Trump’s loyalty test
It would be difficult to count the number of lies told in these three minutes:
But if you get tired of them, fast forward to 2:45 where the President of the United States says that the 70% (or more) of American Jews who vote for Democrats are “disloyal.” He either means they are disloyal to the United States or to Israel. Not clear which, but either betrays a profound misunderstanding of the majority of American Jews, who support the United States but not Trump and Israel but not Netanyahu.
The President’s misconception is not surprising. Trump knows people in the 30%: Sheldon Adelson, Abe Friedman, and Jared Kushner. They are all strong supporters of Prime Minister Netanyahu and of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, including the Jewish settlements there. They are opponents of a two-state solution. They want a greater Israel with Arabs, who would constitute the majority if that state included the West Bank, Gaza, and Israel, treated as second-class citizens in an explicitly Jewish state. This is an extremist idea that many critics would like to call apartheid, a formalized system of unequal rights within a single country.
Most American Jews recoil at that idea because they are committed to America’s founding ideals, including equal rights, and wouldn’t want apartheid in the United States, which is the object of their first loyalty. We are not Israelis any more than Trump is German. We have varying degrees of sympathy with Israel and Jews worldwide, but most of us are Americans first, albeit not in Trump’s sense. Jews are not being disloyal either to Israel or to America when they vote for Democrats, which I imagine we will do in an even larger percentage in 2020 because of Trump and his accusation of disloyalty.
Trump won’t care much about that. He isn’t really interested in the relatively small number of American Jews in the electorate. I don’t imagine there is a single state where they could tilt the margin of victory, especially since the largest number lives in New York, which will vote overwhelmingly for any Democrat. What Trump wants is to cement his relationship with Christian evangelicals, who believe the state of Israel marks a transition towards the return of the Messiah and conversion of the Jews to Christianity. This is a profoundly anti-Jewish concept held by a surprising number of Americans, perhaps by the one quarter who regard themselves as evangelicals.
Most American Jews dislike Christian evangelical aspirations for conversion at the rapture. We may also not like everything Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib say and do, but we support two states (Israel and Palestine) and oppose settlements that make that outcome more difficult. We think all members of Congress (and for that matter all US citizens, including Palestinians) should be allowed into Israel and Palestine without preconditions.
Fanning the flames of prejudice and anti-Jewish evangelicalism will not get our votes. We don’t care that Trump’s son-in-law and daughter are Jews, or that Netanyahu likes Trump. We’ll vote for whom we want, regardless of his loyalty test.
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Stevenson’s army, August 20
– An Australian think tank says China is strong enough to make surprise military moves.
-The Pentagon suggests China’s SCS buildup has peaked.
– US and Iraqi military and intelligence sources say ISIS is rebuilding.
– And it’s still miserably hot in DC. The Guardian is right to call the climate changes “global heating.”
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I plan to republish here. If you want to get it directly, To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).
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Stevenson’s army, August 19
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes an almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I plan to republish here. If you want to get it directly, follow the instructions below:
– AP says US is in secret talks with the head of the Venezuelan socialist party.
-Axios says Trump has frequently been telling aides he wants a naval blockade of Venezuela.
– New Yorker has a long profile of SecState Pompeo, emphasizing his determination to stay close to Trump.
– Speaker Pelosi says administration efforts to cut foreign aid could jeopardize budget deal. She got a ruling by GAO that the administration cuts were illegal under the budget act. [Some of you may remember that,years ago, I got Sen. Bentsen to get a similar ruling on the V-22 that blocked a Cheney effort to kill the program. The magic word is rescission.]
– A think tank says Afghans are preparing for civil war.
– Somebody leaked a worst-case analysis of a no-deal Brexit to the Sunday Times. The Guardian summarizes.
– I urge you to read the 1619 Project articles in the NYT Sunday magazine. They have several stories showing how central slavery has been in US history.
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Stevenson’s army, August 18
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes an almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I plan to republish here. If you want to get it directly, follow the instructions below:
Wow! Both the Times and Post have lengthy, front-page articles about Stephen Miller. The NYT has more of his background and consistent efforts to limit immigration. The Post details his efforts in the Trump White House and by clever bureaucratic maneuvering throughout the executive branch.
Check out what states win and which lose congressional seats depending on whether only citizens are counted for redistricting.
Despite some presidential candidate calls for ending the Senate’s legislative filibuster, the Post says it’s not likely.That’s good, in my view.
Meanwhile, note the Russian and Chinese efforts to test South Korean air defenses.
Peter Feaver says US civil-military relations may suffer if people conclude that our war in Afghanistan has been a failure.
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Stevenson’s army, August 17
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes an almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I plan to republish here. If you want to get it directly, follow the instructions below:
– I’m really troubled by the efforts by Trump and Netanyahu to make US policy toward Israel a partisan matter. I think any member of Congress should be able to visit any country which receives overt US economic or military aid — and aid should be suspended or cut when they can’t.
– FSOs complain that Trump administration is naming far more political appointees than past administrations.
– Axios tells how USTR determined winners and losers from the China tariffs.
– BTW, some good news: the security clearance backlog has been reduced.
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Stevenson’s army, August 15
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes an almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I plan to republish here. If you want to get it directly, follow the instructions below:
-A new Pew poll shows sharply negative US views of China over the past 2 years.
– WaPo calls Trump a “bystander” on Hong Kong.
-WSJ says Huawei helps some African governments monitor their opponents.
– Mark Perry notes Gen. Dunford’s retirement — “the last adult” leaving the administration.
– Israel may block visit by pro-Palestinian congresswomen.
To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).
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