Since the start of his political career, Donald Trump has played on stereotypes about Jews and politics.
He told the Republican Jewish Coalition in 2015 that “you want to control your politicians” and suggested the audience used money to exert control. In the White House, he said Jews who vote for Democrats are “very disloyal to Israel.”
Two years ago, the former president hosted two dinner guests at his Florida residence who were known to make virulent antisemitic comments.
And this week, Trump charged that Jewish Democrats were being disloyal to their faith and to Israel. That had many American Jews taking up positions behind now-familiar political lines. Trump opponents accused him of promoting antisemitic tropes while his defenders suggested he was making a fair political point in his own way.
Jonathan Sarna, American Jewish history professor at Brandeis University, said Trump is capitalizing on tensions within the Jewish community.
“For people who hate Donald Trump in the Jewish community, certainly this statement will reinforce their sense that they don’t want to have anything to do with him,” he said. “For people who like Donald Trump in the Jewish community, they probably nod in agreement.”
To many Jewish leaders in a demographic that has overwhelmingly identified as Democratic and supported President Joe Biden in 2020, Trump’s latest comments promoted harmful antisemitic stereotypes, painting Jews as having divided loyalties and that there’s only one right way to be Jewish religiously.
“That escalation of rhetoric is so dangerous, so divisive and so wrong,” said Rabbi Rick Jacobs, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, the largest US Jewish religious denomination. “This is a moment when Israel needs there to be more bipartisan support.”
But Matt Brooks, CEO of the Republican Jewish Coalition, said the former president’s comments must be heard in context of the Israel-Hamas war and Democratic criticisms of the state of Israel.
“What the president was saying in his own unique style was giving voice to things I get asked about multiple times a day,” Brooks said. “How can Jews remain Democrats in light of what is going on?” He contended the Democratic Party is “no longer the pro-Israel bastion it used to be.”
More than 31,800 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli offensive that followed Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel, in which militants killed some 1,200 people and took hostages. Much of northern Gaza has been leveled, and officials warned famine is imminent.
Trump’s comments followed a speech by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, the country’s highest-ranking Jewish official. Schumer, a Democrat, last week sharply criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ‘s handling of the war in Gaza. Schumer called for new elections in Israel and warned the civilian toll was damaging Israel’s global standing.
“Any Jewish person that votes for Democrats hates their religion,” Trump retorted Monday on a talk show. “They hate everything about Israel.”
A cascade of Jewish voices, from Schumer to the Anti-Defamation League to religious leaders, denounced Trump’s statement.
In a statement to The Associated Press on Wednesday, the Trump campaign doubled down, criticizing Schumer, congressional Democrats’ support of Palestinians and the Biden administration’s policies on Iran and on aid to Gaza.
“President Trump is right,” said Karoline Leavitt, national press secretary for the Trump campaign.
Jeffrey Herf, an antisemitism expert at the University of Maryland, disagrees with Schumer’s call for a ceasefire in Gaza, but believes most Democrats support Israel — and he said a second Biden term would be better for it than a second Trump one.
“If (Trump) loses the 2024 election, his comments prepare the way for blaming the Jews for his defeat,” Herf said. “The clear result would be to fan the flames of antisemitism and assert that, yet again, the Jews are guilty.”
Sarna saw Trump as trying to appeal to politically conservative Jews, particularly the small but fast-growing Orthodox segment, who see Trump as a defender of Israel.
Also, about 10 percent of US Jews are immigrants, according to a 2020 Pew Research Center report. Sarna said significant numbers are conservative.
At the same time, Democrats face the tension between their Jewish constituency, which is predominantly pro-Israel, and its progressive wing, which is more pro-Palestinian.
Sarna said that while it may seem odd to focus so much attention on subsections of a minority population, “elections in America are very close, and every vote counts.”
Conservative commentator Ben Shapiro said Tuesday on his podcast that Trump “was making a point that, frankly, I have made myself, which is that Jews who are voting Democrat do not understand the Democratic Party.” Shapiro, who practices Orthodox Judaism, contended the party “overlooks antisemitism” within its ranks.
