American Jews don’t love ‘Israel’ enough, says Trump
Washington (QNN)- Former US President Donald Trump has said American Jews don’t love ‘Israel’ enough because they didn’t vote for him.
In an interview with the Brooklyn-based ultra-Orthodox weekly Ami, the former president criticised American Jews for not voting for him in larger numbers during the US’s last presidential elections despite his unprecedented support for ‘Israel’.
“American Jews don’t love Israel enough,” Trump told the weekly in comments published on Wednesday.
“You know what really surprised me?” Trump asked the interviewer.
“I did the Heights, I did Jerusalem, and I did Iran—the Iran Deal was a disaster, right? And I also did many other things,” Trump said, while referring to his decision to recognise Israeli sovereignty over Syria’s Golan Heights and Jerusalem, as well as his withdrawal from the nuclear deal.
“Jewish people who live in the United States don’t love Israel enough.”
“Does that make sense to you?”
“I’m not talking about Orthodox Jews. I believe we got 25% of the Jewish vote, and it doesn’t make sense,” Trump continued.
“It just seems strange to me,” Trump said, before exclaiming, “But I did very well in Florida. I did great in Florida.”
Trump added: “Jewish people who live in the United States don’t love Israel enough. Does that make sense to you? I’m not talking about Orthodox Jews.”
— Jacob Kornbluh (@jacobkornbluh) June 17, 2021
According to a 2019 survey conducted by the Pew Research Center, American Jews were much more likely than their Christian counterparts to express criticism of his approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with 42 percent agreeing with the statement that the then-president was favouring Israelis too much.
According to a Gallup poll released earlier that year, about half of American Jews identified as Democrats.
Following the 2020 presidential election, a poll commissioned by the Republican Jewish Coalition found that 30.5 percent of Jews voted for Trump, while a competing poll commissioned by the liberal group J Street found that 77 percent of Jewish Americans voted for Biden and only 21 percent for Trump.
“Trump pushed the Jewish vote further to the Democrats,” the group’s pollster wrote in a memo summarizing the results.
