Both US presidential candidates have proclaimed the strong relationship with Israel should continue to be the cornerstone of US policy in the Middle East. Both seem sometimes struggling for Israel’s favor as much as they struggle for American voters’ favor. And both have strong family ties with Israel.
Here two interesting articles on Trump and Antisemitism
The Republican nominee’s proposal to apply an ideological test to potential immigrants is based on precedent: The United States in the last century instituted a broad ban on communists and their sympathizers, and Jewish groups after World War II sought to extend similar strictures to those who sympathized with Nazis.
Nonetheless, Jewish civil rights and immigration groups today have questions about the viability of Trump’s proposal and whether it is ethical to institute an ideological litmus test on arrivals from countries with vastly different values and education systems.
Read more: Is Donald Trump’s proposal to keep out anti-Semites practical — or ethical?
Last year, Breitbart News launched its bureau in Jerusalem. In honor of the occasion, Breitbart’s President and CEO Larry Solov wrote about the moment the controversial right wing news site started to transform from one blogger’s hobby to a conservative media empire. It happened in Israel, he wrote, when Solov accompanied his friend, the late Andrew Breitbart, on a junket for conservative bloggers financed by pro-Israeli hasbara groups. At the top of the article there is a photograph of the happy bloggers, along with one Benjamin Netanyahu, then Leader of the Opposition. In a week that Breitbart’s spirit may have taken over Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, it is a photo that is worth recalling.
Left wing conspiracy theorists have long alleged that Netanyahu was the mastermind behind breitbart.com, though Solov and Breitbart don’t seem to have needed any encouragement. “One thing we specifically discussed was our desire to start a site that would be unapologetically pro-freedom and pro-Israel. We were sick of the anti- Israel bias of the mainstream media and J-Street,” Solov wrote. And they kept their promise: over the years Breitbart News has heaped as much praise on Netanyahu as it has poured poison on Barack Obama: “Mr. President, You Disgust Me” was one such tasteful offering. The site summed up Netanyahu’s March, 2015 speech in Congress against the Iran nuclear deal with the headline: “Netanyahu’s Speech Unites Congress and Diminishes Obama.”
