Background Briefing: October 17, 2022
Anti-Semitism From Trump and Kanye West is Feeding the Dual Loyalty Trope
We begin with an uptick in anti-Semitism coming from different directions in the media space with former President Donald Trump calling on “Jews to get their act together” before “it is too late” and Kanye West saying “I’m going death con 3 on JEWISH PEOPLE.” Joining us is Dov Waxman, Professor and The Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Foundation Chair in Israel Studies at University of California Los Angeles, where he also directs the UCLA Y&S Nazarian Center for Israel Studies. He has also been a visiting fellow at Tel Aviv University, Bar-Ilan University, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and Oxford University, and is the author of dozens of scholarly articles and four books: The Pursuit of Peace and The Crisis of Israeli Identity: Defending / Defining the Nation, Israel’s Palestinians: The Conflict Within, Trouble in the Tribe: The American Jewish Conflict over Israel, and most recently, The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: What Everyone Needs to Know. We explore the extent to which Trump is imposing a dual loyalty test on American Jews by suggesting that “no president has done more for Israel than I have” and that “our wonderful Evangelicals are far more appreciative of this than the people of the Jewish faith, especially those living in the US.”
Alarm That the Latest Weapons to Saudi Arabia Now Allied With Putin Could End up in the Wrong Hands
Then we examine the the massive transfer of the latest hi-tech US weapons to Saudi Arabia selling advanced systems that are not even available to America’s reliable allies like Canada the UK and Australia yet are going to a regime led by MBS who is allied with Putin in a conspiracy to jack up the price of gas ahead of the midterms in an anti-democratic effort to help bring back a fellow autocrat Trump to the White House. Joining us is Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, Senior Associate Dean for Leadership Studies & Lester Crown Professor in the Practice of Management at Yale University as well as founder and president of the Chief Executive Leadership Institute, a nonprofit educational and research institute focused on CEO leadership and corporate governance. He has conducted the research into these weapons sales and provided the data to the US Senate at the same time seeking reassurances from the Pentagon that they know what they are doing and who they are arming.
Could Democrats Lose in the Blue States of the West?
Then finally we look into whether the Democrats could lose Senate and House races in the blue states of the West which President Biden just visited on a campaign tour. Joining us is Sasha Abramsky, who writes regularly for The Nation, and is the author of several books, including Inside Obama’s Brain, Breadline USA, American Furies, The American Way of Poverty, and, most recently, Little Wonder: The Fabulous Story of Lottie Dod, the World’s First Female Sports Superstar. We discuss his latest article at The Nation, “Will Democrats Lose the West?”