Democrats condemned the former president, who has made such claims in the past
WSJ
Donald Trump has again claimed the Democratic Party “hates Israel” and that Jewish Americans who vote for Democrats “hate” their religion, recycling a claim he made as president that such voters show disloyalty to their faith.
“I actually think they hate Israel,” the former president told Sebastian Gorka, a former adviser who hosts a conservative radio program, in a lengthy interview posted late Monday.
A few moments later he added that Democrats “see a lot of votes” among Americans who are calling for a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war and are therefore toughening their stance with Israel.
“Any Jewish person that votes for Democrats hates their religion, they hate everything about Israel and they should be ashamed of themselves,” Trump said.
President Biden’s campaign quickly condemned the comments.
“The only person who should be ashamed here is Donald Trump,” James Singer, a Biden campaign spokesman, said. “Trump is going to lose again this November because Americans are sick of his hateful resentment, personal attacks, and extreme agenda.”
Trump made the comments in response to a question from Gorka on Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s (D., N.Y.) call this past week for a “new election” in Israel.
Schumer, the highest-ranking Jewish politician in the U.S. and a staunch ally of Israel, criticized Trump’s comments in an online post Monday evening.
“To make Israel a partisan issue only hurts Israel and the US-Israeli relationship,” he wrote on X. “Trump is making highly partisan and hateful rants.”
Jonathan Greenblatt, chief executive of the Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish advocacy group, also criticized Trump in a posting on X.
“Accusing Jews of hating their religion because they might vote for a particular party is defamatory & patently false,” he wrote. “Serious leaders who care about the historic US-Israel alliance should focus on strengthening, rather than unraveling, bipartisan support for the State of Israel.”
Trump made similar comments during his presidency, including in 2019.
“Any Jewish people that vote for a Democrat, I think it shows either a total lack of knowledge or great disloyalty,” he said in the Oval Office during a stream of comments about Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.) and Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.), the first two Muslim women members of Congress who had earlier been barred from entering Israel.
Several Jewish organizations at the time also condemned those remarks, including by pointing out that accusing Jews of “disloyalty” to their country is a longstanding antisemitic trope.
Jews have long voted heavily Democratic. In 2021, the Pew Research Center reported that 71% of Jewish voters said they were Democrats or leaned that way.