The US presidential election is steaming toward us, and will be here before we know it. A lot of Israelis will be awake the entire night to watch the results in real time. Until not long ago, Israelis were complacent that the current president, Donald Trump, would take the race in a walk.
The Democratic party, which is competing against him, started the race with over 20 candidates who saw themselves as fitting to lead the world's biggest superpower, and how could they win with that kind of indecisiveness?
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Then, when Bernie Sanders, a radical socialist, almost a communist, appeared to be the leading candidate, Israelis were sure that the Democrats wouldn't win, because how could they win with such a radical candidate? Even many in his own party see him as too radical.
When Joe Biden won the Democratic nomination and became the party's candidate, many Israelis dismissed him. They saw him as an older, American version of Benny Gantz – not particularly articulate, not particularly impassioned. How could a person like that win against someone who looks like he was born for the stage, Donald Trump?
But in the past few weeks, something has changed. Polls indicate that Biden is going to win by a large margin. True, polls are often wrong. We saw that in the previous election, but this time things feel different. Maybe it's COVID and the economic crisis it has brought with it, maybe it's the blatant irresponsibility Trump showed after he himself was diagnosed with the virus, and maybe it's other things entirely – but many Israelis are starting to realize that there is a real risk that Trump won't be president these next four years.
That fear grows stronger as many Israelis begin to realize that we haven't taken full advantage of the term of the current president. Even though we have secured historic, exceptional steps, including the relocation of the US Embassy to Jerusalem and the recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital, as well as the recognition of the Golan Heights as Israeli and normalization agreements with Gulf states, it seems as if we could have done more. Whether it's sovereignty in Judea and Samaria or other issues, a number of Israelis are starting to fear that we won't see more opportunities of this kind in the next four years.
This concern could very well be justified, and there is a real chance that Joe Biden, as unattractive a candidate as he might be, will beat Trump. In my opinion, what should be keeping us awake is bigger than these two individual's approaches toward Israel. Israel and Israelis have taken a stance backing Trump entirely, which was the right thing to do when he was the leader of the free world, but in some cases, it was done without thinking.
In addition to valuing Trump's actions – he is without a doubt that most pro-Israel president the US has seen in decades, if not ever – we should have been maintaining ties with the top echelon of the Democratic party. Israel put all its eggs in one basket, and that is a dangerous and irresponsible policy.
Even if Trump wins the election, the Republicans won't be in the White House forever, and when the Democrats arrive, Israel will be in serious trouble. Total identification with Trump and the Republicans has led to hostility from Democratic politicians, and even US Jews.
We need to recalculate our path. It's still not too late. We have to make support for Israel a bipartisan issue again. If not, not only will we not have opportunities, we will pay a heavy price.
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