Coleman: The Jewish Case for Trump
When I speak to Jewish American voters today, I ask them, “Are you and your loved ones safer today than you were four years ago?” I think American Jews recognize that the security of our families, our communities, our country, and our ally Israel all hinge on this election.
Donald Trump and Kamala Harris have extensive records we can compare. Let’s put the facts on the table, foreign policy first.
Iran is the top state sponsor of terrorism. Its proxies in the Middle East – Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis – are responsible for hundreds of attacks against Americans and our ally Israel in the past year. Hamas carried out the horrific October 7, 2023, invasion of Israel, killing 1200 people and taking 250 hostages, including American citizens. Since then, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Iran itself have targeted Israel with thousands of rockets, missiles, and armed drones.
In addition, Iran-backed militias, including the Houthis, have attacked US military personnel in the region, injuring dozens of them. And Houthi attacks on merchant vessels in the Red Sea have reduced international shipping through that area by 55%, impeding trade and raising prices.
Under President Trump, Iran lacked the means to support this multi-front terrorist campaign. Tehran was broke and isolated because of Trump putting “maximum pressure” on the Iranian economy. Trump withdrew from the dangerous 2015 nuclear deal and laid heavy sanctions on Iran that crippled its ability to fund and carry out terrorism. The Harris-Biden administration undid all of Trump’s efforts to prevent a nuclear Iran and to degrade Iran’s financial and military capabilities. Harris-Biden took us back into negotiations with Iran and made billions available to the mullahs by waiving sanctions and paying billions to the Iranians in exchange for US hostages.
Trump showed strength and resolve in confronting Iranian support for terrorism by ordering a strike to take out Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani. Harris opposed that action.
The money, training, and armaments that made Hamas’s October 7 attack possible would not have been there if Trump’s Iran policy had continued. And Iran had little to fear from Harris- Biden for the slaughter and hostage taking of American citizens that occurred in Israel on October 7th. With Israel at war, the Biden administration slow-walked military assistance and pushed hard for Israel to stand down. Kamala Harris will only worsen the roadblocks that the Biden administration has put on Israel as it continues to fight on seven fronts.
President Trump cemented his diplomatic legacy with the Abraham Accords, an historic set of peace agreements establishing normal relations between Israel and five Muslim-majority countries.
Underlying these regional diplomatic advances was the concrete and clear support of President Trump and his administration for Israel’s legitimacy, sovereignty, and security. Trump’s historic decision to formally recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, to move our embassy there, and to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights marked welcome and major shifts in US policy.
Trump also took the US out of the anti-Israel UN Human Rights Council and ended US funding to UNRWA, the aid agency for Palestinians that has now been proven to be complicit in the criminal and terrorist activities of Hamas in Gaza. The Biden-Harris administration reversed both of those policies.
Now let’s talk about security closer to home. On October 7 last year – while Hamas terrorists were still murdering people in Israeli towns and kibbutzim – protesters were already in the streets and on college campuses to celebrate the violence and denounce Israel and the US. These were not anti-Israel protests: they were pro-Hamas, pro-terrorism, anti-American demonstrations and they continue to this day. Antisemitism in the US has skyrocketed. Nearly 10,000 antisemitic incidents were recorded in just the last year.
Jewish students on college campuses have felt especially unsafe, as antisemitic encampments and protests prevented them from attending classes, and their professors and classmates isolated them for being “Zionists.” Despite unprecedented harassment of Jewish students, elite college administrators have mostly looked the other way.
Kamala Harris owns this, because she has repeatedly expressed sympathy and solidarity with the antisemitic protesters. First, she said the pro-Hamas protesters were “showing what human emotion should be” regarding the war in Gaza. More recently, after a student interrupted her speech to rant about Israel’s “genocide” in Gaza, Harris agreed that what the student was talking about was “real.” even though there is no genocide taking place in Gaza.
While President Trump issued an Executive Order to protect Jewish students facing antisemitism on campus and hold universities accountable for discrimination against Jews on their campuses, Vice President Harris has refused to meet with affected Jewish students.
There are many other issues we could look at: border security and illegal immigration, the fentanyl crisis, law enforcement – all of these have a direct impact on the safety and security of our families. In every case, the Harris-Biden administration has ignored or exacerbated serious problems where President Trump had real solutions.
The contrast between President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris could not be clearer. We were safer under President Trump. At this inflection point in Jewish history, with the stakes this high, Kamala Harris is a risk we cannot afford to take.