Except for an extended tussle about the Iran nuclear deal, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton didn’t engage in any explicit debate about Israeli issues or Jewish topics during their head-to-head battle Sept. 26 at Hofstra University on Long Island, New York.
At one point, Trump asserted that the deal reached last year between Iran and six major powers — exchanging sanctions relief for a cap on uranium enrichment and other restrictions — will make Iran a major power.
“You started the Iran deal,” he said to Clinton. “That’s another beauty where you have a country that was ready to fall, they were doing so badly. They were choking on the sanctions, and now they’re probably going to be a major power at some point the way they’re going.”
Clinton replied that Iran was much less of a threat with the deal in place.
“I spent a year and a half putting together a coalition that included Russia and China to impose the toughest sanctions on Iran, and we did drive them to the negotiating table,” she said. “And my successor, John Kerry, and President Obama got a deal that put a lid on Iran’s nuclear program. Without firing a single shot.”
Trump wasn’t buying it.
“This is one of the worst deals ever made by any country in history,” he said. “The deal with Iran will lead to nuclear problems. All they have to do is sit back 10 years, and they don’t have to do much. And they’re going to end up getting nuclear. I met with Bibi Netanyahu the other day. Believe me, he’s not a happy camper.”
That comment prompted Israeli commentators to make this observation: Aside from Vladimir Putin, the Israeli prime minister was the only foreign leader to get mentioned in the debate.
The day after the debate, Netanyahu didn’t seem too unhappy a camper. He said the Iran deal was still a thorn, yes, but the $38 billion, 10-year defense assistance package he just secured from the Obama administration pleased him.
“Last [week] I met with President Obama,” he said. “It was an excellent meeting. I thanked him for the historic security assistance agreement that we signed; the largest in U.S. history with any country. This agreement will ensure our military capabilities and our defensive capabilities against missiles in the coming decade.
“It is no secret that President Obama and I have had our disagreements, first and foremost on the Iranian issue. But as it is clear, these disagreements have not clouded the strong and solid relations between the countries at all.”
At another point in the debate, Trump referenced his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida to combat claims from Clinton that he is racist.
“In Palm Beach, Florida, tough community, a brilliant community, a wealthy community, probably the wealthiest community there is in the world, I opened a club, and really got great credit for it,” he said. “No discrimination against African Americans, against Muslims, against anybody.”
The rest of that story is that the “anybody” included Jews. Trump at the time accused the Palm Beach poobahs of anti-Semitism, which got him a rebuke from the Anti-Defamation League’s then-director, Abraham Foxman, who according to the Wall Street Journal, “was concerned that Mr. Trump was using the charge of anti-Semitism for his own mercantile ends.”
Foxman later modified his tune, saying the battle, whatever Trump’s motives, shone a light on bad behavior in the tony enclave.
Not that any such reference was expected, but neither Clinton nor Trump made mention of their daughters, Chelsea and Ivanka, respectively, being married to Jewish men, or of Ivanka’s conversion to Judaism.
Clinton, however, did play the grandma card, sort of, making an allusion to Chelsea and Marc Mezvinsky’s daughter, Charlotte. “The central question in this election is really what kind of country we want to be and what kind of future we’ll build together,” Clinton said in her opening remarks. “Today is my granddaughter’s 2nd birthday, so I think about this a lot.” — jta