Analysis by FMEP’s Lara Friedman, published at Responsible Statecraft on March 31, 2021

Canada Talks Israel Palestine: 

US Thinktank Makes Excellent Webinars and Research Freely Accessible to Canadians Online

“Until now, it has been difficult (and expensive) for Canadians to access the many conferences and panels in Washington with knowledgeable speakers on the Israel/Palestine issue. But the Covid pandemic has pushed the Foundation for Middle East Peace, a progressive thinktank, to replace those conferences with a series of outstanding free webinars, now accessible to people outside Washington (including Canadians). Above, a recent FMEP webinar with BTselem’s executive director Hagai el-ad. CTIP interviewed Ms. Friedman about FMEP’s objectives and work. Watch CTIP’s video interview with Ms. Friedman.…

The Foundation for Middle East Peace (FMEP), based in Washington, D.C. was founded over 40 years ago, by Merle Thorpe, a successful American lawyer who decided he wanted to do something about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. CTIP has only became aware of FMEP in the last several years, as a series of particularly well-informed emails began arriving in our in-basket about events in the middle east and in the US congress, as well as invitations to join in Zoom-based educational webinars.

Lara Friedman, a former US foreign service officer, took over the help of FMEP in 2017. She is responsible for directing an organization which publishes daily and weekly email summaries of events in the Middle East and developments in the US congress on the Israel/Palestine file. Under her direction, FMEP has also begun organizing a series of informative webinars open to anyone in the world, including, of course Canadians. The FMEP webinars are free, but require registration.

While FMEP might have been described as having initially a “liberal zionist” philosophy, more recently it has organized discussions which go beyond that framework, to address the issue of Zionism itself. “We don’t have any boundaries ie. ideas which are not allowed”, says Friedman. Recent webinars have featured speakers from right to left, Israelis and Palestinians, Zionists and non-Zionists, including well known intellectuals like Peter Beinart, Rashid Khalidi, Yousef Munayyer, and Mohammad El Kurd.

FMEP also has a donations program, in which it gives donations to a wide range of organizations. Its grant philosophy is expressed as supporting “charitable organizations working to end Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem and striving for a just and lasting solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”

Among the organizations FMEP provides grants to are: +972 Magazine, Bt’selem, Americans for Peace Now, Adalah and Breaking the Silence.

In early January 2021, CTIP interviewed FMEP President Lara Friedman about her approach to the work of the organization.

“I learn something in every webinar we do”, says Lara Friedman, President of FMEP.

In addition to its webinars and grants program, the FMEP website also offers a wealth of information on various questions relating to the Israel/Palestine conflict. One example is a compendium of articles on the highly controversial IHRA defintion of anti-Semitism.

For more information on the Foundation for Middle East Peace, to access recordings of previous webinars or to check out its series of newsletters, go to its website.“

On November 30, 2020, Jewish Currents published observations by a number of experts on Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s recent visit to a West Bank settlements and announcements he made there with respect to changes in U.S. policy vis-a-vis settlements, BDS, and antisemitism. One of the experts invited to contribute was FMEP President Lara Friedman, who wrote:

Since taking office, the Trump administration has openly pursued a focused, extraordinarily successful policy aimed at erasing the “peace process” and all of its artifacts, and replacing them with the normalization—and, as much as possible, the implementation—of the Greater Israel political project. One by one, the Trump administration has been ticking items off the “Greater Israel” wishlist. Recognize Jerusalem? Check. Cut aid to Palestinian refugees? Check. Humiliate and marginalize the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Authority? Check. Legitimize settlements and greenlight annexation? Check, check.

As we near the end of Trump’s term in office, there’s not much left to check off on that list except formally recognizing annexation, and Trump’s resident Christian and Jewish zealots, Mike Pompeo and US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, are not letting the fact that Israel hasn’t (yet) annexed the West Bank get in their way. That’s what the new US policy defining goods produced in Area C as “made in Israel” is about, just like last month’s move to include the West Bank in some US–Israel bilateral agreements. And that’s also what the new State Department policy labeling NGOs as “antisemitic” is about—a policy that, in fact, aims mainly to force NGOs to treat settlements as part of Israel.

Bureaucratically, a Biden administration can easily roll back these policy changes. Politically, however, this will be a heavy lift, and not because recognizing the West Bank as part of Israel is a popular move among Democrats. Rather, the obstacle will be many Democrats’ intellectually lazy and morally craven embrace of the demonization of boycotts as a tool to protest anything related to Israel—on either side of the Green Line—and of the conflation of all criticism of and activism targeting Israel with antisemitism.

Analysis by FMEP’s Lara Friedman, published at Responsible Statecraft on November 12, 2020

 

Analysis by FMEP’s Lara Friedman, published at the American Prospect on November 12, 2020

Weaponizing Anti-Semitism, State Department Delegitimizes Human Rights Groups

Authoritarian regimes and illiberal forces will exploit the new U.S. policy.

Amidst the hullabaloo around last week’s U.S. elections, most people probably forgot the recent shocking news that the U.S. Department of State plans to label three leading global human rights groups—Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Oxfam—“anti-Semitic.” They shouldn’t have. A new report today suggests that the plans will not only move forward, but will be geared to have even broader impact than originally suggested. With the victory of President-elect Biden, some might now be tempted to dismiss all of this as a desperate, partisan gambit that, if implemented, will be easily undone by a new Biden administration. In reality, the labeling of humanitarian and civil society groups as “anti-Semitic” looms as an inexorable outcome, now or in the future, of an ongoing and escalating campaign, embraced by Democrats and Republicans alike, which has weaponized combating anti-Semitism to quash criticism of Israel, attack progressive political actors and movements, and delegitimize civil society organizations.

At the core of this campaign is the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) “working definition of antisemitism,” which, in a memo explaining the targeting of Amnesty and friends, the State Department contends the groups are violating. The IHRA was established in 1998 to “strengthen, advance and promote Holocaust education, research and remembrance.” Over time, it increasingly focused on anti-Semitism, and today positions itself as the international body with responsibility for fighting—and authoritatively defining—anti-Semitism. Herein lies the controversy.

There appears to be bipartisan support around making the IHRA definition the official U.S. tool for rooting out alleged anti-Semitism.

Traditionally, “anti-Semitism” means hostility and prejudice toward Jews because they are Jews—a scourge that has imperiled Jews throughout history, and is a source of resurgent threats to Jews today. The IHRA definition, in contrast, is explicitly politicized, refocusing the term to encompass not only hatred of Jews, but also hostility toward and criticism of the modern state of Israel. For example, it labels as anti-Semitic “applying double standards” to Israel or requiring of Israel “behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.” While it notes that “criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic,” in practice this “double standard” language has paved the way for attacking virtually all criticism of Israel as prima facie anti-Semitic, based on the simplistic argument that focusing criticism on Israel, when other nations are guilty of similarly bad behavior, can only reflect animus against Jews.

According to this logic, it is anti-Semitic to challenge Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands—unless one is equally challenging occupation anywhere. Likewise, boycotting or calling to boycott Israel or settlements to protest violations of Palestinian rights is considered anti-Semitic—unless one is similarly boycotting every country guilty of violating the rights of any people, anywhere.

