Trump’s supporters in Israel are looking for every last vote
An Israeli soldier walks past US Republican Party activists in Israel, who are holding a banner in support of presidential nominee Donald Trump near a mall in Modi'in, Israel, August 15, 2016.
Some of Donald Trump’s supporters living in Israel don’t want to take any chances. They see the Jewish State as a potentially important battleground in the US election.
If the choice in November comes down to a tight contest in a state like Florida or Ohio, they want to grab every possible vote they can to put the Republican nominee over the top.
Activists for Trump have opened several campaign offices in Israel, including what is said to be the first-ever campaign office for a US presidential candidate in a Jewish settlement in the West Bank.
The group iVoteIsrael, which describes itself as a non-partisan effort to encourage Americans in Israel to vote in US elections, reckons there are about 200,000 eligible US voters living in Israel.
“It is no way theoretical speculation that the votes of American voters in Israel could be determinative of the election,” said Mark Zell of a group called Republicans Overseas Israel, according to The Telegraph.
Hillary Clinton has a long track record on issues related to Israel. But she’s also closely associated with Barack Obama, who is broadly unpopular with the Israeli public.
Among the US population overall, Democrats still have a big advantage with Jewish voters. But American voters living in Israel lean heavily toward the Republican Party, says William Booth, Jerusalem bureau chief for the Washington Post, who’s written about the efforts to rally support for Trump in Israel.
“Donald Trump could pick up some votes here,” Booth says.
Booth says many dual US-Israeli citizens he’s talked with, especially those who resettled in Israel back in the 1960s and '70s, are on the left side of the political spectrum and would find the idea of a Donald Trump presidency “mystifying or abhorrent.”
Israeli Jews would also be troubled by the anti-Semitic views held by some of Trump’s supporters from the far right, Booth adds.
On the other hand, Trump’s blunt talk about radical Islam and what he considers the scourge of political correctness goes over well with parts of the Israeli public. And Booth says that includes many newer arrivals from the US, “looking for sort of a tough anti-terrorist, maybe even anti-Arab, position.”
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