When President Donald Trump accused pro-Democrat Jews of being disloyal, people were initially outraged that he may have been referencing the old anti-Semitic trope of dual loyalty. (He later clarified that he meant disloyalty toward Israel and the Jewish people.)
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There is no doubt that the president made those comments because he wanted to take advantage of the recent controversy surrounding Democratic Reps. Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar and their now-canceled visit to Israel and to cast the Democratic Party as a monolithic group of radicals who are aligned with the pro-BDS fringes of the Left and have a very hostile and anti-Semitic attitude toward Israel.
This is part of White House's ongoing effort to break the pattern dating to the 1930s in which Jews vote overwhelmingly for Democratic candidates.
But you have to understand Trump's comments in the larger context and look beyond the immediate controversial aspects.
In fact, the controversial term "dual loyalty" dates back to the 1950s, at the height of the Cold War. Back then the Eisenhower administration deliberately adopted a "cold-shoulder" policy toward Israel because it wanted to curry favor with the Arabs and have them align with the West against the Soviets.
Thus, when pro-Israel Jewish leaders tried to lobby that administration to adopt a more friendly attitude toward Israel, they were accused of being disloyal and working to undermine America's strategic national interest. On top of that, Jews had to deal with McCarthyism, which disproportionally targeted them.
During those tough days, and especially in the wake of the controversial Sinai Campaign Israel launched in 1956 (which was part of the Suez Crisis), Jewish leaders kept a low profile and made sure to interact in a very minor way with the hostile administration, to avoid being cast as disloyal.
But unlike that period, relations between the two countries could not be different today.
Trump's comments mean the exact opposite of what people accused him of saying: He believes that in order to be loyal to American values, one should be loyal to Israel. Thus Trump's statement merges the two identities in a way that makes being pro-Israel synonymous with being pro-American.
His comments essentially cast the entire Democratic Party as having unilaterally cut this bond between America and Israel, turning its back on a decades-old alliance and on the special relationship.
The Democratic Party does not, by and large, share the anti-Israel views of Omar and Tlaib. That said, among Jewish liberals, which are the dominant force among Jews in the party, support for Israel has declined in recent years, as is evident in the criticism they level on Israel for its treatment of Palestinians and for various domestic matters involving Israel's Jewish character.
It would be premature to speculate on whether Trump's accusations will help drive Jews away from the Democratic Party in large numbers, in part because most Jewish voters subscribe to a liberal worldview.
But what is clearly established now is that Trump considers being pro-American as being pro-Israeli. Thus, those who promote the boycott of Israel are now seen as undermining American values and US interests.