The IHRA definition also stipulates that it is anti-Semitic to deny “the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor”—notwithstanding the fact that other peoples, including Palestinians, are denied self-determination, and other nations have their existence challenged, including, for example, by Israelis who argue that the state of Jordan should be replaced with Palestine. Yet, this line has become the basis for indicting anyone who identifies as anti-Zionist, or who supports boycotts of Israel or settlements, as anti-Semitic, irrespective of their reasoning and absent evidence that their views are grounded in hostility toward not Israel, but Jews.

In December 2019, President Donald Trump was applauded by members of both parties for his Executive Order on Combating Anti-Semitism, in which he gave the IHRA definition and its Israel-focused examples the weight of U.S. law. Since then, that order has been the basis for a flood of complaints and investigations targeting U.S. campuses, based on allegations related to criticism of Zionism and Israel. Separately, there have been efforts to incorporate the IHRA definition and its examples into laws dealing with hate crimes and discrimination in U.S. states. There is also an ongoing campaign pressing Facebook and other social media platforms to adopt and enforce the IHRA definition and its examples, with the key backers making clear that their target is not anti-Semitism as it is traditionally defined, but anti-Zionism and criticism of Israel.

In September 2020, the State Department promised a “whole-of-government” approach to the issue of fighting the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement; the department’s targeting of human rights groups, based on tying the IHRA definition to BDS to allege anti-Semitism, makes clear what this approach, if implemented before Trump leaves office, will be about. The threat, however, is not just from the Trump administration. The call to use the IHRA definition in a “whole-of-government” approach to fight anti-Semitism was articulated previously by Democratic congressman Ted Deutch of Florida, in a 2019 op-ed entitled “The US Should Adopt the IHRA Definition of Anti-Semitism.” While Deutch condemned the State Department’s plans to label human rights groups anti-Semitic, he has not retracted his support for implementing the definition in general.

The IHRA definition is explicitly politicized, refocusing the term to encompass not only hatred of Jews, but also hostility toward and criticism of the modern state of Israel.

In short, there appears to be bipartisan support around making the IHRA definition, already adopted by an ever-growing list of countries, the official U.S. tool for rooting out alleged anti-Semitism. Should this come to pass, the full spectrum of organizations that challenge Israeli policies—or that advocate, support, or defend boycotts of Israel or settlements—will find themselves in the U.S. government’s crosshairs.

The State Department’s targeting of humanitarian and civil society groups must be understood in this context. It is not an isolated outrage, as it is being treated by some longtime backers of the IHRA definition who appear shocked to see the definition used this way, like the Anti-Defamation League. Rather, it is an inevitable consequence, intended or not, of the effort to enforce the IHRA’s politicized definition of anti-Semitism, and the dangerous implications of this effort cannot be overstated. It will be a short leap from sticking the “anti-Semitism” label on a group like Amnesty International—which does not accept U.S. funding in any case—to sticking it on virtually all groups that engage on Israel-Palestine, including many that rely on U.S. funding for their work across the globe. Other angles of attack will doubtless come into play, like seeking to strip nonprofit organizations of their tax-exempt status (a first shot at which is already under way). Across the globe, authoritarian regimes and illiberal forces will exploit the new U.S. policy as a pretext to escalate their own attacks on civil society groups.

Delegitimizing the world’s leading human rights organizations with false accusations of anti-Semitism is a feature, not a bug, of a larger effort to weaponize the fight against anti-Semitism for political ends. Even with Biden moving into the White House in January 2021, absent a determined effort to roll back or amend the IHRA definition, or to adopt a different interpretation of its examples, the targeting of vital human rights and humanitarian aid organizations, in the United States and around the world, will be just the start.

Analysis by FMEP’s Lara Friedman, published at Jewish Currents on August 19, 2020

Israel-Advocacy Groups Urge Facebook to Label Criticism of Israel as Hate Speech

ON AUGUST 7th, amid broad efforts to get Facebook to clamp down on extremist activity and hate speech, more than 120 organizations sent a letter to the social media giant, urging it to “fully adopt” the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism as the “cornerstone of Facebook’s hate speech policy regarding antisemitism.” This definition, which was adopted by the IHRA in 2016 and has been promoted to governments worldwide, includes several examples of what it describes as “contemporary” antisemitism—including “denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor” and “applying double standards” to Israel—that can be interpreted to define much criticism of Israel, Israeli policies, or Zionism as antisemitism.

This letter represents the latest front in the battle to use the IHRA definition to officially exclude criticism of Israel from the bounds of acceptable discourse. It was spearheaded by pro-Israel attack dog StopAntisemitism.org, which is funded by hardline pro-Israel philanthropists Adam and Gila Milstein. The group is perhaps best known for publicly labeling critics of Israel, including some Jews, as antisemites. So far, the list of signatories to the Facebook letter is a “who’s who” of right-wing groups dedicated to defending Israel from criticism, many of which are also funded by or associated with the Milsteins; in The Jerusalem Post, a former Israeli Knesset member who is associated with one of the signatories credited the Milsteins’ foundation with initiating the campaign. Their effort enjoys the public backing of the Israeli government: Israel’s new Minister of Strategic Affairs, Orit Farkash-Hacohen, told the Post, “I welcome the initiative and call on more bodies and organizations to join the clear demand for change.”

Yet, as attorney Kenneth Stern—an expert on antisemitism who was the lead drafter on the text that became the IHRA definition—has repeatedly expressed, this definition and its examples were never intended to be used as a formalized, enforceable definition of antisemitism, and turning them into one has raised serious free speech concerns. The American Civil Liberties Union described early efforts to codify the IHRA into law as “part of a disturbing surge of government-led attempts to suppress the speech of people on only one side of the Israel-Palestine debate . . . on college campuses, in state contracts, and even in bills to change the federal law.” If social media networks like Facebook adopt the Israel-related examples in the IHRA definition and allow these to guide their hate speech policies, it will likely lead to similar efforts to suppress free speech, this time in the online sphere.

So far, Facebook has responded to the letter by changing its policy regarding hate speech in ways it says take the IHRA definition into account, but it has resisted adopting the IHRA definition in its entirety. On August 11th, Facebook announced that it had updated its hate speech policy “to more specifically account for certain kinds of implicit hate speech, such as . . . stereotypes about Jewish people controlling the world.” In a response sent to to the letter’s signatories, Monika Bickert—Facebook’s vice president of content policy—noted that the company had used the IHRA definition “in informing [its] own approach and definitions,” that its new policy “draws on the spirit—and the text—of the IHRA,” and that under Facebook’s policy, “Jews and Israelis are treated as ‘protected characteristics.’” Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s chief operations officer, also wrote to Adam Milstein personally, assuring him that the IHRA definition has been “invaluable” to Facebook.

