In an interview with the Times of Israel on Sunday, Yesha (Jewish Communities in Judea and Samaria) Council Chairman David Elḥayani spoke out against former US President Donald Trump, challenging the narrative that West Bank Jews received major support from the Trump administration during his years in office.
In addition to dismissing the former president’s gestures of support to Israel as merely symbolic, Elḥayani criticized Trump for fanning the flames of racism and conflict.
The Yesha leader also expressed relief over Trump’s loss to incoming President Joe Biden and maintained that the perception of Trump in the eyes of many naive Israelis as a “friend” actually made him more dangerous to the State of Israel than US leaders viewed as hostile.
“It is easier to stand up to someone who is seen as a foe, as opposed to someone who’s seen as a friend,” he said.
Elḥayani specifically attacked Trump’s two-state “Deal of the Century” that attempted to tear roughly 70 percent of the West Bank away from Israel in exchange for allowing Jerusalem to apply sovereignty to the parts of Area C where Jewish communities are located.
When the plan was unveiled in January 2020, Elḥayani was one of the only leaders of Israel’s national camp to unequivocally speak out and organize against the policy.
Elḥayani acknowledged during the interview that he represented a lone voice in the Yesha Council against Trump.
“When everyone says Trump is a friend, it’s hard to find the person who has the balls to come and say, ‘Folks, this is not a friend.’”
But it wasn’t merely Trump’s Israel policies or his two-state plan that Elḥayani found offensive. The Yesha leader also took issue with what he saw as the president’s embrace of racist and anti-Semitic right-wing groups in the United States, which culminated in a deadly riot at the US Capitol building on January 6.
When asked whether he thought Trump had been responsible for the storming of the building that left five people dead, Elḥayani responded, “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.”
Expanding his metaphor, the Yesha leader said that those who descended on Washington under the illusion the election had been stolen from Trump “just needed the match to light them on fire and that match apparently ended up being the words of the president of the United States.”
“We fight like hell, and if you don’t fight like hell you’re not going to have a country anymore,” Trump said in a speech to thousands of supporters before many of them stormed the Capitol.
“You’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong.”
Elḥayani told his interviewer that it wasn’t only Trump’s words on January 6 that incited violence but statements he had been making since entering the White House four years earlier.
“He encouraged incitement and racism throughout his term not just on that day.”
Since the interview was published on Sunday, many nationalist Israelis and right-wing Diaspora Jews have condemned Elḥayani for his scathing criticism of Trump.
We can understand pro-Israel Diaspora Jews on the right having a psychological need to fit Israel into their understanding of US politics (and the conspiracy theories that much of the pro-Trump camp has swallowed). It’s unfortunate but understandable.
What’s more disappointing is the extent to which the Trump years revealed Israel’s national camp to still suffer from exilic thinking.
We shouldn’t want a better emperor in Washington but freedom from empire.
As Elḥayani said, the dangers of a “friendly” US administration that seeks to take 70% of the territories from Israel is more dangerous than an “unfriendly” administration that wants to take 100.
Israel knows how to resist Esav’s bite but not his kiss. While Israel’s national camp appears so full of slaves, Elḥayani stands out as a giant among mice. And his analysis is correct.
Until Israel’s national camp develops a principled desire for independence from the forces of empire, openly hostile US leaders are safest for us.
