Stephen M. Flatow is an attorney and the father of Alisa Flatow, who was murdered in an Iranian-sponsored Palestinian terrorist attack in 1995. He is author of A Father’s Story: My Fight for Justice Against Iranian Terror (now available in an expanded paperback edition on Amazon.com) and is the president of the Religious Zionists of America-Mizrachi. An oleh chadash, he divides his time between Jerusalem and New Jersey.)
The 2028 presidential election seems far away. In ordinary life, two years is a long time. In American politics, it is tomorrow morning.
For Jewish Americans, and especially for those of us who care deeply about Israel, the question is already taking shape. It is not simply which party will win, or which candidate will say the warmest words about Israel. The older and harder question is back: What is good for the Jews?
That question is not narrow. It is not parochial. It is not a request for special treatment. It is the question Jews have had to ask in every generation when power shifts, alliances change, and friendly words are tested by unfriendly events.
In American politics, Jews have often been told to be grateful for friends and fearful of enemies. But that is not enough. The real test is not whether a politician knows how to sound friendly to Jews. Most of them do. The test is whether that friendship survives when Jewish security becomes politically inconvenient.
That is why 2028 deserves attention now. The question is not which Republican can win, or which Democrat can stop him. The question is whether the next generation of American leaders understands Israel as a permanent ally, the Jewish people as a people with legitimate fears, and antisemitism as something to be confronted even when it appears inside one’s own political camp.
President Trump has already floated the idea of a future ticket involving Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Neither man has formally become the 2028 Republican nominee. Neither may be. But both are already being discussed as possible heirs to the Trump coalition, and Jewish voters should start listening now.
The issue is not whether either man can say that he supports Israel. Of course he can. The issue is what kind of support that will be when Israel’s security needs collide with diplomatic fashion, political pressure, or an “America First" movement that does not always know what to do with old alliances.
Marco Rubio is the more familiar figure to pro-Israel Jewish voters. He comes from a recognizable Republican foreign-policy tradition: Iran is a threat, Israel is an ally, American power matters, and hostile regimes must be deterred. For those who remember the old bipartisan consensus on Israel, Rubio sounds like a man who understands the language of alliances.
That does not mean Jewish voters should give Rubio a blank check. No candidate deserves one. But with Rubio, Jewish voters have a better idea of what they are looking at.
JD Vance is different.
Vance is not anti-Israel, and it would be unfair to pretend otherwise. He has defended Israel and has argued that support for Israel fits within an American national-interest framework. There is a real argument there. Israel is not Afghanistan. It is not asking American soldiers to fight its wars. It is a capable, democratic ally that shares intelligence, technology, and strategic purpose with the United States.
That is the strongest America First case for Israel.
But Vance’s recent comments about a possible Iran deal show why Jewish voters should be cautious. Speaking about negotiations with Iran, Vance made clear that Israel may like a deal or may not like it, but the United States will pursue what it sees as being in the best interest of America.
On one level, that is obvious. An American vice president is supposed to put American interests first. No serious person should be shocked by that.
But there is a difference between saying American policy must serve America and saying that Israel’s security judgment is just background noise. There is a difference between an alliance and a transaction. There is a difference between listening to Israel and humoring Israel.
That difference matters most when the subject is Iran.
For Israel, Iran is not an academic policy question. It is not a seminar topic. It is not a diplomatic puzzle to be solved over coffee in some European capital. Iran arms terrorists, funds proxies, threatens Israel’s destruction, and has Jewish blood on its hands. Hamas, Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Houthis - these are not disconnected threats. They are pieces of an Iranian strategy.
So when an American leader says, in effect, that Israel may object but America will do what America thinks best, Jewish voters are entitled to ask a follow-up question: Who exactly is defining the American interest?
Is the American interest served by another paper agreement with Tehran? Is it served by allowing Iran to preserve the infrastructure of terror while diplomats celebrate a breakthrough? Is it served by pressuring Israel to accept “quiet" while its enemies reload?
We have seen this movie before. Israel is told to be patient. Israel is told to show restraint. Israel is told that negotiations are close, that moderates are gaining strength, that one more deal will change everything. Then the rockets fly, the tunnels are discovered, the centrifuges spin, and the experts explain that no one could have known.
Jewish voters do not have the luxury of pretending not to know.
Vance’s challenge is not that he cannot defend Israel. He can. His challenge is whether his support for Israel has enough steel in it to survive the pressure of the anti-interventionist right. There is a growing faction in conservative politics that looks at every foreign alliance with suspicion and every dollar spent overseas as a betrayal of Americans at home. Some of those concerns are legitimate. America should not waste lives or treasure on foolish wars.
But Israel is not a foolish war. Israel is a front line in the same struggle against terrorism, tyranny, and fanaticism that has reached American shores too many times.
The old evangelical Zionist language is also changing. Vance is not Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell. He is a Catholic convert and a populist nationalist. His support for Israel is not rooted in the same biblical politics that shaped an earlier generation of Republican support for the Jewish state. That is not necessarily bad. Jews do not need Christian theology to validate Zionism. But they do need to know whether a candidate’s support is conviction or convenience.
That is the question Vance will have to answer.
Rubio’s question is different. Can he show independence, steadiness, and backbone? Can he be more than a polished spokesman for someone else’s foreign policy? Can he stand firm when Israel’s enemies, and sometimes Israel’s friends, demand that Jerusalem accept arrangements that leave Iran’s terror network intact?
Jewish voters should ask hard questions of both men.
They should also ask hard questions of Democrats. The Republican debate over Israel is not happening in a vacuum. On the Democratic side, anti-Israel activism has moved from the campus quad to the city council, from protest slogans to congressional primaries, from street chants to policy demands. Too many Democrats still imagine they can condemn antisemitism in the morning and appease anti-Zionists in the afternoon.
That will not work anymore.
But Jewish voters should not become cheap dates for Republicans simply because Democrats have a problem. A party’s opponent can be wrong without making that party automatically right. Jewish safety requires more than applause lines. Israel needs more than warm speeches. The Jewish people have learned, painfully, to measure friendship not by what is said at banquets, but by what is done under pressure.
The test for 2028 will not be who says “I stand with Israel" the loudest. Everyone knows how to say that at a fundraiser.
The test will be who stands with Israel when Iran is offered one more chance, when diplomats demand restraint, when the United Nations performs its usual theater, when the media blames Israel for surviving, and when parts of the American political base decide that the Jewish state has become too much trouble.
That is when Jewish voters will learn the difference between friendship and convenience.
And that is why 2028 is not far away at all.