In a Just World, Trump and Netanyahu Will Someday Share a Prison Cell

Israel has become a global pariah—“increasingly isolated,” the New York Times recently reported. Polls in the United States and around the world reveal growing opposition to Israel’s actions in Gaza, particularly since Israel has no obvious plan to end its war.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has himself, and his right-wing government partners, to blame. He doesn't give a damn about Palestinian lives or the Israeli hostages taken by Hamas. He primarily cares about expanding his power and staying out of prison on corruption charges. He thinks that extending the war in Gaza will help him do that. Sound familiar?

I'm proud to be Jewish. I'm proud of the fact that Jews have disproportionately been involved in all the major American progressive movements since the 1800s. I believe in the core Jewish value of tikkun olam – repairing the world and ending human suffering.

I support Israel's right to exist. I've been to Israel three times—the first time in 1965 and most recently in 2015. I have family members there. But I am 100% opposed to Netanyahu's government, its war crimes in Gaza, its support for Jewish settlements on the West Bank, its racism, its attacks on the country’s progressive organizations (which I wrote about in 2016), and its efforts to undermine what’s left of Israeli democracy. I support Palestinians' right to a sovereign homeland, but not one run by Hamas, a theocratic, fascist, anti-woman, anti-gay terrorist organization.

I'm pleased that most American Jews, and a small but growing number of American Jewish organizations—including, most recently, the Union of Reform Judaism, the largest and most liberal of all Jewish religious movements—oppose Israel's atrocities in Gaza, including thwarting food, water, medical, and other aid from reaching those who need it. (Yes, Hamas stole some of the aid that was sent there, but not much of it. That's Netanyahu's lame excuse for blocking all humanitarian aid. That's an outrage).

I believe, along with a majority of Democrats in the Senate, that the U.S. should end military aid to Israel until there is a ceasefire and ultimately a peace agreement.

I know there's been an upsurge of antisemitism and hate crimes against Jews in the United States. And yes, some of those incidents have occurred on a handful of college campuses. But the overall number is quite small—not close to the level that ADL wants you to believe, which they falsely quantify by equating criticism of Israel with antisemitism.

A few anti-Israel protesters use rhetoric that can be described antisemitic and that understandably makes some Jews feel uncomfortable. But college campuses are not hotbeds of Jew hatred. That's a big lie that Trump and the ADL and groups like Mothers Against College Anti-Semitism use for their own overlapping purposes.

In fact, most people protesting Israel's actions are not anti-semites. They just want the killing and suffering in Gaza to end. I've protested Israel's atrocities and I'm not an anti-semite.

If colleges want to address antisemitism, limiting protest and free speech (and caving in to Trump's demands over curriculum, admissions, and DEI programs) is not the way to do it. Instead, colleges should do more to educate students, faculty and staff about the history and current reality of antisemitism—and how it is similar to and different from other kinds of bigotry, including racism, sexism, nativism, Islamophobia, and homophobia. More courses, more speakers, more dialogue, and more opportunities for Jewish, Muslim, and Christian students to work together on regular academic, extracurricular, community-oriented, and social justice projects to build and foster connections and trust.

The biggest threat to American Jews are not on college campus. They are the right-wing hate groups who Trump has encouraged, emboldened, and pardoned. These are the "Jews will not replace us" Nazis who marched in Charlottesville. These are the insurrectionists who wore "Camp Auschwitz" sweatshirts on January 6, as they invaded the Capitol building in Washington, D.C. to try to overturn the 2020 election. These are the Trump supporters who shoot Jews in synagogues (in Pittsburgh and elsewhere), at public parades (like the one in Highland Park, Illinois), and at the Jewish museum in D.C. These are the conspiracy theorists who spout antisemitic stereotypes about an alleged international Jewish cabal run by George Soros and others.

It is no accident that the upsurge of right-wing antisemitism began soon after Trump announced his first campaign for president in 2015. That Trump is himself a long time anti-semite is well-documented. He traffics in antisemitic stereotypes and he cultivates and encourages hate groups, including neo-Nazi groups. He has long admired Hitler.

Trump mainly cares about appealing to his base. Only 26% of Jews voted for Trump last year and few Jews support his policies or actions. A huge part of his base, however, are white evangelical Christians. About 80% of them voted for Trump in 2016, 2020, and 2024, accounting for almost half of his total vote.

The extreme wing of the evangelical movement are the Christian nationalists (like Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and several other high-level Trump appointees), who now account for almost 30% of all Americans. They advocate authoritarianism. They are white supremacists and anti-semites. They believe that the United States is and should be a Christian nation, governed by Biblical doctrine and not by the Constitution. In that scenario, Jews are, at best, second-class citizens.

Trump doesn't give a damn about protecting Jews from antisemitism. His attacks, and those of the Republicans in Congress (led by Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York), on universities for allegedly fostering antisemitism are really about intimidating a major bastion of liberalism and free speech. Trump is on a crusade against institutions he considers his enemies—unions, artists and performers (and institutions like the Kennedy Center), the courts, the media, and universities and colleges. He wants to intimidate and silence them. He is weaponizing antisemitism to gain more power and stifle his opponents.

And so is Netanyahu. But it is backfiring on both of them. Israel has become a global pariah. And Trump is a laughing stock among world leaders for his authoritarian policies, his ignorance, his megalomania, and his pathological lies. Trump’s declining support in the U.S. is likely to help the Democratics win a major of House seats next year, which would allow them to neutralize many of Trump’s policies, hold investigations and hearings to expose his corruption, and even put pressure on Israel by limiting or ending U.S. arms sales.

In my fantasy world of the not-too-distance future, Trump and Netanyahu share a prison cell. That would be equal justice under the law.