President Joe Biden Is Good for the Jews and for Israel | Opinion

Today, President Joe Biden delivered the keynote address at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's Annual Days of Remembrance ceremony in the U.S. Capitol. In his remarks, the president reaffirmed the sacred pledge of "never again" and denounced rising antisemitism, unequivocally declaring "there's no place on any campus in America—or any place in America—for antisemitism or hate speech or threats of violence of any kind."

I was in the Capitol when Biden delivered his speech, just as I was at the White House when he spoke with Jewish American leaders on Oct. 11, four days after the worst massacre of Jewish people since the Holocaust. In both instances, the president's empathy, sincerity, and commitment to Jewish Americans was palpable. He has been unwavering in his support of Jews amid the rise of antisemitism and has affirmed that "The United States has Israel's back. And I have yours as well, both at home and abroad."

Biden has translated these words into action, including through his unprecedented National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism, pledge of $14.3 billion in emergency military assistance to Israel, and directing the U.S. military to intervene and defend Israel from an Iranian attack last month, which saved countless Israeli lives.

The sharp distinction between Biden and former President Donald Trump regarding Israel and antisemitism has become more evident following Oct. 7. The same day that Biden spoke with Jewish leaders in the aftermath of the horrific Hamas attack, Donald Trump callously mocked Israel, disparaged Israeli leaders, and praised Hezbollah—an Iranian-backed terrorist organization with more than 100,000 missiles positioned on Israel's northern border. That day, in a speech in West Palm Beach, Trump asserted that Israeli leaders "let us down," ridiculed Israel's defense minister and called him a "jerk," and suggested Israel was weak.

The contrast between these two presidential candidates in the immediate aftermath of Oct. 7 could not have been clearer. On the same day that Biden emphatically committed to the safety and security of Israel and Jews around the world, Trump criticized Israel as it struggled to identify its hostages and bury its dead.

More recently, in a lengthy interview with Israel Hayom, Trumpurged the Israeli military to "finish up" in Gaza, appeared to blame Israel for rising antisemitism, and never mentioned the more than 130 hostages still held captive by Hamas. According to TheNew York Times, Trump's call for Israel to end the war in Gaza alarmed those on the right, including his former national security adviser, John Bolton. As Bolton explained to the Times, the Israel HaYom interview "proves...that Trump's support for Israel in the first term is not guaranteed in the second term, because Trump's positions are made on the basis of what's good for Donald Trump, not on some coherent theory of national security."

Trump's policy toward Israel has always been self-serving, perhaps best illustrated when, three years after moving the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, Trump defiantly declared he took such action "for the Evangelicals." At the time, he bemoaned his lack of support among Jewish Americans, struggling to understand why Evangelical Christians would be "more excited by that [embassy move] than Jewish people." What Trump failed to understand is that, regardless of where the U.S. Embassy in Israel is located, more than three-quarters of Jewish American voters continue to have an unfavorable view of him.

Jewish voters' overwhelming rejection of Trump is both tied to—and frequently results in—his blatant antisemitic statements, including when he said in 2019 that Jewish Americans who vote for Democrats demonstrate "total lack of knowledge or disloyalty," invoking an antisemitic dual loyalty accusation. He repeated this earlier this year when he accused the vast majority of Jewish voters of hating Israel and hating their religion because they vote for Democrats, concluding they should be "ashamed of themselves."

The only Jews who should be ashamed are the 22 percent with a favorable view of Donald Trump, who has proven beyond a doubt that he is "a bigot, a fraud, a misogynist, [and] a bully" to quote the chair of the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC), Norm Coleman from March 2016. Not only has Trump repeatedly attacked the majority of Jews, but he's aligned with and echoed dangerous right-wing extremists, pointedly refused to condemn white supremacy and instead called on the Proud Boys to "stand back and stand by," inciting a deadly insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, for which he was impeached.

Meanwhile, Joe Biden has repeatedly declared his support for Jewish Americans amid growing antisemitism. He is working to finalize a hostage release and ceasefire deal, and his moral clarity and leadership stand in stark contrast with the utter void of morality and decency from Donald Trump, who spends his days in a New York courtroom facing multiple felonies and only refers to "hostages" in the context of those detained for perpetrating an insurrection.

This election isn't really about partisan politics – it's a choice between a defender of democracy and someone who vows to be a "dictator on day one." It's a choice between someone fighting to restore the soul of our nation and someone who has repeatedly denigrated it. When faced with those options, it really shouldn't be a difficult decision for Jewish voters or any Americans.

Halie Soifer is CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America (JDCA). She previously served as national security adviser to then-Sen. Kamala Harris, senior policy adviser to U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Samantha Power, and foreign policy adviser to Sen. Chris Coons.

The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.