Though Israel was not mentioned in Facebook’s response to the letter, the company has previously expressed reluctance to adopt the parts of the definition that relate to Israel. In a May 7th webinar hosted by the American Jewish Committee, senior Facebook official Peter Stern said that Facebook had “mapped” the IHRA definition onto its own policies and found it to be “valuable,” but added that “the areas where we would depart to some degree from that definition . . . comes in relation to statements about, particularly, nations.” He added, “We don’t allow people to make certain types of hateful statements against individuals. If the focus turns to a country, an institution, a philosophy, then we allow people to express themselves more freely, because we think that’s an important part of political dialogue . . . and that there’s an important legitimate component to that. So we allow people to criticize the state of Israel, as well as the United States and other countries.” The August 7th letter called out Stern’s comments, claiming that he “admitted that Facebook does not embrace the full adoption of the IHRA working definition because the definition recognizes that modern manifestations of antisemitism relate to Israel.“

The campaign to pressure Facebook to adopt the full IHRA definition has been a long time in the making. In December 2019—less than a week after President Trump signed an executive order embracing the IHRA definition—StopAntisemitism.org joined forces with another hardline Israel advocacy group, Zachor Legal Institute, to issue a report entitled “The New Anti-Semites.” (Zachor, also a signatory of the August 7th letter, is the same group that recently called on the Department of Justice “to fully investigate the ties among Black Lives Matter, their BDS [Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions] partners and foreign terror groups that are promoting violence and unrest in the United States.”) That report, which is cited in the letter to Facebook, argues that most criticism and pressure related to Israel or its policies—but especially the BDS movement and the tactics it endorses—is antisemitic. It offers specific recommendations for vanquishing this antisemitism, including enshrining the IHRA definition into law and expanding the application of the IHRA definition to social media, as well as to “online platforms such as financial service providers and internet site hosts of social media platforms.”

Six months later, on June 4th, Zachor began its efforts to turn this recommendation into a reality, announcing that it had sent letters to Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter “updating them about antisemitic postings that are present on their popular social media platforms.” The sole posting cited in Zachor’s letter to Facebook is a Nakba commemoration post from a page called “Palestine Writes,” sharing a video from the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network that mentions “confronting the racist ideology of Zionism.” All of the examples Zachor cited in these letters relate to Palestinian criticism of Israel; none mention anything about Judaism or Jews. Using the IHRA definition as its basis, Zachor argued that the posts violated the social media platforms’ “own hate speech regulations” and demanded their removal.

Diaspora Israel-advocacy groups’ strategy of targeting criticism of Israel on social media is mirrored by similar efforts within the Israeli government. In July, Farkash-Hacohen, the Israeli Minister of Strategic Affairs, published an op-ed in Newsweek urging social media companies to adopt the IHRA definition. The following week, The Jerusalem Post reported that under the new Israeli government, the Ministry of Strategic Affairs was “shifting” its focus from fighting BDS to challenging “delegitimization of Israel more broadly,” and that it has “plans to increase its focus on social media,” where it hopes to—in the words of the ministry’s director general, Ronen Manelis—“balance the antisemitic and anti-Israel discourse.” According to the Post, Jewish Agency chairman Isaac Herzog “said he has sought to have the companies adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism” and that he had “met with Facebook executives . . . to discuss the matter.”

The efforts targeting social media are yet another reminder that concerns about the free speech implications of the IHRA definition are not hypothetical. Earlier this year, legislators in several states sought to codify the IHRA definition, including its Israel-related examples, into hate crimes legislation and anti-discrimination laws. Trump’s 2019 executive order adopting the IHRA definition into US policy has, as predicted, spawned a growing list of attacks targeting Israel-related speech on college campuses, as well as an effort targeting a US foundation for its support for a group that criticizes Israel. The IHRA-based conflation of antisemitism and criticism of Israel was also the foundation of a recent report by the Milstein-supported AMCHA initiative purporting to document rising antisemitism on college campuses. While admitting there has been a significant decrease “in the number of incidents of anti-Jewish harassment identified as expressing classic antisemitism,” the report highlighted a “significant increase in the number of Israel-related incidents,” as defined under the IHRA definition. Notably, under the criteria established by AMCHA report, merely challenging the legitimacy of the IHRA definition was treated as an indicator of antisemitism.

The Israel advocacy network’s push on social media comes at a time when Facebook and other social networks are under significant pressure regarding how they deal with controversial content. Conservatives claim to be victims of a politically motivated crackdown on right-wing voices. Progressives decry the proliferation of extremist hate speech and call on social media platforms to remove and ban misinformation and hate speech. In this context, the demand that social media adopt and enforce the full IHRA definition represents a cynical strategy to co-opt progressive concerns about antisemitism in order to promote a hardline, reactionary political agenda that seeks to quash constitutionally protected free speech critical of Israel.

One prominent progressive effort to push Facebook comes from the “Stop Hate for Profit” coalition. Made up of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) as well as the NAACP, Color of Change, the National Hispanic Media Coalition (NHMC), and several other groups, the coalition formed in June to demand that Facebook, among other things, “find and remove” groups focused on antisemitism. The coalition doesn’t offer its own definition of antisemitism, but its sole Jewish member, the ADL, has long championed the IHRA definition—a position that aligns neatly with the ADL’s evolution into an organization that prioritizes defending Israel from criticism over defending free speech.

Facebook’s updates to its hate speech policy haven’t satisfied its IHRA-focused critics, whose goal isn’t to get Facebook to deplatform antisemitism, but to get Facebook to deplatform criticism of Israel. In a response to Sandberg’s letter to him, Milstein made it clear that the campaign to pressure the social network to accept the IHRA definition will continue: “We look forward to working with @Facebook to ensure #antisemitism is eradicated from the platform and the #IHRA working definition of antisemitism is fully adopted by your organization.” Whether Facebook will buckle under the pressure will depend in large part on whether the public—Jewish and non-Jewish—finally recognizes that concerns about antisemitism are being exploited to serve a narrow political and ideological agenda, putting at risk free speech on Israel/Palestine and, by extension, political speech writ large.

Chapter by Lara Friedman (April 2020), published in a collection of analyses curated by SETA entitled “Trump’s Jerusalem Move: Making Sense of U.S. Policy on the Israeli Palestinian Conflict.”

From the start of the 2016 presidential campaign in the United States, through this writing (well into the third year of the Trump presidency), observers and analysts of Israeli-Palestinian issues have over and over made the same basic error with respect to trying to understand the intentions of the Trump Administration and to predict its policies and its actions: they have refused to take President Trump and his surrogates at their word – including on Jerusalem.

At the start of Trump’s campaign to become president, then-candidate Trump entrusted his Israel-Palestine policy to a core group of trusted advisors – his real estate lawyer, Jason Greenblatt; his bankruptcy lawyer, David Friedman; and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner – all of whom had well-established personal political inclinations in this policy arena1 . And notwithstanding many people’s expectation that, if elected, Trump would replace the trio with experienced foreign policy professionals, after winning the election Trump handed them the reins of his Israel-Palestine policy.

While past Administrations included officials who carried with them various ideological preferences on Israel-Palestine, such officials were almost uniformly foreign policy professionals who demonstrably adjusted their assumptions and their goals based on realities of actually having to carry out a real foreign policy and political considerations, foreign or domestic, that emerged. In contrast, it was clear from the start that the men leading Trump’s Israel-Palestine policy were not foreign policy professionals; they were, and remain today, ideologues.2 In this context, it should have been expected that once in office, they would act energetically to implement the policies and promises articulated during the Trump campaign – and where these policies and promises hit obstacles, it should have been understood the result might be an alteration in tactics or timing, but not an alteration in objectives.

This is precisely what has happened since Trump took office, including on Jerusalem.

Continue reading online…

Op-ed by Lara Friedman, originally published by Jewish Currents on February 20, 2020.

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A NEW WEAPON has been unveiled in the battle to quash activism and criticism targeting Israel. Pending bipartisan bills, introduced in Arizona’s House and Senate, as well as in Iowa’s House, seek to codify the controversial International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism into the states’ hate crimes law and civil rights laws, respectively. Parts of that definition conflate antisemitism with both criticism of Israel and anti-Zionism; as a result, the implications of this new legislation for free speech are alarming.