Rabbi Jill Jacobs, the CEO of T’ruah, a rabbinic human rights organization, said Trump has no business dictating who’s a good Jew.
“By insinuating that good Jews will vote for the party that is best for Israel, Trump is evoking the age-old antisemitic trope of dual loyalty — an accusation that Jews are more loyal to their religion than to their country, and therefore can’t be trusted,” she said. “Historically, this accusation has fueled some of the worst antisemitic violence.”
In his own time in office, Trump’s policy “of supporting Prime Minister Netanyahu and the settler agenda only endangered Palestinians and Israelis and made peace more difficult to achieve,” Jacobs said.
Pittsburgh-based journalist Beth Kissileff — whose husband, a rabbi in the Conservative denomination of Judaism, in 2018 survived the nation’s deadliest antisemitic attack — said it was highly offensive for Trump to be a “self-appointed arbiter” of what it means to be Jewish.
“Chuck Schumer had every right to say what he said,” Kissileff added. “Just because we’re Jews, it doesn’t mean we agree with everything the (Israeli) government is doing. We have compassion for innocent Palestinian lives.”
Brooks, of the Republican Jewish Coalition, defended the former president against antisemitism charges, pointing to his presidential record as an example of proof.
Trump pursued policies that were popular among American Christian Zionists and Israeli religious-nationalists, including moving the US embassy to Jerusalem and supporting Jewish settlements in occupied territories. His daughter Ivanka is a convert to Orthodox Judaism, and her husband and their children are Jewish. The couple worked as high-profile surrogates to the Jewish community during Trump’s administration.
Trump’s core supporters include white evangelicals, many of whom believe the modern state of Israel fulfills biblical prophecy. Prominent evangelicals who support Zionism have also been criticized for inflammatory statements about Jewish people.
Sixty-nine percent of Jewish voters in 2020 supported Biden, while 30 percent supported Trump, according to AP VoteCast, a survey of the electorate conducted in partnership with NORC at the University of Chicago. That made Jewish voters one of the religious groups where support for Biden was strongest. Also, 73 percent of Jewish voters in 2020 said that Trump was too tolerant of extremist groups.
Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson said Trump’s comments are “in a complex middle zone” — not explicitly antisemitic, but reliant on such tropes.
American Jews base their votes on a complex mix of issues and values, “among them inclusion, diversity, climate change, civil rights,” said Artson, a leader within Conservative Judaism. “While they love Israel diversely, many of us also care about the wellbeing and self-determination of Palestinians.”
US Jews upset with Trump’s latest rhetoric say he doesn’t get to tell them how to be Jewish
https://arab.news/b3gg7
US Jews upset with Trump’s latest rhetoric say he doesn’t get to tell them how to be Jewish
- Trump’s core supporters include white evangelicals, many of whom believe the modern state of Israel fulfills biblical prophecy
US House urged to share ethics report on sexual misconduct case of Trump nominee for attorney general
- Justice Department investigated Matt Gaetz for sexual misconduct but brought no charges
- The former House member is a frequent defender of President-elect Trump on cable news
WASHINGTON: Republican US Senator Markwayne Mullin called on the House of Representatives on Sunday to share an unreleased ethics report into alleged sexual misconduct involving a 17-year-old girl by Matt Gaetz, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for attorney general.
Gaetz, 42, resigned his seat in the Republican-controlled House on Wednesday, hours after Trump unveiled his choice of the lawmaker and two days before the House Ethics Committee was expected to release its report, which also looked into allegations of illegal drug use. Gaetz denies any wrongdoing.
Mullin told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that the Senate, which holds the authority to confirm or deny Trump’s nominations to high-level positions, needs to see the report.
“The Senate should have access to that,” Mullin said. “Should it be released to the public or not? That I guess will be part of the negotiations.”
Gaetz is one of a number of Cabinet nominees tapped by Trump last week who lack the resumes normally seen in candidates for high-level administration jobs. He would need to be confirmed by the Senate — where Trump’s Republicans will have a majority of at least 52 of the 100 seats — to get the post. A handful have expressed skepticism at the choice.
Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson on Friday said the ethics committee should not release its report. He stood by that on Sunday.
