One of the few western nations where public opinion was in favour of Donald Trump returning to the White House is Israel. Israelis trust him as the man who recognised Jerusalem as their capital, moved the US embassy there, recognised Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, and said that settlement-building was not per se against international law. So most Israelis regard a second Trump term as good news for their country, its security and its relationship with the United States. That might be the case in what we see from his new administration, but Trump’s re-election could prove in the longer term to be a fracture point between the United States and Israel.
When progressives lose they look outwards rather than inwards for the culprit
Progressives have lost and when progressives lose they look outwards rather than inwards for the culprit. There will be plenty of recriminations around Joe Biden and his failure to make way for another candidate sooner, and around the decision to install the ineffectual Kamala Harris as the nominee. But allow me to make a prediction. Progressives in search of a scapegoat for their defeat will quickly arrive at Israel, specifically what they regard as the Biden administration and the Harris campaign’s support for Jerusalem in its fight against Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists. Expect leftists to point to Harris’s loss of Michigan and especially the collapse of the Democrat vote in Dearborn, a city with significant Arab and Muslim populations. Expect them to say that a different approach, one supportive of the Palestinians rather than the Israelis, would have seen the Democrats hold on to Michigan.
It won’t matter that Michigan voted for Trump in 2020 and that his support there has much more to do with non-graduate white men than it does with Arab-American voting behaviour. It won’t matter that Trump’s attitude towards Israel is far more sympathetic than Harris’s. It won’t matter that going down this path will bring resentment and hostility to bear on Arab Americans or Jews or both. Progressives will see their chance to do something they have longed to do for decades: cleave the United States from Israel and leave the Jewish state vulnerable in a dangerous neighbourhood. The surest way to do that is by adopting for the Democrat party the sort of views about Israel seen in centre-left parties across the west.
Israel-cost-us-the-2024-election will become an ideological comfort blanket for progressives, an explanation that panders to their pre-existing prejudices and absolves them of the need to reflect on their own culpability. If only they hadn’t pushed Biden into such inflationary spending, if only they hadn’t strong-armed their party into adopting crank dogma about race and gender identity, if only they hadn’t remade themselves into the scolding HR lady of American public life. But, no, Israel will be deemed the guilty party.
This is insidious for several reasons. For one, even if we assume that Gaza cost Harris Michigan, the implication is that she would have won the state had her position on the Middle East conflict been different. But different how? Did she have to acquiesce in the lie that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza? Call for an end to US military aid or arms sales to the Jewish state? Condemn any and all Israeli response to October 7?
For another, this mindset further embeds sectarianism in US politics by encouraging Americans to think and vote as identity groups rather than individuals. It incentivises the use of communal bloc voting against future presidents or presidential candidates on any issue you care to choose. Where that leads is away from republican self-government and towards a grim consociationalism, in which the primary political unit is not the citizen but the ethno-cultural faction. This is why identity politics is incompatible with liberal democracy.
I hope my prediction is wrong, but I doubt it will be. Progressives are presented with their best ever opportunity to rid the Democrat party of what remains of its Zionism. They won’t let it go, no matter the cost.
Watch more on SpectatorTV:
Comments