The IHRA definition of antisemitism was thrust into the spotlight on December 11th, 2019, when Donald Trump issued his controversial executive order on antisemitism—an order focused narrowly on policing academia in the United States. In that respect, Trump’s executive order is like other initiatives that have previously sought to codify the IHRA definition into law and policy—including a long-pending bill in Congress called the “Anti-Semitism Awareness Act” (which the executive order rendered moot) and legislation, passed and pending, in numerous states.

Kenneth Stern, the lead author of the IHRA definition, has long made clear that the language was never intended to be used this way, and that doing so raises serious free speech concerns. Such concerns have proved well-founded, with Trump’s executive order opening the door for a flood of complaints tied to alleged antisemitic incidents. All of the alleged offenses relate to violations of the IHRA’s Israel-related provisions, which fall outside the scope of what has traditionally been defined as antisemitism—that is, hostility toward Jews simply because they are Jewish. Universities that have already come under attack in the two months since the issuance of the executive order include Georgetown, Columbia (two separate claims), UCLA, Duke and the University of North Carolina, and Georgia Tech, as well as Middle East Studies National Resource Centers (NRCs) nationwide.

What is happening in Arizona and Iowa is different, and represents an even more alarming shift in tactics. Rather than targeting free speech on campuses, the Arizona bills seek to inscribe the IHRA formula into the DNA of the state’s laws dealing with hate crimes. By lumping criticism of Israel into the same shameful category as “prejudice based on race, color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, gender or disability” in a statute related to crime statistics—a list that is used in Arizona’s sentencing statute as the basis for determining which groups, in effect, enjoy protected status—the bills would establish as a matter of law that criticism of Israel must be considered an “aggravating factor” when handing down sentences for criminal convictions. This means that past criticism of Israel could open the door for harsher, “aggravated sentences” for protesters  charged with a crime.

Criminal charges are becoming a go-to weapon of state and local authorities across the nation when it comes to suppressing political protests and other forms of constitutionally protected free speech. One of the most prominent recent examples of this criminalization of protest was the mass indictment of 214 Americans for protesting Trump’s inauguration in 2017—with many of them subjected to a legal ordeal lasting more than a year. In 2019, Arizona had several notable cases of its own. University of Arizona students were hit with criminal charges for protesting a Border Patrol event on campus. Authorities slapped protesters with felony riot charges for demonstrating outside a local prison. And Phoenix police arrested people participating in an immigration rally, charging them with misdemeanors and felonies. In this context, it is not a stretch to imagine criminal charges against protesters in Arizona, on- or off-campus, for opposing Israeli military actions in Gaza or for supporting Palestinians’ human rights. The bill currently moving through Arizona’s legislature would ensure that such charges—and potential sentences—would be more severe, with the protesters’ views on Israel enabling courts to classify their alleged offenses, in effect, as hate crimes.

In Iowa, the new tactic takes a different form. The pending legislation would amend the state’s civil rights laws to require that authorities use the IHRA definition in determining whether an alleged violation of state rules or policies regarding “discriminatory acts . . . was motivated by discriminatory anti-Semitic intent.” The objective behind the legislation is hinted at heavily in the bill’s explanatory language, which describes campus antisemitism as “systemic, broad, and deep,” and says that “State officials and institutions, including educational institutions, have a responsibility to protect citizens from acts of hate and bigotry motivated by discriminatory animus, including anti-Semitism, and must be given the tools to do so.”

The situation in European countries that have adopted the IHRA as a national policy provide a glimpse into what these bills could mean on the ground: in the United Kingdom, a charity event for Palestinian children is canceled, and pro-Palestinian campus activism barred; in Germany, a public lecture is blocked, the director of a Jewish museum is hounded into resigning, and the bank account of a Jewish organization that supports boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) against Israel is closed; and in France, the mere act of calling for boycott of Israel is criminalized.

Another concern is that the pending legislation portends more of the same across other states. This prediction is shaped by the experience of the past five years, during which legislation to quash boycotts of Israel (and, in most cases, its settlements in the West Bank) has spread with remarkable efficiency from one state legislature to another. The success of this strategy speaks for itself: as of this writing, such laws have been enacted or are pending across the US.

This prediction is informed, too, by the example of two previous efforts to promote the IHRA definition in state legislatures. Specifically, in 2018, Rep. Alan Clemmons, a South Carolina legislator who has long been a standard bearer for the far-right agenda on Israel and a leader in the conservative, “model-bill factory” known as ALEC, introduced legislation to codify the IHRA definition into law as part of a provision ostensibly targeting antisemitism in state colleges. His bill passed in South Carolina, and in 2019, Florida followed suit.

Clemmons’s effort enjoyed the backing of a lobbying group funded by the right-wing Jewish casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, the Israel Allies Foundation (IAF), and in particular the help of IAF’s US Director Joe Sabag. Sabag has publicly identified himself as the “the primary legal expert who helped develop” the legislation passed in both South Carolina and Florida. An email—which was sent by the state representative behind the Florida law, Randy Fine, to at least five legislators from other states—notes that Sabag “was instrumental in providing outside support as I pushed the bill and I would recommend anyone considering such an effort to talk to him.” Sabag’s reply-all to that email highlights the goal of spreading such bills across the country: “My legal team has now taken Randy’s bill and refined it into a model that can be brought elsewhere. I urge you to please contact me or Rep. Alan Clemmons and take advantage of our policy support if you are considering filing a bill.” Notably, in that same message, Fine makes clear that the real point of his legislation is to target pro-Palestinian activism: “Students for Justice in Palestine is now treated the same way as the Ku Klux Klan – as they should be.”

Sabag and Adelson are not the only ones backing these bills. There exists today a veritable cottage industry of organizations dedicated to promoting the IHRA definition as a legally-mandated litmus test, designed to delegitimize if not criminalize criticism and activism on Israel, and especially boycotts. Most prominent among them is Israel’s Ministry of Strategic Affairs, which in September 2019 published a report documenting how “leading BDS activists or organizations disseminated content that meet [sic] the internationally accepted definition of antisemitism” under the IHRA definition. Another major player in this effort is the right-wing powerhouse NGO Monitor, which has urged governments and the United Nations to adopt the IHRA definition as a step toward cutting off funding for and cooperation with all or most Palestinian and pro-Palestinian groups.

Within the US, promoters of the IHRA definition include the Anti-Defamation League, which has dismissed concerns that the definition could be used to target free speech critical of Israel. Another player is the Lawfare Project, which in November 2019 argued that upholding the Court of Justice of the European Union’s decision to require labeling of settlement products would “fly in the face” of the IHRA definition of antisemitism. Perhaps most prominently today, there is the Zachor Legal Institute, which has argued for years for using US anti-boycott provisions, antitrust laws, racketeering laws, and anti-terrorism statutes against BDS.

In January 2020, Zachor produced a report entitled “The New Anti-Semites.” Published by StopAntisemitism.Org—an organization born during the Trump era that campaigns against members of Congress and others who criticize Israel—the 120-page report uses the IHRA definition as the foundation of its analysis and of its condemnation of pro-Palestinian activists as antisemites. The report recommends that in order to better target the “new anti-Semites”—by which it means critics of Israel and its policies—the IHRA definition should be “reinforced” by means of “effective laws and policies, and the consistent enforcement of these laws and policies, in order to ensure the limitation of this destructive phenomenon.” The bills now moving through the state legislatures in Arizona and Iowa are examples of laws that, under the pretext of fighting antisemitism, are designed to do precisely that.