“The speaker does not have the authority to stop the release of a report by the ethics committee, but I’ve just simply said what I believe is an obvious point, that we don’t want to go down that road,” Johnson said on CNN.
Mullin has previously described Gaetz as unprincipled, and he said on Sunday that “the background of Matt Gaetz does matter.”
But he said he had not made a decision on whether to vote for or against Gaetz.
“I’m going to give him a fair shot just like every individual,” Mullin said.
The Justice Department investigated Gaetz for nearly three years over sex trafficking allegations involving the teenager. Gaetz’s office said in 2023 he had been told by prosecutors he would not face criminal charges.
The girl’s lawyer on Thursday called for the report to be released to the public.
Mullin also appeared open to the idea of letting Trump bypass the Senate altogether as an “absolute last resort” if lawmakers somehow couldn’t agree.
The technique, called a recess appointment, allows the president to short circuit the upper chamber’s power to block political nominees. Trump has publicly called for Republican lawmakers to give him that power, a move that would give him extraordinary latitude to appoint whomever he wished.
Senate Democrats have expressed widespread opposition to the Gaetz pick.
“The Senate has a constitutional role,” said Democratic Senator Chris Coons on Fox News Sunday. “It’s called our advice and consent role to make sure that a president-elect mostly gets their choice ... but doesn’t get to put people in who are unqualified or who lack the requisite character and capabilities to lead an incredibly important agency like the Department of Justice.”
G20 leaders to grapple with climate, taxes, Trump comeback
- UN chief has called onG20 members, who account for 80 percent of global emissions, to show “leadership and compromise” to facilitate a deal
- At the last G20 in India, leaders called for a tripling of renewable energy sources by the end of the decade, but without explicitly calling for an end to the use of fossil fuels
RIO DE JANEIRO: G20 leaders gather in Brazil on Monday to discuss fighting poverty, boosting climate financing and other multilateral initiatives that could yet be upended by Donald Trump’s impending return to the White House.
US President Joe Biden will attend his last summit of the world’s leading economies but only as a lame duck whom other leaders are already looking beyond.
The main star of the show is expected to be Chinese President Xi Jinping, who has cast himself as a global statesman and protector of free trade in the face of Trump’s “America First” agenda.
Brazil’s left-wing President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva will be using his hosting duties to highlight his championing of Global South issues and the fight against climate change.
The summit venue is Rio de Janeiro’s stunning bayside museum of modern art.
Security is tight for the gathering, which comes days after a failed bomb attack on Brazil’s Supreme Court in Brasilia by a suspected far-right extremist, who killed himself in the process.
The summit will cap a farewell diplomatic tour by Biden which took him to Lima for a meeting of Asia-Pacific trading partners, and then to the Amazon in the first such visit for a sitting US president.
Biden, who has looked to burnish his legacy as time runs down on his presidency, has insisted his climate record would survive another Trump mandate.
Climate conference
The G20 meet is happening at the same time as the COP29 climate conference in Azerbaijan, which has stalled on the issue of greater climate finance for developing countries.
All eyes have turned to Rio for a breakthrough.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called for G20 members, who account for 80 percent of global emissions, to show “leadership and compromise” to facilitate a deal.
A Brazilian diplomatic source said fast-developing nations like China were refusing pressure by rich countries to join them in funding global climate projects but added that he was hopeful of progress at the summit.
The meeting comes in a year marked by another grim litany of extreme weather events, including Brazil’s worst wildfire season in over a decade, fueled by a record drought blamed at least partly on climate change.
At the last G20 in India, leaders called for a tripling of renewable energy sources by the end of the decade, but without explicitly calling for an end to the use of fossil fuels.
One invited leader who declined to come to Rio is Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose arrest is sought by the International Criminal Court and who said his presence would “wreck” the gathering.
Lula, 79, told Brazil’s GloboNews channel on Sunday that the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East would be kept off the summit agenda to focus on the poor.
“Because if not, we will not discuss other things which are more important for people that are not at war, who are poor people and invisible to the world,” he said.
The summit will open on Monday with Lula, a former steelworker who grew up in poverty, launching a “Global Alliance against Hunger and Poverty.”
