Trump backers in Israel campaign in Judea and Samaria

KARNEI SHOMRON — Supporters of Donald Trump opened a campaign office here on Monday in what they said was a first on behalf of an American presidential candidate. They said that Americans from swing states who are living in Israel might cast decisive votes in November’s election.

While the chief Israel strategist of Republicans Overseas, Tzvika Brot, said there was no political significance to the launch of ground operations in the West Bank, Mark Zell, the group’s co-chairman and vice president of the parent Republican Overseas, quickly contradicted him.

“That’s not entirely true,” Zell told reporters, standing before a Hebrew-language Trump banner. “[The Republican Party platform] eliminated any reference to Israel as an occupier. That wasn’t just a play on words, that was a real statement that coincides with Donald Trump’s own statements recently that when it comes to building homes and synagogues and schools for Arabs and Jews in Judea and Samaria, this is an issue for the Israeli government to decide and the Israeli people to decide. It is not something that America should be dictating to Israel.”

Chaim Rosenfield, 19, was one of two young volunteers at the opening of the Karnei Shomron office, immigrated to Israel from Queens with his family as a young child and now lives in Talmon, where he is waiting to be drafted into the Israeli army. He said most of his friends in Israel, American or not, were Trump supporters, but few were informed about voting.

“Most of them either don’t think they can [vote] or they don’t know it’s pretty simple. That’s my job,” Rosenfield said. “It’s really so important having a strong America and a strong Israel. It really affects both sides.”

Brot, a former political journalist for Yedioth Acharonot, said right-wing Knesset members, including Temple Mount activist Yehuda Glick, had wanted to attend the opening, too. But he said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the head of Glick’s Likud party, and Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman, the head of the Yisrael Beiteinu party, had nixed the idea in an effort to stay out of American politics.

Republicans Overseas Israel is not affiliated with or funded by the GOP but coordinates with the party and the Trump campaign in the United States.

At the Karnei Shomron office in the northern West Bank, the group had set up laptops on a kitchen table in the home of a local rabbi with New York roots. Every week, the office is to move to a home in a different West Bank settlement in an effort to reach Israeli Americans where they live — and turn them out to vote for Trump.

In the month since Republicans Overseas Israel launched its campaign, it has set up five offices — the others are in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Raanana and Modiin. Next up are Bet Shemesh, Holon and the Gush Etzion region of the West Bank. Efrat and Beitar Ilit, which like Karnei Shomron have large American populations, are to get the third and fourth West Bank offices.

The strategy is to target young Americans in Israel who do not usually vote and especially immigrants from such pivotal swing states as Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Brot estimated that there are 30,000 eligible swing state voters in Israel, including 10,000 to 12,000 from Florida alone. Republicans Overseas Israel thinks that could be enough to tip the election in Trump’s favor.

“You talk about a 500-vote margin in [Florida, which decided the presidential election of] 2000. Well, last election there were over 7,000 votes from Florida [in Israel]. There were thousands more from Ohio. There were thousands more from Pennsylvania. So the answer is yes, in a close election we really can make a difference.”

A late comer to the Trump cause, Zell said he had never seen so much excitement for a U.S. presidential candidate. Public registration events throughout Israel regularly run out of Trump stickers, T-shirts and pins, he said.

Democrats Abroad Israel, the party’s official body in the country, have questioned the notion that Americans in Israel are in tizzy over Trump. An Israel Democracy Institute poll in March found that most Israelis preferred his rival, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, 38 percent to 28 percent. There is no recent data specifically on how Americans in Israel are likely to vote.

“People are very much concerned about Trump’s rhetoric and his reputation,” said Merrill Oates, the Democrats Abroad vice chair for Asia, the Middle East and Africa. “They may have some disagreements policy-wise with Secretary Clinton, but they feel she is a reliable person who they can have confidence will steer the ship of state with a steady hand.”

Trump’s disparaging remarks about Muslims and Mexicans, among other controversial statements he has made on the campaign trail, have been criticized by American Jewish groups. In December, even Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu criticized Trump for saying he would bar all Muslims from entering the United States.

At least in the West Bank, though, the overwhelming number of Americans seem to be backing the real estate billionaire.

Rabbi Chaim Spring, 79, who agreed to let Republicans Overseas Israel use his home as its Karnei Shomron office (and drape it with Trump banners) described himself as a “big Trump supporter” who watches “a lot of Fox News.”

A New York native and former U.S. Army chaplain, Spring moved to the West Bank 43 years ago and now works in book restoration and binding. He said the United States could not survive a continuation of President Barack Obama’s policies, which he said were making the country “a second-rate power” feared only by Israel.

“Trump is a generous, down-to-earth person. That he has such wonderful children speaks a lot about him. His daughter is Jewish, and not only that, she’s Orthodox,” he said.

“You don’t have to be the smartest guy in the world to be president. You just have to be an honest person. And Hillary Clinton is not honest. That’s it.”