Op-ed by Lara Friedman, originally published by Arab Center Washington D.C. on January 31, 2020.

Americans who self-identify as Jewish represent a tiny portion of the American electorate. Often discussed as a homogeneous voting bloc, in reality the American Jewish community is defined by its heterogeneity. As a demographic, it includes individuals who, while all self-identifying as Jewish, simultaneously define their identity in terms of a wide spectrum of religious, social, and political beliefs and practices. It is therefore confounding to some that taken as a whole, the American Jewish community, for all its internal divisions and distinctions, has nonetheless long been characterized by remarkably consistent, and by all appearances coherent, voting preferences.

It is because of these distinctions, too, that in virtually every election cycle, speculation runs high over whether, finally, in this election there will be a meaningful change in the Jewish vote. Indeed, in the context of two of the defining trends of the Donald Trump era – a shift in US policies related to Israel and surging antisemitism in the United States and abroad – the voting patterns of the American Jewish community are under an even brighter spotlight. Yet, the impact of the American Jewish vote on the 2020 election result – whether it remains as it has been or changes—will be limited; given the relatively small number of Jewish voters and their geographic concentrations, American Jews as a voting demographic are unlikely to have a decisive impact on the presidential election, though their votes may have greater impact down-ballot.

Basic Facts

Americans Jews of voting age are estimated to represent around 2% of the population of the United States.¹ According to exit polls in previous elections, voters who self-identify as Jewish represent 2-5% of the electorate, underscoring that fact that self-identified Jews vote in high numbers.²

These same exit polls highlight another basic fact about self-identified Jewish voters: their partisan preferences have been remarkably consistent, with majorities of American Jews voting for the Democratic candidate in every presidential election since 1924.³ Indeed, for the period of 1992-2016, the average percentage of the Jewish vote going to the Democratic candidate was 75.8%. As observed in the solidly conservative magazine Commentary in 2005, “The central fact about the Jewish vote is, after all, not how changeable but how stable it is. American Jews do not merely favor Democrats; they are the second most reliable bloc of Democratic voters in the country, exceeded only by African-Americans. One has to go all the way back to the election of Warren Harding in 1920 to find a Republican who gained more than 40 percent of the Jewish vote.⁴”

Looking at a demographic mapping⁵ of the United States highlights the fact that states that have the largest Jewish populations as a percentage of the total population – New York (8.3%), New Jersey (6/1%), Massachusetts (4.3%), Maryland (3.9%), and Connecticut (3.3%) – have strong Democratic majorities, irrespective of how the Jewish population might vote. In contrast, states that are likely to be “in play” in 2020 – that is, where the 2016 election was decided by a narrow margin⁶ – are all states in which the Jewish population represents a relatively small, in some cases vanishingly small, part of the total population: Florida (3%), Nevada (2.5%), Pennsylvania (2.3%), Colorado (1.8%), Maine (0.9%), Michigan (0.9%), Wisconsin (0.6%), Minnesota (0.8%), New Hampshire (0.8%), and North Carolina (0.3%).

Finally, while the majority of self-identified American Jews, viewed as a single demographic, consistently vote for Democratic candidates, a closer look reveals that American Jews are by no means monolithic in their self-identification or political behavior. Based on 2019 survey data⁷, this population self-identifies more precisely as: Ultra-Orthodox (7%), Modern Orthodox (3%), Conservative (13%), Reform (29%), Reconstructionist (3%), Secular (21%), and “Other” (23%).

Notably, there is a strong trend among members of the Orthodox Jewish community (which itself is not monolithic) in support of Republican candidates. As one analyst observed, “in their voting patterns, political outlook and social values, Orthodox Jews turn out to be more like evangelicals than like their liberal Jews.”⁸

This trend has given rise to predictions of an impending shift in American Jewish voting patterns in favor of the Republican Party, in large part grounded in the higher birth rates among Orthodox Jews as compared to their non-Orthodox brethren. Such predictions – so far – appear over-wrought. Even assuming the trend itself continues, only 10% of US Jews currently identify as Orthodox.⁹ Moreover, in states with large enough concentrations of Orthodox Jews to function as a voting bloc (New York, New Jersey), such shifts – while potentially having real impact on some state and local elections – are (thus far) insufficiently large to impact state-wide voting totals.

Why Do Most US Jews Vote Democratic?

According to exit polls, educational attainment strongly correlated to voters’ choices in both 2016¹⁰ and 2018,¹¹ with those having more education far more likely to vote Democratic. Around 59% of American Jews have a college degree or higher (compared to roughly 29% of the general population¹²). Thus, this characteristic, on its own, would be sufficient to strongly predict support for the Democratic Party from much of the American Jewish community, reflecting what some have dubbed the growing “diploma divide.”¹³

Beyond this general observation, survey data regularly confirm that the connection between American Jewish voters (non-Orthodox) and the Democratic Party is grounded in a worldview that prioritizes a set of issues and values – ones that today are embodied in this party. Polling¹⁴ conducted around the 2018 mid-term election offers a valuable window into this phenomenon.

Asked to select the top two issues that were most important to them in deciding their vote, self-identified Jewish voters ranked the issues as follows: health care (43%), gun violence (28%), Social Security and Medicare (21%), the economy (19%), immigration (18%), and the environment (14%). Coming next were taxes (11%), education (8%), the deficit and government spending (8%), the Supreme Court (8%), and “ISIS and terrorism” (7%). At the bottom of the rankings, coming in 12^th place, was Israel (4%), followed by Russia (3%), Iran (1%), and Other (8).

Similarly, another poll conducted in 2019¹⁵ confirmed that healthcare is the top issue of concern for Jewish voters, while Israel “remains the lowest policy priority when determining which candidate to support.”

What about Israel?

A political analyst recently observed that, “…the implication that Jews should vote primarily based on their allegiance to Israel seems to uncomfortably partake of the larger swirl of anti-Semitic sentiment that’s surrounded Trump from the beginning of his campaign.”¹⁶

Indeed, contrary to what some might assume, regular polling – conducted by groups from across the political spectrum – confirms that Israel and Israel-related policies do not figure significantly into the voting decisions of most Jews when they go to the polls for presidential elections, at least until this point. Moreover, contrary to what some – including President Trump – appear to assume, the majority of American Jews do not reflexively approve of US policies that align closely with those of Israeli hardliners.

In the current political climate – in which President Trump has suggested that American Jews who support Democrats are “disloyal” to Israel and to fellow Jews,¹⁷ and in which Trump and his surrogates regularly brag about their pro-Israel, pro-Jewish bona fides – these phenomena seem so counter-intuitive that they deserve deeper examination. It is thus instructive to review polling conducted in 2018¹⁸ and 2019¹⁹ by the American Jewish Committee (AJC) – an organization identified with the center-right of the American Jewish community.

