Why Evangelicals Can’t Shake Off Suggestions They’re Racist

The resignation of A.R. Bernard from the White House Evangelical Advisory Board was nearly ignored

.. More extreme members made headlines by defending the president, and echoed his blame of “both sides.” Robert Jeffress, pastor of First Baptist Church in Dallas, told the Christian Broadcasting Network, “the media has painted, the liberals have painted—a false narrative that the president is a racist.” Jerry Falwell Jr. claimed the president “does not have a racist bone in his body,” and in a tweet praised his initial statements regarding Charlottesville as “bold” and “truthful,” saying that he was “so proud of Donald Trump.”

.. Johnnie Moore, a lay pastor on the council, has said, “We believe it would be immoral to resign.”

.. the media attention given to this story is part of a larger, ever-tightening narrative connecting racism and the evangelical church.

.. Evangelical voters were never expected to support Trump in the first place—a candidate who, for countless reasons, seemed antithetical to their traditional values. But they did.

.. Dan Cox, the research director at the Public Religion Research Institute, described white evangelical support as “incredibly consistent and incredibly loyal,” and said that “it’s hard to conceive of an event or an action taken by Trump that would lead them to abandon him at this point.”

.. During that time, support for the ban declined across every religious category, except among white evangelicals

.. Pew has also reported that Trump’s support was strongest among evangelicals who attend church most frequently. Among those who attend church at least monthly, 67 percent “strongly approve of Trump” as opposed to 54 percent of those who “attend less.”

 

Binyamin Netanyahu is soft on anti-Semitism when it suits him

The Jewish state chooses its battles carefully

ISRAEL has long seen itself as the protector of Jews everywhere and a bulwark against global anti-Semitism. It has brought prominent Nazis such as Adolf Eichmann to justice and it rescued Ethiopian Jews threatened by war and famine in the 1980s and 90s. Just last week it denounced a crass notice in a Swiss hotel telling “Jewish guests” to shower before entering the pool. So Israel’s government could reasonably have been expected to condemn the protests in Charlottesville, Virginia, which featured neo-Nazis chanting “Jews will not replace us”, and to criticise the mealy-mouthed response by Donald Trump, whose presidency has energised the white-supremacist movement in America.

Instead, the anti-Semitic rally, which descended into violence, and Mr Trump’s tepid early comments were met with silence by the government in Jerusalem. Only after Mr Trump’s carefully scripted denunciation of “the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists and other hate groups” did Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, issue a tweet saying, “Outraged by expressions of anti-Semitism, neo-Nazism and racism. Everyone should oppose this hatred.” Mr Netanyahu made no reference to where or when these expressions were made, or to who was making them. Nor did he react to Mr Trump’s later comments, which pinned blame for the violence on both the neo-Nazis and the people who turned out to oppose them.

 .. his reluctance to speak out against anti-Semitism in America is about more than that. Mr Netanyahu and his supporters seem to believe that the people opposing the white supremacists are at least as dangerous to Israel as the neo-Nazis. Take Mr Netanyahu’s son, Yair, who condemned the neo-Nazis on Facebook, but added that the counter-protesters of Antifa and Black Lives Matter “hate my country (and America too in my view) just as much” and “are getting stronger and stronger and becoming super dominant in American universities and public life”.
.. Even Rabbi Marvin Hier, who recited a prayer at Mr Trump’s inauguration, blasted him last week. “No one could ever compare neo-Nazis, the Klan and white supremacists to demonstrators that are demonstrating against them. To equate the two sides is preposterous,” said Rabbi Hier.
.. Mr Netanyahu and his Likud party have won three elections, in part by accusing the left and the media of undermining Israel’s security. This, along with the prime minister’s co-operation with Orthodox Jewish parties, has alienated those American Jews who identify with the opposition in Israel. To some it looks as if Mr Netanyahu only sees anti-Semitism in those who oppose his policies.
.. Consider his treatment of Viktor Orban, Hungary’s populist prime minister. Mr Orban’s government has been accused of running an anti-Semitic poster campaign against George Soros, a Jewish American financier with Hungarian roots who funds liberal causes, and organisations that are critical of Mr Orban.
..  Mr Orban, on the other hand, is one of Mr Netanyahu’s closest allies in Europe.

The Benefits of Standing by the President

He heaped praise on Jared Kushner at a private gathering of bankers and corporate executives in December, congratulating President Trump’s son-in-law on the surprise election triumph.

He stood up again in May before a group of corporate leaders on the 39th floor of Citigroup’s offices to remind them of all the good the Trump administration could do for the economy and the country.

.. Stephen A. Schwarzman, the chief executive of the private equity giant Blackstone and the leader of one of the councils, has not been alone on Wall Street in his embrace of the Trump presidency, particularly after the corporate world endured eight years of Obama-era regulation. But in each of these private meetings, recounted by people who attended them, Mr. Schwarzman emerged as one of the president’s most respected and reliable allies in high finance.

.. Mr. Schwarzman’s stature in both the world of finance and in Mr. Trump’s Washington helped Blackstone nail down one of the biggest deals on Wall Street this year — its selection by Saudi Arabia to manage a new $20 billion fund, according to a person with knowledge of the selection process.

In May, while the president was visiting Saudi Arabia, Blackstone announced the agreement to manage the fund, the largest in the world to invest in infrastructure projects. The announcement was made at the royal palace in Riyadh as Mr. Trump and Mr. Kushner looked on.

.. the Saudis had been discussing a possible partnership with a number of other firms as well, and formally decided on Blackstone — a fund-raising juggernaut that manages funds larger than the economies of some nations — only after Mr. Schwarzman had started advising the president.

.. the company’s experience illustrates the incentives that corporate leaders have to develop strong ties with Mr. Trump — the country’s businessman in chief — and the reputational risks associated with those relationships when Mr. Trump veers off course, as he did this past week.

.. Some of the other investment firms that were in discussions about a Saudi partnership, including Brookfield and the Carlyle Group, had more experience in managing infrastructure funds and are still in talks with the Saudis

.. But while Mr. Schwarzman’s alliance with Mr. Trump is new, his ties to Mr. Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, run deeper. Mr. Kushner and his wife, Ivanka Trump, attended Mr. Schwarzman’s 70th birthday party in February at his home in Palm Beach, Fla., near Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.

.. In 2013, well before Mr. Trump was even a candidate, Blackstone financed the purchase of a few warehouses and industrial buildings by Mr. Kushner’s family company

.. Mr. Kushner is also friendly with Jon Gray, a senior Blackstone executive who runs its real estate business.

.. Mr. Kushner and Mr. Gray, a Democrat, have been photographed together at Manhattan social events, and before the election, Mr. Kushner urged the staff at the Commercial Observer newspaper, which Mr. Kushner used to run, to place Mr. Gray higher on its list of “Power 100” real estate executives, according to a former employee with knowledge of the list. In 2016, Mr. Gray was No. 1 on that list.

.. Unlike many people in Washington, Mr. Schwarzman said, Mr. Trump could accomplish tax policy reform and an infrastructure overhaul.

.. Mr. Schwarzman speaks with Mr. Trump as much as once a week, typically about the economy though also about social policy, including a conversation in which Mr. Schwarzman advised the president to continue shielding young undocumented immigrants from deportation

.. Blackstone manages about $370 billion.