This piece was originally posted on Ilan Goldenberg’s Substack “Dialogue and Dissonance,” which you can subscribe to here.
How is it that Democrats are constantly being accused of being weak in their support for Israel and not tough enough on antisemitism, when the objective reality is that they have been so much better than Donald Trump on these issues? This was a deeply frustrating phenomenon that I experienced during the Presidential campaign. Events of the past few months – and especially the past couple of weeks – have only brought this contrast into starker relief.
In the campaign, I dealt with constant concerns from members of the Jewish community that Kamala Harris had not said enough about her commitment to Israel’s security or sufficiently condemned Hamas for the attacks of October 7. This despite the fact that I could point them to many many many examples where she had done exactly that.
Meanwhile Donald Trump could say the most outrageous things from calling Hamas and Hezbollah smart and mocking Israel days after October 7, to calling some of the neo-Nazis who marched at Charlottesville “very fine people,” to having his own Vice President vote against the National Security Supplemental that included billions in support for Israel in the aftermath of October 7. (The one thing that did stick to him was when he said if he lost, the Jews would “have a lot to do with it.” This was because it was so outrageous and put a target on Jews back, but also because we worked really hard to make sure everyone knew about it).
In the last couple of weeks we’ve had two more very stark examples of this double standard. First, last week the New York Times reported that Israeli officials had briefed Trump’s senior team on military plans for Iran and ultimately Trump had decided on negotiations. This is obviously big news in and of itself (and I think trying to pursue a deal with Iran makes sense), but what really shocked me was the level of disclosure in the story. That Israel had plans to strike nuclear sites in May. That the plans required US support not just to defend Israel, but to ensure the attack was successful. That the plan originally included commando operations and even described tactics for how the commando operation would be conducted. That they ultimately moved on to an extended bombing campaign option that would require US assistance again describing in some detail the sequencing of the types of strikes that would need to be conducted, the rough time line under which they would occur and how long they expected the operation to last.
This is a shocking level of disclosure for the NY Times, and the story is largely sourced to American officials. It shows the same lax casual approach to secrecy that we’ve seen in Mike Waltz and Pete Hegseth’s Signal chats. And yet, there has been no public outrage. Nothing from Israeli officials. Nothing from the organized Jewish community. Nothing.
Imagine what the response would have been if instead this had happened under Joe Biden’s presidency. Actually, you don’t have to imagine, because in October 2024 an American intelligence assessment of what an Israeli strike might look like leaked to the press. That leak was a US intelligence product – meaning it was based on the American best estimate/speculation of what an Israeli strike would look like. So it was likely much less damaging than leaking conversations and consultation with Israelis. And it did not come from political appointees but seemed clear from early on that it was coming from someone lower level inside the intelligence community as opposed to the information in the Times story, which feels like it came from high ranking American officials who would have been in these very sensitive small meetings. And yet in October 2024, this incident led to my inbox filling up with notes from concerned supporters saying it was flipping Jewish voters to Trump, and there were social media conspiracy theories being launched against Biden Administration appointees with no evidence, accusing them of leaking. It turned out later that the leaker was not a Biden political appointee but an intelligence analyst.
Another recent example – the attack on Governor Shapiro. Imagine if we had a Democratic President and there was an attack on arguably the most prominent Jewish politician in the country. If someone had broken into his house the evening after Seder and thrown Molotov cocktails in his home and then called the police and said the attack was because of his position on Gaza – even though the politician’s positions on Gaza are very much inside the Democratic mainstream and no different than many other governors and politicians who aren’t Jewish. Now imagine if the Democratic President had said nothing about it or just offhandedly referred to the assassin as a “whack job” without mentioning antisemitism, and if it had taken that President a week to call the victim of the attack. I can tell you that if I was working in a Jewish outreach role for that President, my phone would have been ringing off the hook. But when Trump responds this way nothing happens.
So, why this ridiculous double standard? First, is the obvious Trump fatigue that applies to so many issues. There are just so many crazy things going on that no one can focus on any one issue.
More important though is that Trump appeals to Israelis – especially right wing Israelis – on a very base cultural level. He moved the embassy to Jerusalem and says nasty things about Palestinians and protesters on college campuses. So it doesn’t matter if he does real harm to Israel by giving away its attack plans on Iran, burning important intel sources in Syria, or neglecting to stand up against an antisemitic attack against a Jewish governor. And it doesn’t matter that Joe Biden is the one who actually sent aircraft carriers to the Middle East to protect Israel and deter Iran after October 7, or helped defend Israel from multiple Iranian missile attacks.
In many ways, appealing to Israelis on cultural issues, while actually harming their national interests is pretty similar to his ability to appeal to working class voters even as he pursues policies that line the pockets of his billionaire cronies.
Trump’s popularity with the Israeli right also means Netanyahu never criticizes Trump publicly and looks for ways to avoid daylight (as opposed to seeking daylight like he did with Biden). And all of that bounces back into the American Jewish community – especially to conservative Jews but also a segment of the Jewish population who votes for Democrats but remains conservative on Israel issues.
There is also a challenge of the social media environment that drives so much of this. Conservatives have invested more than liberals in this space. I felt it during the campaign in the Jewish community where disinformation was and remains prevalent (At some point I’ll write a piece just about that. It was genuinely disturbing). Every day there was another tweet, Instagram post, or TikTok video full of lies calling Kamala Harris antisemitic or anti-Israel, and these items got remarkable traction and made their way through various chat groups throughout the Jewish community. It was so bad that I had to set up a specific line of effort with our volunteers and experts just to knock all this crazy stuff down.
So what do we do to respond? First, we have to keep telling the truth and pointing out the hypocrisy because some of our messaging really does work to knock down these myths, and some of our counter-messaging like Trump’s antisemitic remarks about blaming Jews for a potential loss really do break through.
Second, Democrats and liberals need to make a major investment in the social media ecosystem to build up a counter to Republicans. That is going to take a lot of money and a lot of time, but it’s much bigger than just the Jewish community and my sense is Democrats get it and that will be happening over the next few years. But part of that effort needs to be targeted at Jewish specific content. We as a community are not immune to this problem as I can testify firsthand.
Finally, it’s important to remember that despite this frustrating double standard, 70% of Jews still voted for Kamala Harris in 2024. That is largely because most American Jews are liberal and their values are much more consistent with the Democratic Party. But we also worked very hard to keep those voters by fighting the disinformation and the double standard, and that is something we are going to have to continue to do.