Most American Jews have reflexively voted for Democrats for decades. But today, as the existential threat of a nuclear Iran looms larger than ever, that axiom should be reevaluated. The possibility of a Harris presidency, with what will surely be a uniquely weak stance on Israel and dangerous naivete regarding Iran, should give every Jewish voter serious existential pause. The stakes are simply too high to either ignore or sweep under the rug of ancient voting habits.
The Democrats’ track record on Iran, from the long Obama years to today, has been marked by feckless appeasement disguised as diplomacy. Faced with an Iranian drive to develop nuclear weapons coupled with unrelenting calls to erase Israel from the map, Obama pursued a policy of bribing the Ayatollahs with cash and international legitimacy. But even that plan essentially allowed for Iran to eventually develop kosher nukes.
Under Harris, this failed approach could rapidly evolve into a scenario that is both grim and all too realistic: a nuclear-armed Iran which will not hesitate to act on its threats to wipe out Israel, a nation of over 7 million Jews, before turning its attention to destabilizing the global order and bringing America to its knees with either nuclear blackmail or actual nuclear terror.
Despite her ‘hope and joy’ campaign, it is alarmingly easy to see why an administration under a weak and unimaginative Kamala Harris should terrify us all. In interviews and debates, when pushed beyond the limits of her scripted answers, she flounders. When the teleprompter crashes, so does her coherence. From adopting a variety of accents at rallies to flipping long-held policies which might alienate certain voters to plagiarizing in order to ‘write’ a book or congressional testimony Kamala Harris morphs towards whatever trick is needed to fit the target audience.
But when that pliable, inauthentic, goofy, disingenuous, and chameleonesque yet nervously rigid persona will bump - as President Harris - into the deadly realities of a nuclear Iran, the steep cost of her pandering flexibility will become painfully clear. By definition, that clarity will have arrived too late.
Harris has said inanely that the best outcome of a negotiation should be that all sides are happy with the outcome. But Iran doesn’t seek fairness; they seek Israel’s annihilation and have said so publicly for decades. Yet Harris, with her superficial grasp of policy, her desire to please everyone and anyone, and a shocking inability to think quickly and creatively, would be the one answering that 3 a.m. phone call after her attempts at appeasement failed.
Looking at her abysmal performance as Vice President and now as a candidate - it is only too easy to see why Iran (and China, Russia, North Korea, and Mexican smugglers for that matter) would prefer her over a President Trump on that phone call.
Harris and the Democrats, despite some exemplars of antisemitism, are not evil. But their naive weakness, coupled with an almost glandular need to appease bad actors, emboldens evil to thrive and take full advantage of American Chamberlainly weakness.
-Harris and the Democrats have been loudly pushing for the ‘Two State Solution’ which will necessarily be an Islamist mortal threat to Israel while destabilizing the entire region.
-Democrats planned for an openly genocidal Iran to approach the nuclear threshold while continuously pumping from its $200 billion Obama-Biden-Harris-blessed oil revenue to its terror proxies, which necessarily lead to the October 7 attack and the current seven-front war against Israel.
-Harris and the Democrats promise to double down on these policies going forward which will necessarily lead to horrific consequences despite being ceremoniously hailed on day one as the only path to peace and security.
-To add the cherry on top, the Biden-Harris administration recently threatened Israel with cessation of military assistance if she doesn’t allow more aid into Gaza. They know very well that Israel is allowing in all aid that arrives - which is then stolen by Hamas. But when the election is days away, throwing Jews under the bus is a small price to pay for Kamala’s pandering to Michigan’s Arabs.
Anerican Jews cannot afford to vote based on blind tradition when Israel needs unwavering American support in order to defend itself in the face of an existential threat bigger than any faced to date. What Israel needs now is not fairness in negotiations with terrorist regimes who sense weakness like a shark smells blood in the water. It needs a muscular-minded American administration which understands both that Israel’s survival is non-negotiable and that America herself would be hogtied, if not attacked as well, by a nuclear Iran.
Kamala Harris cannot and will not be that thing - which means this election is the biggest choice American Jews have ever faced.
For Israeli Jews, ‘Never Again’ is more than a slogan - it’s a daily lived reality. For American Jews, the luxury of distance has meant that ‘Never Again’ is only spoken at certain ceremonial moments, comfortably detached from the immediate threats facing our people.
But that distance is quickly disappearing along with the luxury of voting by rote. Ant there is no escaping by staying at home. See the letter below:
To those American Jews who are fond of saying that Israel isn’t their only issue, I would suggest considering what it would be like to live as Jews in a world in which Israel was indeed wiped from the map, God Forbid. If American Jews vote for a president who is so clearly not up to the historic task at hand, they may wake up one day to find that ‘Never Again’ was nothing more than wishful thinking.
Regardless of geography, we are all one nation. Vote as if the lives of your 7 million Israeli brothers and sisters depended on it.
Daniel Winston is an American Israeli therapist and writer living in Samaria, Israel.