The seven Republicans who criticized Vice President JD Vance anonymously over his reluctance to attack the Houthis may have placed the American Jewish community at risk by choosing Jewish Insider as the forum for their complaint.
Vance’s views on the attack emerged in a leaked Signal group chat that was leaked to The Atlantic. Vance’s views on foreign policy are closer to those of the GOP’s isolationist wing, though he has also been consistently pro-Israel.
Many American Jews are concerned that isolationism, whether left or right, also comes with hostility to Israel, and possibly antisemitism as well, given that isolationists pushed the U.S. to stay out of Europe in the Second World War.
While the “America First” foreign policy of President Donald Trump has always included a robust defense of Israel, there are some isolationists who argue that “America First” should also mean ending aid to, and support of, Israel.
Among these isolationists, there is a small but vocal minority of critics and commentators who have either expressed outright antisemitic views, or have at least entertained antisemitic conspiracy theories and radical anti-Israel views.
Jewish Insider is an online news outlet that covers politics and international affairs. It covered the Signal controversy in an article Thursday that also included criticism of Vance’s views from seven Republican senators — all anonymous.
The trouble with voicing those criticisms of Vance in a specifically Jewish publication is that it could provide fuel to the isolationists who argue, falsely, that America’s past interventionist foreign policy is linked to Israel and to Jews.
By choosing the Jewish Insider as the forum for their criticisms of Vance — criticisms they are not willing to make under their own names — the “seven RINOs,” as critics have called them, are using the Jewish community as a shield.
The result may be more uncomfortable rhetoric from the extreme right — matching that of the extreme left within the Democratic Party — that targets the American Jewish community as the supposed source of foreign policy grievances.
Jewish Insider risks repeating the mistake of the Times of Israel, which has taken an anti-Trump editorial line for a decade, often sensationalizing efforts to link Trump to the antisemitic right, despite his record of support for Israel.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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