“What I want to say to the 733 million people who are hungry in the world, children who go to sleep and wake up not being sure if they will have any food to put in their mouths, is: today there isn’t any, but tomorrow there will be,” Lula said on the weekend.
Brazil is also pushing for higher taxes on billionaires.
Lula had faced resistance to parts of his agenda from Argentina but on Sunday a Brazilian diplomatic source said negotiators from all G20 members had agreed on a draft final statement to be put to their respective leaders.
The ‘super year’ of elections has been super bad for incumbents as voters punish them in droves
- Around 70 countries accounting for about half the world’s population went to the polls this year
- Except for a few, notably in Mexico, the parties in power were either toppled or suffered diminished advantages
BANGKOK: Whether on the left or the right, regardless of how long they’ve been in power, sitting governments around the world have been drubbed this year by disgruntled voters in what has been called the “super year” for elections.
Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election was just the latest in a long line of losses for incumbent parties in 2024, with people in some 70 countries accounting for about half the world’s population going to the polls.
Issues driving voter discontent have varied widely, though there has been almost universal malaise since the COVID-19 pandemic as people and businesses struggle to get back on their feet while facing stubbornly high prices, cash-strapped governments and a surge in migration.
“There’s an overall sense of frustration with political elites, viewing them as out of touch, that cuts across ideological lines,” said Richard Wike, director of global attitudes research at the Pew Research Center.
He noted that a Pew poll of 24 countries found that the appeal of democracy itself was slipping as voters reported increasing economic distress and a sense that no political faction truly represents them.
“Lots of factors are driving this,” Wike said, “but certainly feelings about the economy and inflation are a big factor.”
Since the pandemic hit in 2020, incumbents have been removed from office in 40 of 54 elections in Western democracies, said Steven Levitsky, a political scientist at Harvard University, revealing “a huge incumbent disadvantage.”
In Britain, the right-of-center Conservatives suffered their worst result since 1832 in July’s election, which returned the center-left Labour Party to power after 14 years.
But just across the English Channel, the far right rocked the governing parties of France and Germany, the European Union’s biggest and most powerful members, in June elections for the parliament of the 27-nation bloc.
The results pushed French President Emmanuel Macron to call a parliamentary election in hope of stemming a far-right surge at home. The anti-immigration National Rally party won the first round, but alliances and tactical voting knocked it down to third place in the second round, producing a fragile government atop a divided legislature.
In Asia, a group of South Korean liberal opposition parties, led by the Democratic Party, defeated the ruling conservative People Power Party in April’s parliamentary elections.
India’s Narendra Modi, meanwhile, had been widely expected to easily sweep to a third straight term in June but instead voters turned away from his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party in droves, costing it its majority in parliament, though it was able to remain in power with the help of allies.
Likewise, Japanese voters in October punished the Liberal Democratic Party, which has governed the country nearly without interruption since 1955.
Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba will stay in power, but the greater-than-expected loss ended the LDP’s one-sided rule, giving the opposition a chance to achieve policy changes long opposed by the conservatives.
“If you were to ask me to explain Japan in a vacuum, that’s not too difficult,” said Paul Nadeau, an adjunct assistant professor at Temple University’s Japan campus in Tokyo.
“Voters were punishing an incumbent party for a corruption scandal, and this gave them a chance to express a lot more frustrations that they already had.”
Globally, however, it’s harder to draw conclusions.
“This is pretty consistent across different situations, different countries, different elections — incumbents are getting a crack on the shins,” he said. “And I don’t have any good big picture explanations for why that is.”
Rob Ford, professor of political science at the University of Manchester, said inflation has been a major driver of “the greatest wave of anti-incumbent voting ever seen” — though the reasons behind the backlash may also be “broader and more diffuse.”
“It could be something directly to do with the long-term effects of the COVID pandemic — a big wave of ill health, disrupted education, disrupted workplace experiences and so forth making people less happy everywhere, and they are taking it out on governments,” he said.
“A kind of electoral long COVID.”
