Day 393 - US elections through an Israeli prism
The Times of Israel Daily Briefing
The Times of Israel
4.5 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 2 November 2024
⏱️ 37 minutes
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Summary
Welcome to The Times of Israel's Daily Briefing, your 20-minute audio update on what's happening in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world.
Today, we bring you a bonus episode of What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World. This episode features host Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with ToI senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur.
The United States is electing its next president on November 5 and according to a poll published this week, Israelis massively favor Republican Donald Trump over Democrat Kamala Harris.
So ahead of next week’s results, we take a closer look at exactly how Israelis are polling, which candidate they favor — and some reasons why. We also learn how the current polling matches previous surveys of Israelis ahead of past US elections and who was actually elected in the end.
We also hear from Rettig Gur, who has been touring Jewish communities over the past week, what concerns he’s gathered about both candidates from the American Jews he’s spoken with.
And finally, we look at the recently published AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research survey of Americans which, among other things, drills down into the US population’s partisan divide on all things Israel and the Middle East.
So this week, we ask Haviv Rettig Gur, what matters now?
For news updates, please check out The Times of Israel’s ongoing live blog.
Discussed articles include:
Poll shows Israelis massively favor Trump over Harris in US election
Poll: Democrats, Republicans split on Israel’s responsibility for war’s escalation
Subscribe to The Times of Israel Daily Briefing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
IMAGE: This combination of pictures shows US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris (L) speaking during a Get Out the Vote rally in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on October 30, 2024; and former US president and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaking at a campaign rally at the PPL Center in Allentown, Pennsylvania, on October 29, 2024. (Angela Weiss/AFP)
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Times of Israel's What Matters Now. I'm deputy editor Amanda Borschell, Dan, here with our senior analyst, Chaviv Rattigur. Hi, Javiv. Thanks for joining me. |
| 0:13.9 | Hey, Amanda. It's good to be here. Where are we finding you today? Dallas, Texas. Dallas, Texas. |
| 0:19.9 | And so actually, in the first part of our conversation, I want to probe a little bit what |
| 0:24.8 | you're hearing this week ahead of the elections from the U.S. Jews that you're speaking with. |
| 0:30.4 | And then we're going to talk about and bring to our listenership how Israelis see the two |
| 0:37.1 | candidates. I'd like to say first and foremost, |
| 0:40.8 | a disclaimer. I am not voting in this election. I have not voted in a U.S. election since I made |
| 0:48.3 | Alia in 1999. And I believe, Kaviv, you are also not voting in this election. |
| 0:54.9 | Yeah, yeah. |
| 0:56.0 | I am an American citizen. |
| 0:58.6 | I have a profound admiration for America in so many ways. |
| 1:02.0 | I teach America to Israeli 19-year-olds. |
| 1:05.8 | But I was born in Jerusalem. |
| 1:09.0 | I am Israeli, and my heart is in the East, so to speak, and I have not ever voted in an American election, and I don't intend to. My citizenship is a function of my parents. I actually, by American law, can't pass it on because I haven't lived in America as an adult. |
| 1:35.5 | So, yeah, I have not voted. I don't vote. I don't feel I have the right to make the decisions for Americans. |
| 1:46.6 | And I'm right there with you, Javiv, which is why I stopped voting in U.S. elections once I moved, uprooted myself, and firmly rooted myself in Israel. But you know, one of the most surprising things I heard from Israelis after I made Alia about U.S. elections is people over and over |
| 1:54.2 | were asking me, why can't President Bill Clinton just run again? Israelis want President Bill Clinton out to run the Democrat? |
| 2:04.4 | This was, of course, 25 years ago when I came here, but it's a very interesting fact, I think, |
| 2:11.5 | for Israelis to wrap their minds around because, as you and I know, and most of our listeners, |
| 2:20.0 | presidents can only hold office for two terms, whereas, of course, Israeli prime ministers are immortal. Right. Well, there's, you know, |
| 2:26.6 | parliamentary systems, because parliament can topple the government at any moment, there's a feeling |
| 2:30.7 | that there doesn't need to be term limits. And in fact, America only imposed term |
... |
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