With respect to Jewish support for President Trump’s Israel policies, these polls found that a strong majority of US Jews (59% in 2018, 64% in 2019) supports the two-state solution – the very solution that President Trump has for all intents and purposes abandoned. Likewise, a similarly strong majority of US Jews (59% in 2018, 66% in 2019) supports dismantling some or all of the settlements that Israel has built in the West Bank and East Jerusalem – the same settlements that Trump administration policy has shifted to legitimize. Even more notably, nearly half of American Jews (47%) oppose Trump’s decision to move the US embassy to Jerusalem, and 39% oppose Trump’s shift in policy on the Golan Heights. Overall, the polls reveal that the majority of US Jews either disapprove or strongly disapprove of Trump’s handling of US-Israel relations – disapproval that actually increased from 57% in 2018 to 59% in 2019 (similarly, a recent Pew poll found that 42% of US Jews think Trump is “favoring the Israelis too much”²⁰).

More broadly, while Trump has sought to portray himself as the true friend and defender of US Jewry, the AJC’s 2018 poll found that 55% of US Jews said they felt less secure than they had a year ago; in 2019, that number rose to 65%.

Countdown to November 2020

Nothing has happened to suggest that in 2020 there will be an unprecedented shift in the non-Orthodox Jewish American vote in favor of re-electing President Trump. Indeed, the view expressed in Commentary in 2005 might just as well be expressed today: “In the broader Jewish community, the cultural and religious agenda of the Republican party continues to exercise little or no appeal; indeed, other things being equal, most American Jews are likelier to vote for a candidate whose key issues are abortion rights and no prayer in the public schools than one who vigorously defends Israel’s right to use force to protect itself or who denounces anti-Semitism in the UN.”²¹ That commentator went on to speculate that for Republicans to significantly increase their share of the Jewish vote, “Democrats will have to nominate a candidate who is explicitly anti-Israel.”

Heading into the 2020 election, it is clear that President Trump and fellow Republicans are following a script that aligns with this analysis, working to depict Democrats as anti-Israel and to tar the Democratic Party with the brush of antisemitism, while depicting Republicans as the true pro-Israel, philo-semitic party.²² To be sure, there is nothing new about Republicans painting Democratic candidates as untrustworthy on Israel; this was a major theme in attacks on Barack Obama in 2008²³ and 2012,²⁴ and on Hilary Clinton²⁵ in 2016. However, in the current context they are weaponizing – to an extent never before seen in modern US politics – the issues of Israel and anti-Semitism.

Functionally, such a strategy serves a number of distinct objectives.

1. Trying to shift the Jewish vote for president

There appears to be a genuine belief (or hope) among Republicans that they can achieve a major shift in the Jewish vote,²⁶ and a clear intention to invest significant resources in making the effort.²⁷ Yet, the likelihood of achieving such a shift – at least with respect to how US Jews vote in the 2020 presidential election – is remote, given that President Trump and the Republican party today embody a set of values and policies that are wholly antithetical to those of most American Jews – on healthcare, reproductive rights, gun rights, immigration, education, etc.

Moreover, while concerns about antisemitism – an issue increasingly conflated with criticism of Israel – are without question gaining greater resonance among Jewish voters, polling suggests that US Jews are not buying the Republicans’ strategy of blaming Democrats for the problem. The 2019 AJC poll documented, rather, that 63% of Jews believe Democrats bear no or virtually no responsibility for rising antisemitism, versus 54% who believe Republicans bears all or most responsibility for it. Similarly, 78% of Jews believe there is a moderate or serious threat coming from the extreme political right, while 62% say there is either no threat or only a slight threat from the extreme political left. And fully 73% of Jews disapprove or strongly disapprove of how President Trump is handling antisemitism.

With this in mind, one should expect attacks to escalate after the Democratic primaries, commencing in February, tailored to make the case that the chosen candidate, whoever she or he may be, is anti-Israel and anti-Jewish. For a sense of what that will look like, one has only to note the attacks already being launched on Bernie Sanders, the sole Jewish candidate, who has been painted (among other things) as being in league with anti-Semites²⁸ and as being anti-Israel.²⁹ Similarly, Elizabeth Warren has already been attacked for having a (Jewish) campaign staffer who was previously associated with If Not Now, an organization that is highly critical of Israeli policies toward the Palestinians,³⁰ and for having been endorsed by Americans of Palestinian descent who are critical of Israel.³¹

Moreover, in close races across the country, in which every vote will truly count, any change in the Jewish vote could be significant. In particular, small shifts in the Jewish vote in states like Florida – where generational factors could open the door to greater shifts than elsewhere in the country – could be a decisive factor in a close election.

2. Looking for benefits down-ballot

Even where the results of these efforts are unlikely to directly impact the 2020 presidential election outcome, Republicans likely hope these efforts will yield gains further down the ballot (i.e., in local and state elections, including congressional races). Forcing Democrats to constantly fend off accusations of being anti-Israel or antisemitic siphons off campaigns’ time, energy, political capital and funds. And as was seen in the 2018 mid-term election, accusations of being insufficiently pro-Israel or even a passing association with boycotts, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) against Israel, proved to be powerful political weapons against a number of Democratic candidates in key races, including Andrew Gillum in Florida,³² Stacey Abrams in Georgia,³³ Scott Wallace in Philadelphia,³⁴ and Cynthia Nixon in New York.³⁵

Likewise, by focusing attacks on prominent people of color (Representatives Ilhan Omar [D-Minnesota] and Rashida Tlaib [D-Michigan], and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez [D-New York], Linda Sarsour, and Marc Lamont Hill) and movements led by people of color (Black Lives Matter, the Women’s March, Dream Defenders), the Republicans’ Israel/antisemitism strategy is already succeeding in sowing divisions within the Democratic Party. Democratic leaders and politicians are, in effect, facing a lose-lose situation: if they defend their colleagues, they are charged with tolerating or engaging in antisemitism themselves. If they repudiate or discipline their colleagues, their actions are cast as validating the narrative that the Democratic Party has an antisemitism problem. Similarly, each time a Democratic leader or politician denounces and delegitimizes those in the progressive grassroots who are engaged in activism critical of Israeli policies, they fracture grassroots unity and undermine popular organizing and engagement.

This dynamic will continue to hold, unless Democrats shift tactics and move to publicly re-claim the moral high ground, “by affirmatively and unapologetically defining ‘pro-Israel’ in terms that uphold liberal values, protect free speech and defend the legitimacy of differences of opinion among progressives when it comes to Israel-Palestine. Unless and until they do, progressives will be caught between the same rock and hard place, time and again.”³⁶

3. Pandering to the Republican base

It is clear that American Jews are not the sole – or necessarily, even the primary – constituency at which the Republicans’ pro-Israel, philo-semitic campaign is aimed. Rather, it seems far more likely that this strategy is designed to pander to two specific constituencies: major donors for whom support for hardline Israel (and, as a related matter, Iran) policies is the main focus,³⁷ and pro-Israel Evangelical Christians who, unlike most American Jews, prioritize Israel over other issues and for whom a very specific kind of philo-semitism³⁸ – which is itself a form of antisemitism, and includes denying the Jewishness of Jews who do not conform to the required pro-Israel political ideology – has become a defining characteristic.