In South Africa, high unemployment and inequality helped drive a dramatic loss of support for the African National Congress, which had governed for three decades since the end of the apartheid system of white minority rule. The party once led by Nelson Mandela lost its parliamentary majority in May’s election and was forced to go into coalition with opposition parties.
Other elections in Africa presented a mixed picture, said Alex Vines, director of the African Program at the international affairs think tank Chatham House, partially clouded by countries with authoritarian leaders whose reelections were not in doubt, like Rwanda’s long-serving President Paul Kagame who got 99 percent of the vote.
In African countries with strong democratic institutions, however, the pattern of incumbents being punished holds, Vines said.
“The countries with stronger institutions — South Africa, Senegal, Botswana — have witnessed either a government of national unity or change of party of government,” he said.
In Botswana, voters unexpectedly ejected a party that had ruled for 58 years since independence from Britain in an October election.
Vines said that across the continent, “you’ve got this electorate now who have no memory of decolonization or the end of apartheid and so have different priorities, who are also feeling the cost-of-living pressures.”
In Latin America, one major country stands out for bucking the anti-incumbent wave – Mexico.
Andrés Manuel López Obrador, limited to a single term, selected Claudia Sheinbaum, a member of his party, to succeed him. Sheinbaum easily won the presidency in June’s election.
Wike noted that Mexico is one of the few countries in Pew’s survey where voters reported satisfaction with economic conditions.
Some newcomers to office have already found that the honeymoon following their victories has been short, as people have rapidly turned on them.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has seen his approval ratings plummet from a jaded electorate that wants lower prices and better public services — but is deeply skeptical of politicians’ intention and ability to deliver change.
Ford, of the University of Manchester, said it’s a problem for democracy when voters, whose task is to hold governments to account, are so quick to pass judgment.
“If voters are the electoral equivalent of a hanging judge, putting politicians to the gallows whether they be guilty or innocent, then what incentive is there for governments to try?” he asked. “The angels and the devils get chucked out alike, but being an angel is harder.”
Trump first came to power as a challenger in the 2016 election, and then lost as an incumbent in the 2020 election to Joe Biden. This year, he defeated Biden’s vice president, Kamala Harris, who stepped in late in the race when the president unexpectedly dropped out.
Trump’s win is one of the conservative populist movement’s highest-profile triumphs. But another icon of the cause, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, saw his own party suffer its worst showing in decades in this year’s European Union election, demonstrating that no movement is safe from backlash.
Nadeau, of Temple University, suggested that perhaps analysts had previously misunderstood global electoral trends — parsing them as ideological shifts — “when all along it was actually an anti-incumbent mood.”
“Maybe it has always been anti-incumbent, and we were just misdiagnosing it,” he said.
Trump’s pick for top defense post paid woman after sex assault allegation but denies wrongdoing, his lawyer says
- Lawyer Timothy Parlator tries to turn the tables on Hegseth's accuser by portraying her as the "aggressor"
- While admitting that the Fox News host paid the accuser, the lawyer accused the woman of blackmail and extortion
WASHINGTON: Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for defense secretary, paid a woman who accused him of sexual assault to head off the threat of a baseless lawsuit, according to Hegseth’s lawyer.
Hegseth was accused of sexual assault in 2017 after a speaking appearance at a Republican women’s event in Monterey, California, according to a statement released by the city. No charges were filed.
His lawyer, Timothy Parlatore, told The Associated Press on Sunday that the sexual encounter was consensual and that the woman who made the accusation to police several days later was the “aggressor.” That assertion has not been confirmed in the statement released by the city.
Parlatore said a payment was made to the woman as part of a confidential settlement a few years after the police investigation because Hegseth was concerned that she was prepared to file a lawsuit that he feared could have resulted in him being fired from Fox News, where he was a popular host. Parlatore would not reveal the amount of the payment.
“He was falsely accused and my position is that he was the victim of blackmail,” Parlatore said, calling it a case of “successful extortion.”
The Washington Post earlier reported details of the payment. The newspaper also reported it obtained a copy of a memo sent to Trump’s transition team this past week by a woman who said she is a friend of the accuser that details the sexual assault allegations.
Trump’s transition team had no immediate comment Sunday on the memo.
