In this space last week, I correctly predicted a decisive win by Donald Trump in the US presidential elections and warned of a perilous transition in US-Israel relations in the lame-duck days of the outgoing administration.
I hope and assume that Israel already is working with the Trump team to ward-off the worst plans of the wounded posse propelled by US President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.
Trump can and should declare that when he takes office on January 20, he will act swiftly to overturn any radical departures in US policy away from Israel or towards Iran.
Most important of all for the rebuilding of America’s strategic heft in international affairs and for Israel’s national security – is the return of fear to the US toolbox. Enemies need to fear America, not hear US leaders constantly beg for “immediate ceasefires” and express alarm at the possibility of any “escalation.”
Iran must fear US and Israeli warplanes. Trump must make credible threats of the use of force against Iran’s nuclear weapons program. He must be prepared to arm Israel appropriately for dealing with this danger too.
Just declaring that he will “end” all worldwide wars is misleading and unhelpful. Trump needs to be explicit that America will act with crushing force if its enemies do not understand that a new sheriff is in town.
Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis (as well as Russia, China, Turkey and other bad actors) never took the Democrats seriously. They ignored the Biden-Harris-Blinken-Sullivan squad’s exhortations to deescalate. They did not fear America, and by association they feared Israel less-than-necessary.
This is the first basic takeaway from the US election result. Weakness is bad for America and the Western alliance. It neither deters enemies nor wins elections.
A second takeaway from the Biden-Harris defeat is to eschew the hyperbole of tyranny. Tarring anything your opponent says and does as “fascism” is not credible. Calling your opponent an “existential threat” to democracy and an “existential threat” to every form of liberty and decency does not wash. It usually is an overplay of the political hand. This applies both to those who attack Trump and to those who assault Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.
As Melanie Phillips has written elsewhere, progressives who apply this type of character assassination to Trump (just as self-styled liberals do to Netanyahu in Israel) are themselves guilty of contempt for democracy, suborning the constitutional order, bullying, suppressing contrary opinions, and promoting hatred.
A corollary to this political lesson is that the partisan use of lawfare backfires. Using the courts to try to get Trump’s name struck from the ballot or to put him in prison on jerry-rigged charges is a form of self-defeating antidemocratic politics. Similarly, seeking to criminalize Netanyahu for cigars and champagne or media manipulation is a feint that will fail time and time again.
Crafting real policies that resonate with the public
Worse still, and this is a fourth takeaway, is that negative campaigning and ideological flights-of-fancy distract from the hard work of crafting real policy positions that resonate with the public.
Apparently, more Americans felt the Republicans had promising policies on housing, the cost-of-living, employment, immigration, energy, and crime. The Democrats, not so much. Harris offered mainly to “uphold” liberal orthodoxies and “protect” progressive rights. If it weren’t for Trump’s many liabilities, and based on the issues, the Republican victory would have been even more overwhelming.
In Israel, where security is almost the only issue on which governments rise and fall, negative campaigning and ideological flights-of-fancy similarly have distracted the Left from the hard work of crafting convincing alternative security policies to those of the Right.
For all Netanyahu’s faults and failures, Likud has been clear for almost three decades about preventing runaway Palestinian statehood and countering Iranian hegemony. Left-of-Center political parties have little different to suggest; only patter about personal morals, dictatorial predilections, and democratic values. All this “soft” stuff is important, but insufficient when running for office to lead a country with Israel’s concrete challenges.
A fifth takeaway is that faking temperance and trying to be all things to all people does not work. Having clear principles and positions, no matter how controversial, does.
Harris’s newly adopted “synthetic centrism” on all economic and social matters (– a bull’s eye George Will witticism) ran contrary to her entire, radical public career prior to July. It wasn’t authentic.
Similarly, Harris lost the support of both American Jews (in New York) and American Arabs (in Dearborn) because she tried to butter-up each sector with implausible, contradictory promises.
She promised to always uphold Israel’s “right” to defend itself but also to push Israel into “rapid” retreat from Gaza and to force it to fight within the bounds of international law that is uniquely warped for the purpose of crippling Israel.
She touted the “justice” of Israel’s war against Hamas but then complained publicly every day about humanitarian supplies to Palestinians and “asked hard questions” about America’s supply of weapons to Israel.
She decried harassment of Jewish students on campus but also shoehorned Islamophobia into every statement about antisemitism and said that anti-Israel and anti-American protesters have legitimate concerns and the “right” to be heard.
And of course, you cannot be the “president of joy” (as Bill Clinton ridiculously dubbed Kamala) and the candidate of hysteria (“fascism!”) at the same time.
A sixth lesson drawn from the just completed US presidential campaign relates to the media. The legacy media requires complete gutting and rebuilding. It served as no less than the crude propaganda arm of the Democratic Party.
First, the major networks and newspapers gaslighted Americans, telling them that Biden was compos mentis, of sound mind. Dr. Michael Doran: “When that failed spectacularly [remember Biden’s debate meltdown?], the media gaslighted Americans by telling them that Kamala Harris was a person of substance and not the puppet of Obama.” And mainstream journalists failed to ask her tough, actual policy questions in even a single interview.
Here in Israel too, the six main television channels, radio stations, and news websites, and all but one major newspaper, aggressively and unabashedly drive protest against Netanyahu on all issues, at all times. This week, they literally exhorted Israelis to flood the streets to protest the sacking of the defense minister; nay, they demanded that Israelis do so.
Complete gutting and rebuilding – comprehensive teshuva, repentance – of the Israeli media landscape is required for the health of Israeli democracy. Like America, like Israel.
The writer is executive director and senior fellow at the Jerusalem-based Misgav Institute for National Security & Zionist Strategy. The views expressed here are his own. His diplomatic, defense, political, and Jewish world columns over the past 27 years are at davidmweinberg.com
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