Donald Trump says Israel will disappear if Vice President Kamala Harris is elected in November, but a Republican political action committee is telling Michiganders she “stands with Israel.”
The ads appear to be targeting the swing state’s Muslim and Arab Americans in a bid to keep them from voting for her ticket. Some of the ads also play up the fact that her husband, Doug Emhoff, is Jewish.
The New York Times in a report on Thursday traced the political action committee paying for the ads, Future Coalition PAC, to Republicans. A Huffington Post report last week said the ads popped up on social media in Dearborn, the city that is believed to have the heaviest concentration of Arab Americans in the United States.
“This November, let’s make history with Kamala Harris and Doug Emhoff, the first Jewish presidential spouse ever,” one ad said.
“When supporters for a free Palestine stood up for Gaza, Harris put them in their place,” another ad said, referring to a rally where Harris chided pro-Palestinian hecklers as helping to elect Trump.
Pro-Palestinian constituents were furious at the exchange, and Harris subsequently has sought to assuage anger among Arab- and Muslim-American voters and younger voters who have opposed U.S. backing for Israel’s war against Hamas.
She has since then sought to emphasize that she will back Israel’s right to defend itself while also expressing sympathy about the tens of thousands of Palestinians killed in the war Hamas launched against Israel.
Trump has sought to exploit the tensions between two natural Democratic constituencies, Jews and Arab Americans. He has launched an outreach to Arab Americans in the state and has said, most recently in Tuesday’s presidential debate. that Harris’ election would harm both Arabs and Israelis.
Those efforts are unlikely to pan out, given Trump’s repeated emphasis on his pro-Israel record as president. But the ads run by the Future Coalition PAC could help sway voters disappointed in Harris’ Israel policies, as well as those susceptible to antisemitic dog whistles concerning Emhoff, to stay away from the polls or to vote for two third-party candidates who have fully embraced the Palestinian cause, Cornel West and Jill Stein.
The Times story noted that Future Coalition PAC’s web page linked to the YouTube channel of the Protecting America Initiative, which is co-chaired by Trump’s former ambassador to Germany, Richard Grenell, and Lee Zeldin, a former New York congressman and gubernatorial candidate who has become perhaps the most prominent Jewish Republican, leading fundraising efforts for others in the party.
The Future Coalition PAC switched its website’s YouTube link to its own page on the streaming site shortly after the Times article was published.
“Congressman Zeldin never heard anything about that group,” his spokesman, Daniel Gall, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, referring to the Future Coalition PAC, “or these ads before yesterday’s story and has absolutely zero involvement whatsoever with that organization.”
A separate progressive advocacy group, Future Coalition, established in 2018, sent a letter to the PAC of the same name calling on it to stop using the name.
“We completely denounce the antisemitic and hateful advertisements by ‘Future Coalition PAC’ leveraging our name and brand for political actions that do not reflect our values or principles,” the advocacy group said in a statement. “We urge our supporters, partners, and the wider public to remain vigilant and discerning about the sources of political messaging in this time of concerning attempts to misinform and stew division.”
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