiberal and violent Pro-Palestine movement, and gets the right into trouble when storming the Capitol and selling out to wealthy Gulf states who… support the illiberal and violent Pro-Palestine movement.
We deserve better.