American Jewish Political Funding

Like other constituencies in the American electorate, many members of the American Jewish community contribute money to candidates for political office and for political initiatives. While polls find that only 18%³⁹ to 19%⁴⁰ of American Jews identify as Republican, this small group today includes the largest donors to the Republican Party. At the top of that list,⁴¹ coming in as the largest single donor (as of this writing), is Sheldon Adelson, who donated nearly $124 million to Republicans in the 2018 cycle. Adelson, notably, is one American Jewish voter/donor who very publicly puts his Israel-related agenda at the center of his political engagement.⁴² The focus of this agenda is shifting the foreign policy of the United States to uncritically support and endorse policies related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that align closely with the Israeli right- and far-right-wing – i.e., policies rejected by a strong majority of American Jews. Adelson is joined in his giving by other Jewish Republicans, many of whom likewise prioritize hardline policies in support of Israel, including Bernard Marcus⁴³ and Paul Singer⁴⁴. Such donors today play a strong role – some might argue as strong as key constituencies like pro-Israel evangelicals and wealthy “Messianic Jews”⁴⁵ (i.e., Jews who have converted to Christianity, but still insist on their identity as Jews) in shaping Republican candidates’ and the Republican Party’s Israel-related policies.

While the data is harder to nail down compared to voting habits, a 2016 study found that the percentage of Jewish donations that went to the Democratic candidate for president was around 70% in in 2012, and around 84% in 2016.⁴⁶ Moreover, like with Republicans, a number of top donors to the Democratic party are Jewish (e.g., Michael Bloomberg, Donald Sussman, George Soros).⁴⁷ Such donations – small and large – reflect the issues and priorities the donors hold dear. As noted above, polling finds that most American Jews rank Israel very low on their list of concerns. It should thus come as no surprise that to the extent that large Jewish donors to Democrats are engaged on Israel, they represent a diversity of views – from close alignment with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) (Bloomberg)⁴⁸, passionate support for Israel (Haim Saban⁴⁹), deep commitment to achieving Israeli-Arab peace (S. Daniel Abraham⁵⁰), to strongly criticizing Israeli policies (George Soros⁵¹). Moreover, some reports suggest that the policies of the Trump Administration – unrelated to Israel – are alienating some wealthy Jewish funders of the Republican Party.⁵²

Finally, in addition to political contributions from American Jews, another category of political funding is often raised in this context: contributions from self-described pro-Israel organizations. As underscored by the preceding analysis, it is incorrect to conflate political donations of members of the American Jewish community with pro-Israel donations, or with support for hardline positions and policies vis-à-vis Israel. Unpacking what is wrong about both conflations starts with the recognition that there is no single, agreed-on definition of what “pro-Israel” means – indeed, the term means vastly different things to different self-described pro-Israel organizations, which include right-wing donors like the Republican Jewish Coalition and center-left groups like J Street. It is likewise important to recognize that some pro-Israel political funding comes from evangelical Christian sources like Christians United for Israel, and from sources that are not specifically identified with either religious community (like NorPAC).

Lara Friedman is the President of the Foundation for Middle East Peace.

