J Street Jews — pro-peace Americans Trump cannot deport

Donald Trump has yet to confront the basic problem within the US in his bid to root out support for Palestine. This problem is a large and growing body of American Jews who are pro-Israel, but also pro-peace vis-à-vis Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza

If United States President Donald Trump could not deport even one Palestinian student studying in its Ivy League universities despite his draconian attempts, how is he going to expel 2.14 million (21.4 lakh) residents of Gaza Strip to make way for his dream Mediterranean Riviera?

And Trump is said to be the most powerful occupant of the White House ever! This is a huge farce that is now being played out in Washington. It would have been comic if the loss of human lives and travesty of international law had not made it tragic.

Trump’s biggest foreign policy setback as the 47th US president is likely to come from Arab-Israeli disputes, not from his attempt to end the Russia-Ukraine conflict, annex foreign territory or from his global trade wars. None of these White House initiatives are guaranteed to succeed, but his external legacy is headed for doomsday unless Trump takes some history lessons. Instead of finding a sinecure as White House senior adviser for yet another family member — Massad Boulos, father-in-law of Tiffany Trump — the president must appear even-handed for peace in West Asia.

At some point in Trump’s Arab-Israel diplomacy, his administration will have to get past minor matters now grabbing headlines on both sides of the Atlantic on the Palestinian issue. These include self-deportation by Ranjani Srinivasan, an Indian student at Columbia University, Badar Khan Suri, an Indian scholar at Georgetown University, and Syria-born Mahmoud Khalil, collegemate of Srinivasan, whose arrest has become a test case for free speech in the Trump dispensation.

Trump has yet to confront the basic problem within his country in his bid to root out support for Palestine. This problem is a large and growing body of American Jews who are pro-Israel, but also pro-peace vis-à-vis Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. This group is known as the ‘J Street’. They want a return to diplomacy to end Israeli-Palestinian disputes, and they strongly favour a two-state solution as the goal. Trump cannot deport them because they are more American than his close aide Elon Musk or First Lady Melania Trump, who are both naturalised US citizens. Most J Street Jews come from families which are second, third or fourth generation Americans, if not of longer lineage.

J Street draws its name from a non-existent street in Washington, whose main thoroughfares are otherwise alphabetically sequenced. It is also meant to contrast K Street, which is home to multi-million-dollar lobbying firms, whose ethics are questionable. These lobbyists have pumped corruption into the US political system.

J Street claims to be clean by comparison. It has drawn young, idealistic American Jews whose loyalty is as much to the US as to Israel. K Street Jews, on the other hand, have even defended and successfully released from jail those who spied within the US for Israel. For them, it is Israel First and then the US, if at all. Trump won’t know what to do with these ‘progressive’ J Street Jews with deep roots in all American walks of life when he tries to mobilise domestic support for his West Asia goals.

Battle lines for American Jewish hearts and minds were drawn last fortnight when J Street restructured itself for the Trump era. Its new leaders include Ilan Goldenberg, who was the Middle East Advisor in the office of Vice President Kamala Harris when Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023. Doug Emhoff, husband of Harris, is Jewish. Part of the reason for her loss to Trump in the November election was the erosion of Arab-American support for Harris, especially in Michigan and Minnesota. Goldenberg’s long record of support for Israel going back to the Barack Obama administration will boost opposition from moderate American Jews when Trump tries to deal with Gaza as a piece of coveted real estate.

The story of Miami Cubans is repeating itself in the Jewish Diaspora in Florida and in New York state. For the new generation of Cubans who were born and grew up in Miami, Fidel Castro is a character from horror stories narrated to them by grandparents. Similarly, the Holocaust is something from history books, genocidal as it was for young Jewish Americans. The loyalties of these young Cubans and young Jews are to the US.

Trump’s handicap, as he gets down to remake Palestine, will be that Israel comes second, only after the US, for these Jewish youth. That is why they tried to make peace with the supporters of Palestine in volatile campuses like Columbia, and Harvard. They have none of the hatred for Palestinians, unlike older American Jews.

It is safe to predict that from making a Riviera out of Gaza, Trump will have to return to exploring a two-state solution in West Asia. That also explains why Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is desperate to get the US to bomb Iran. It will be a diversion that will last a long time.

(K P Nayar has extensively covered West Asia and reported from Washington as a foreign correspondent for 15 years.)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.