The person who reported the assault — whose name, age and sex were not released — had bruises on the right thigh, according to the city’s statement. No weapons were involved in the encounter, the person told police.
The incident occurred sometime between 11:59 p.m. on Oct. 7 and 7 a.m. the following morning, according to the city’s statement.
Hegseth was in Monterey at the time to address the California Federation of Republican Women during a banquet dinner held at the group’s biennial convention, according to social media posts and promotional materials from the time.
Monterey officials said they were withholding further details included in the police report because it included analysis and conclusions by law enforcement officials that are exempt from release under state public records law.
At the time of the 2017 accusations, Hegseth, now 44, was going through a divorce with his second wife, with whom he has three children. She filed for divorce after he had a child with a Fox News producer who is now his wife, according to court records and social media posts by Hegseth. His first marriage ended in 2009, also after infidelity by Hegseth, according to court records.
After the accusations first surfaced last week, Steven Cheung, a spokesman for the Trump transition who has been named White House communications director, issued a statement saying the president-elect is “nominating high-caliber and extremely qualified candidates to serve in his Administration.”
“Mr. Hegseth has vigorously denied any and all accusations, and no charges were filed. We look forward to his confirmation as United States Secretary of Defense so he can get started on Day One to Make America Safe and Great Again,” Cheung said.
Bangladesh to seek extradition of ousted Sheikh Hasina: govt
- Hasina has been summoned to appear in court in Dhaka on Monday to face charges of “massacres, killings, and crimes against humanity,” but she remains in exile in India
DHAKA: Bangladesh will seek the extradition of ousted former prime minister Sheikh Hasina who was toppled in a revolution in August and fled to India, interim leader Muhammad Yunus said.
Dhaka has already issued an arrest warrant for 77-year-old Hasina — last seen arriving in neighboring India after fleeing by helicopter as crowds stormed her palace.
Hasina has been summoned to appear in court in Dhaka on Monday to face charges of “massacres, killings, and crimes against humanity,” but she remains in exile in India.
Yunus said his administration was focused on ensuring those guilty of cracking down on the protests to oust Hasina faced justice.
Several of her former government ministers, who were detained and held in custody, are expected in court to face similar charges.
“We have already taken initiatives to try those responsible for enforced disappearances, murders, and the mass killings during the July-August uprising,” Yunus said on Sunday.
The 84-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner was appointed to lead the government as “chief adviser” on August 9, days after the end of Hasina’s 15 years of iron-fisted rule.
Yunus, in a speech to the nation marking 100 days in power since a student-led revolution, said he had spoken to Karim Khan, chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court.
“We will seek the extradition of the ousted autocrat from India,” Yunus said, referring to Hasina.
Earlier this month, Bangladesh said it would request an Interpol “red notice” alert for fugitive leaders of Hasina’s regime.
Red notices issued by the global police body alert law enforcement agencies worldwide about fugitives.
India is a member of Interpol, but the red notice does not mean New Delhi must hand Hasina over.
Member countries can “apply their own laws in deciding whether to arrest a person,” according to the group, which organizes police cooperation between 196 member countries.
Yunus, a microfinance pioneer, is leading a temporary administration to tackle what he has called the “extremely tough” challenge of restoring democratic institutions in the South Asian nation of around 170 million people.
He also begged the country’s “patience” to prepare for the much-awaited poll, vowing an election commission would be formed “within a few days.”
But Yunus said he could not give a timeframe for the elections, saying it was dependent on a raft of reforms.
“I promise that we will hold the much-anticipated election once the necessary and essential reforms are complete,” he said in the broadcast.
“I request your patience until then. We aim to build an electoral system that will endure for decades. For this, we need some time.”
Crisis Group analyst Thomas Kean has called the challenge facing Yunus “monumental,” warning of that “cracks are emerging in the fragile alliance” that pushed him into power.
“For now, Yunus and his colleagues have widespread support, but popular expectations are double-edged,” the thinktank said in a report on Thursday.
“If the interim administration falters in making reforms, the outcome is likely to be an early election with little progress; in the worst-case scenario, the military could assume power.”
