site banner

Israel-Gaza Megathread #2

This is a refreshed megathread for any posts on the conflict between (so far, and so far as I know) Hamas and the Israeli government, as well as related geopolitics. Culture War thread rules apply.

6
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Well, what is the meaning of overrepresentation? Trump’s admin only had one Jewish person in the cabinet - Mnuchin, unlikely to have had much influence on foreign policy - and their policy was at the very least not less pro-Israel.

Trump famously assigned arguably the most crucial policy position on Israel/Palestine to his Jewish son-in-law who has close ties to Israel. But I do think the difference in representation means something significant. Under the Trump administration, stopping immigration and closing the borders was a top priority although they largely failed due to all the pushback from the administrative state. Then Biden comes into office, the cabinet changes, Jews like Alejandro Mayorkas take over DHS, and what happens? Borders wide open to unprecedented levels of immigration, DHS and Biden Administration makes huge pushes to combat anti-Semitism. DHS/US Intelligence identifies White Supremacy as the greatest domestic threat.

The "big winners" of DHS grants under the Biden Administration have been the Jews, who saw funding for the NonProfit Security Grant Program balloon from $180 million to $305 million, and just now US Senators have proposed an increase to $500 million in funding.

Looking at the massive changes in policy priorities from the Trump Administration- building the wall and stopping illegal immigration, to the Biden Administration- identifying White Supremacy as the greatest domestic security threat, whole-of-society efforts to combat anti-Semitism, massively increasing DHS funding to Jewish NGOs, suggests that this does have meaning and impact on the policy priorities at the highest level of government.