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Trump plays to evangelical base with hard-line support for Israel | TheHill

posted onSeptember 2, 2019
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Article snippet: MORE’s recent push to win over Jewish voters faces an uphill battle, but his hard-line support for Israel may be aimed at a different audience altogether: evangelical Christians. Trump last month embraced the moniker "King of Israel" after a conservative conspiracy theorist argued that he is "the greatest president for Jews and for Israel in the history of the world." But instead of galvanizing the support of American Jewish voters, Trump's self-designation as a champion of Jewish causes — including charges that those who don't support him are being "disloyal" to Israel — prompted backlash from the same Jewish Democrats he's seeking to attract to the GOP tent in 2020. Many of those critics now argue that Trump is not speaking to Jewish voters at all but aims simply to employ a hard line on Israel policy — and attacks on those who oppose it — to rally evangelical Christians. "It is about pandering to his base of voters. And the base voters, the Trump voters who care about this issue are, the vast majority, Republicans, Christians and in many cases fundamentalist evangelicals," said Logan Bayroff, spokesman for J Street, a liberal pro-Israel group. "Trump [is] expressing frustration that while the evangelical community is on board with his far-right policies ... the vast majority of Jewish voters are disgusted by it, broadly disgusted by Trump [and] are going to vote against him and his party," he added. Rep. MORE (Fla.), a prominent pro-Israel Democrat, offered a ... Link to the full article to read more

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