Abstract
During the 2016 election campaign, Donald Trump vowed to change US priorities and strengthen the relationship of his administration with Israel and its government. As president, Mr. Trump followed on all of his campaign promises relating to the region: He recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and moved the US Embassy to Jerusalem, recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, withdrew the United States from the Iran Nuclear Deal, took unilateral supportive actions in the UN, and repeatedly emphasized US commitment to the security and prosperity of Israel. This chapter reviews President Trump’s actions on Israel and demonstrates that they serve the President well in fulfilling commitments to of his political base and pressuring Jewish voters to critique and abandon their political alignment with the Democratic Party. In doing so, the President taps into and strengthens the ongoing process of increasing partisan divide over Israel and exploits the issue for political gains.
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Notes
- 1.
Entry to Israel Law, 1952. Article 2(d). Amendment 27 (March 6, 2017).
- 2.
Cavari and Freedman (2017) show that the issue has been mentioned and discussed in presidential debate in every presidential election since 1976, and every Democratic and Republican party platform since the 93rd Congress (1973) has included a section mentioning the special relationship between Israel and the United States and a promise to continue American support of Israel.
- 3.
The survey results reported here were obtained from searches of the iPOLL Databank and other resources provided by the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research. For detailed information about the data included in this figure, see Cavari and Freedman (2020).
- 4.
ABC News/Washington Post. ABC News/Washington Post Poll, March 2015. Survey Question: “Do you approve or disapprove of the way (Barack) Obama is handling US relations with Israel?” ABC News/Washington Post. Cornell University, Ithaca, NY: Roper Center for Public Opinion Research, iPOLL.
- 5.
Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. Quinnipiac University Poll, April 2015. Survey Question: “Do you approve or disapprove of the way Barack Obama is handling…the situation between Israel and the Palestinians?” Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. Cornell University, Ithaca, NY: Roper Center for Public Opinion Research, iPOLL.
- 6.
Survey conducted on May 24–25, 2017 by the American Public Opinion toward Israel (APOI) Center using the Midgam online panel. Sample of 823 who are a politically representative sample of Israeli Jews.
- 7.
The clear majority of Jewish Americans identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party, and there is no evidence that this has changed significantly during the Trump administration so far (Newport 2019).
- 8.
Surveys collected from the Roper iPoll Archive. The two 2017 surveys were conducted by Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, on January 5–9, and February 16–21, 2017. The 2018 survey was conducted by SSRS for the Cable News Network (CNN) on August 9–12, 2018. All three surveys are of a representative sample of national adults.
- 9.
AJC’s 2018 Survey of American Jewish Opinion, conducted by the research company SSRS, is based on telephone interviews carried out April 18–May 10 with a national sample of 1001 Jews over age 18. AJC’s 2018 Survey of Israeli Jewish Opinion, conducted by Geocartography, is based on telephone interviews carried out in May with a national sample of 1000 Jews over age 18.
- 10.
CNN/ORC Poll Conducted by Opinion Research Corporation, field dates: February 12–15, 2015. Provided by Roper Center for Public Opinion Research.
- 11.
President Trump also met privately with Benny Gantz in the White House and presented to him the plan, which he too endorsed.
- 12.
Moving forward with the plan, Prime Minister announced that he will immediately pass a government resolution to annex territory identified by the plan as Israeli territory. The Trump administration announced that he does not approve such unilateral move before the upcoming election (March 2, 2020) and without proper planning. In doing that, the Administration limited Netanyahu’s opportunity to capitalize on the plan for political gains.
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Acknowledgements
I thank Benjamin Yoel for his excellent research assistance: Collecting, analyzing, and making sense of data and facts about Trump’s policies toward Israel in historical perspective.
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Cavari, A. (2021). Trump, Israel, and the Shifting Pattern of Support for a Traditional Ally. In: Renshon, S.A., Suedfeld, P. (eds) The Trump Doctrine and the Emerging International System. The Evolving American Presidency. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45050-2_12
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