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¹ “American Jewish Population Project,” Brandeis University, Steinhardt Social Research Institute, 2019, retrieved 19/1/2020 at https://ajpp.brandeis.edu/documents/2019/JewishPopulationDataBrief2019.pdf.
² “Elections 2016 – Exit Polls,” New York Times, 8/11/2016, retrieved 19/1/2020 at https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/11/08/us/politics/election-exit-polls.html.
³ “US Presidential Elections: Jewish Voting Record (1916 – Present),” Jewish Virtual Library, retrieved 19/1/2020 at https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jewish-voting-record-in-u-s-presidential-elections.
⁴ Lefkowitz, Jay, “The Election and the Jewish Vote.” Commentary, February 2005 issue, retrieved 20/1/2020 at https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/the-election-and-the-jewish-vote/.
⁵ “Jewish Population in the United States by State (1899 – Present),” Jewish Virtual Library, retrieved 19/1/2020 at https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jewish-population-in-the-united-states-by-state.
⁶ “2016 Election Results by State Population,” World Population Review, 5/11/2019, retrieved 19/1/2020 at http://worldpopulationreview.com/states/2016-election-results-by-state/.
⁷ “AJC 2019 Survey of American Jewish Opinion,” American Jewish Committee, 2/6/2019, retrieved 19/1/2020 at https://www.ajc.org/news/survey2019.
⁸ Samuel Heilman, “How Trump Split the Jewish Vote,” Haaretz, 11/11/2016, retrieved 19/1/2020 at https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-samuel-heilman-how-trump-split-the-jewish-vote-1.5459828.
⁹ “J Street National Post-Election Survey,” J Street, 6/11/2018, retrieved 19/1/2020 at https://jstreet.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/J-Street-Post-Elect-Topline-Results-110818.pdf.
¹⁰ “Election 2016 Exit Polls,” CNN, 23/11/2016, retrieved 19/1/2020 at https://www.cnn.com/election/2016/results/exit-polls.
¹¹ “Exit Polls 2018,” CNN, retrieved 19/1/2020 at https://www.cnn.com/election/2018/exit-polls/national-results.
¹² “American Jewish Population Project,” Brandeis University, op. cit.
¹³ Adam Harris, “America is Divided by Education,” Atlantic, 7/11/2018, retrieved 19/1/2020 at https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2018/11/education-gap-explains-american-politics/575113/.
¹⁴ “J Street National Post-Election Survey,” op. cit.
¹⁵ “POLL: Domestic issues dominate the priorities of the Jewish electorate,” Jewish Electorate Institute, 22/5/2019, retrieved 19/1/2020 at https://www.jewishelectorateinstitute.org/poll-domestic-issues-dominate-the-priorities-of-the-jewish-electorate/.
¹⁶ Matthew Yglesias, “’Jexodus,’ the fake departure of American Jews from the Democratic Party, explained,” Vox, 15/3/ 2019, retrieved 19/1/2020 at https://www.vox.com/2019/3/15/18267129/jexodus-trump-jews-democrats-israel.
¹⁷ Eileen Sullivan, “Trump Again Accuses American Jews of Disloyalty,” New York Times, 21/8/ 2019, retrieved 19/1/2020 at https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/21/us/politics/trump-jews-disloyalty.html.
¹⁸ “AJC 2018 Survey of American Jewish Opinion,” American Jewish Committee, 10/6/2018, retrieved 19/1/2019 at https://www.ajc.org/news/survey2018.
¹⁹ “AJC 2019 Survey of American Jewish Opinion,” op. cit.
²⁰ Gregory Smith, “US Jews are more likely than Christians to say Trump favors the Israelis too much,” Pew Research Center, 6/5/2019, retrieved 19/1/2020 at https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/05/06/u-s-jews-are-more-likely-than-christians-to-say-trump-favors-the-israelis-too-much/.
²¹ Lefkowitz, “The Election and the Jewish Vote,” op. cit.
²² Lauri Regan, “The Democrat Party’s Third Rail,” Jewish Policy Center, Winter 2020, retrieved 19/12020 at https://www.jewishpolicycenter.org/2020/01/06/the-democrat-partys-third-rail-israel/.
²³ Larry Rohter, “Obama’s Comments on Israel Stir Criticism in US,” New York Times, 7/62008, retrieved 19/1/2020 at https://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/07/us/politics/07obama.html.
²⁴ Dan Senor, “Why Obama Is Losing the Jewish Vote?” Wall Street Journal, 14/11/2011, retrieved 19/1/2020 at https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424053111904353504576568710341742174.
²⁵ David Friedman, “First 100 Days,” Jerusalem Post, 20/10/2016, retrieved 19/1/2020 at https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/First-100-days-470563#article=6022OTg2Mzk4RENEMUJCQjdBNzA4NzAzMDYyNkJCOEUzRjQ=.
²⁶ Alex Traiman, “New RJC political director eyes shifting trends, saying Republicans could gain Jewish votes,” Israel Hayom, 21/8/2019, retrieved 19/1/2020 at https://www.israelhayom.com/2019/08/21/new-rjc-political-director-eyes-shifting-trends-saying-republicans-could-gain-jewish-votes/.
²⁷ Alex Isenstadt, “Pro-Trump Republicans plan big-money play for the Jewish vote in 2020,” Politico, 7/4/ 2019, retrieved 19/1/2020 at https://www.politico.com/story/2019/04/07/donald-trump-jewish-vote-2020-1260172.
²⁸ Melissa Langsam Braunstein, “Linda Sarsour Is Too Antisemitic For The Women’s March, But Not For Bernie Sanders,” The Federalist, 10/12/2019, retrieved 19/1/2020 at https://thefederalist.com/2019/12/10/linda-sarsour-is-too-antisemitic-for-the-womens-march-but-not-for-bernie-sanders/.
²⁹ Jack Rosen, “Bernie Sanders would be most anti-Israel US president since founding of modern Jewish state,” Fox News, 9/1/2020, retrieved 19/1/2020 at https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/jack-rosen-bernie-sanders-would-be-most-anti-israel-us-president-since-founding-of-modern-jewish-state.
³⁰ Ben Sales and Jewish Telegraphic Agency, “Top Elizabeth Warren Aide Is a Jewish Activist Against Israeli Occupation,” Haaretz, 30/7/2019, retrieved 19/1/2020 at https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/elizabeth-warren-aide-is-a-jewish-activist-against-israeli-occupation-1.7605033.
³¹ Adam Kredo and David Rutz, “Iowa Warren Backer Praised ‘Immortal Leader’ Arafat, Slammed ‘Puppet’ Pro-Israel Politicians,” Washington Free Beacon, 12/12/2019, retrieved 19/1/2020 at https://freebeacon.com/issues/warren-backer-praised-arafat-slammed-israel/. See also Marisa Schultz, “Elizabeth Warren touts support from anti-Israel comic who once called her a ‘weasel,’” Fox News, 4/1/2020, retrieved 19/1/2020 at https://www.foxnews.com/politics/elizabeth-warren-maysoon-zayid-support-anti-israel.
³² David Smiley, “Andrew Gillum campaign says attacks casting him as anti-Israel are ‘irresponsible,’” Miami Herald, 17/9/2018, retrieved 19/1/2020 at https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/state-politics/article218497785.html.
³³ Zaid Jilani, “The Politics of Boycotting Israel Are Creeping into the Race for Georgia Governor,” Intercept, 28/11/2017, retrieved 19/12020 at https://theintercept.com/2017/11/28/georgia-governor-race-bds-israel/.
³⁴ “Democratic nominee for Congress in Philadelphia district led fund that gave to BDS groups,” Jewish Telegraphic Agency, 17/5/2018, retrieved 19/1/2020 at https://www.jta.org/2018/05/17/politics/dem-nominee-philly-district-led-fund-gave-bds-groups.
³⁵ Stewart Ain, “Cynthia Nixon’s bid for NY governor sets up a clash over Israel,” Jewish Telegraphic Agency, 2/4/2018, retrieved 19/1/2020 at https://www.jta.org/2018/04/02/politics/cynthia-nixons-bid-ny-governor-sets-clash-israel.
³⁶ Lara Friedman, “BDS Is a Trap for Democrats,” Forward, 281//2019, retrieved 19/1/2020 at https://forward.com/opinion/418265/bds-is-a-trap-for-democrats/.
³⁷ Eli Clifton, “Follow the Money: Three Billionaires Paved Way for Trump’s Iran Deal Withdrawal,” LobeLog, 8/5/2018, retrieved 19/1/2020 at https://lobelog.com/three-billionaires-paved-way-for-trumps-iran-deal-withdrawal/.
³⁸ Yair Rosenberg, “Trump keeps pushing anti-Semitic stereotypes. But he thinks he’s praising Jews,” Washington Post, 21/8/2019, retrieved 19/1/2020 at https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/08/21/trump-keeps-pushing-anti-semitic-stereotypes-he-thinks-hes-praising-jews/.
³⁹ “AJC 2019 Survey of American Jewish Opinion,” op. cit.
⁴⁰ “J Street National Post-Election Survey,” op. cit.
⁴¹ “Top Individual Contributors: All Federal Contributions,” Center for Responsive Politics, n.d. retrieved 23/1/2020 at https://www.opensecrets.org/overview/topindivs.php?cycle=2018&view=fc.
⁴² Theodore Schleifer, “Adelson: Trump likely to be ‘best president for Israel ever’,” CNN, 24/2/2017, retrieved 23/1/2020 at https://www.cnn.com/2017/02/24/politics/sheldon-adelson-donald-trump-israel/index.html.
⁴³ “Bernard Marcus,” Militarist Monitor, 21/5/2018, retrieved 23/1/2020 at https://militarist-monitor.org/profile/bernard-marcus/.
⁴⁴ “Philanthropist Paul Singer, one-time Trump opponent, attends president-elect’s fundraiser,” Times of Israel, 9/12/2016, retrieved 23/1/2020 at https://www.timesofisrael.com/philanthropist-paul-singer-one-time-trump-opponent-attends-president-elects-fundraiser/.
⁴⁵ Allison Kaplan Sommer, “Meet Donald Trump’s Least Disloyal Jews,” Haaretz, 27/8/2019 retrieved 23/1/2020 at https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/.premium-meet-donald-trump-s-least-disloyal-jews-1.7749337.
⁴⁶ Eitan Hersh and Brian Shaffner, “The GOP’s Jewish Donors Are Abandoning Trump,” Five Thirty-Eight, 21/9/2016, retrieved 23/1/2020 at https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-gops-jewish-donors-are-abandoning-trump/.
⁴⁷ “Top Individual Contributors,” op. cit.
⁴⁸ “Michael Bloomberg,” Jewish News Syndicate, 20/3/2018, retrieved 23/1/2020 at https://www.jns.org/michael-bloomberg-honoring70/.
⁴⁹ “Malina Saval, “Haim Saban’s Deep Love for Israel Drives His Philanthropy,” Variety, 22/3/2017, retrieved 23/1/2020 at https://variety.com/2017/biz/spotlight/haim-saban-deep-love-israel-philanthropy-1202013654/.
⁵⁰ “S. Daniel Abraham,” Center for Middle East Peace, n.d., retrieved 23/1/2020 at https://centerpeace.org/about/staff/s-daniel-abraham/.
⁵¹ Nadine Epstein, “The Vilification of George Soros in Israel,” Moment, 24/1/2019, retrieved 23/1/2020 at https://momentmag.com/the-vilification-of-george-soros-in-israel/.
⁵² Amir Tibon, “Two Prominent Jewish Republican Donors GOP Cut Ties over Trump,” Haaretz, 17/9/2018, retrieved 23/1/2020 at https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/.premium-two-prominent-jewish-republican-donors-cut-gop-ties-over-trump-1.6479726.

On January 28, 2020, President Trump at last unveiled his long-awaited vision for Israeli-Palestinian peace. That same afternoon, FMEP’s own Lara Friedman was interviewed on Background Briefing with Ian Masters, in an episode entitled “Trump’s Take-It-Or-Leave-It Israeli-Palestinian Peace Plan Without Palestinians.”

Have a listen, here.