After All the Mishegoss, Can Harris Get the Jewish Vote She Needs?

Seth
Mandel, the rabid right-wing editor of Commentary, complains
that Harris and her team employ an “antagonistic tone toward Israel.” His
evidence? When speaking of the more than
42,000 people killed in Israel’s attack on Gaza in the wake of the October 7, 2023,
massacre, she says things like: “The images of dead children and desperate,
hungry people.… We cannot look away in the face of these tragedies.… We cannot
allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering.
And I will not be silent.”

We
hear a great deal about the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, but right-wing
Jews are at least as excited about its cousin, “Project Esther,”
presented on the anniversary of Hamas’s October 7 terrorist attack. Like the
mainstream legacy Jewish organizations, such as the Anti-Defamation League, or ADL,
AIPAC, and the American Jewish Committee, the 33-page report treats anti-Zionism
as identical to antisemitism and demands—as Trump has done—that colleges crack
down on anti-Israel protests, which it claims to be part of a “global Hamas
Support Network (HSN).”

In
fact, the majority of American Jews are increasingly uncomfortable with
Israel’s actions, both in Gaza and the West Bank. This explains what would
otherwise appear to be a contradiction noted in the Forward survey, which explains
that American Jews think Harris would handle the Israel-Hamas war better than
Trump by a hefty 54 to 36 percent. However, most also see Trump as more
supportive of Israel. The plurality of Jews polled wish that the United States would “support
Israelis and Palestinians equally,” as compared to the 31 percent who think “it
should mostly support Israelis” and the 24 percent who think “it should only
support Israelis” (6 percent said it should support the Palestinians).