“And we moved the capital of Israel to Jerusalem. That’s for the evangelicals,” he said.
By David Isaac, World Israel News
President Donald Trump said that evangelicals cared more about the U.S. Embassy move to Jerusalem than Jews at a campaign stop in Oshkosh, Wisconsin on Monday.
“And we moved the capital of Israel to Jerusalem. That’s for the evangelicals,” he said.
“You know it’s amazing with that the evangelicals are more excited about that than Jewish people. It’s really right,” Trump added.
In 2017, Trump announced his intention to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and move the U.S. Embassy there, a promise carried out in May 2018.
At the time of his 2017 announcement, Trump noted that for 20 years presidents chose not to implement the 1995 Jerusalem Embassy Act adopted by Congress, which “urged the federal government to relocate the American embassy to Jerusalem and to recognize that city” as Israel’s capital.
“While previous presidents have made this a major campaign promise, they failed to deliver. Today, I am delivering,” he said.
Judging from his Monday remarks, Trump did so to reward his evangelical base rather than woo Jewish voters.
Evangelicals, who support Israel for theological reasons, also overwhelmingly support Trump and remain a dependable bloc of supporters going into November’s election.
In 2016, Pew Research Center found “fully eight-in-ten self-identified white, born-again/evangelical Christians say they voted for Trump, while just 16% voted for Clinton.”
However, the opposite is the case among Jewish Americans. In February, a poll released by the Jewish Electoral Institute found that two-thirds of Jewish voters would pick any Democratic candidate over Trump.
The Jewish News of California reported, “The survey was conducted Feb. 18 to 24, a period that included Sanders’ announcement that he would not attend AIPAC’s annual conference next week.”
The timing brings into question the importance not only of the Jerusalem Embassy move, but of Israel generally to U.S. Jews.
American Jewish support has also not been badly dented by the rise of Democratic politicians who have been embraced by the establishment despite harboring extreme anti-Israel and even anti-Semitic views.