G_d Forbid!

Peloni: Leon Kushner provides an important context to the discussion on US VP Vance.  This was posted as a response to a recent interview with Ambassador Yoram Ettinger on this subject but it provides too good a reflection of Vance to not earn its own post.

Leon Kushner

Photo by Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America – J. D. Vance, CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikipedia 

I have much respect for ambassador Ettinger. I love how he always tries to explain how the US benefits from the ‘aid’ it sends to Israel. I totally agree of course.

But on his interpretation of Vance vis a vis Israel and Jews – I disagree, though not entirely. He’s right about Vance’s lack of foreign policy knowledge and worse, his ignorance regarding the Muslim mind set. If in fact he is taking his cues from the old State Department’s anti-Israel foreign policy, then we are in trouble.

But how does Ettinger explain Vance’s comments some months ago at a Turning Point USA event when a young Tucker Carlson fan asked: Why are we supporting Israel anyways? His nonsensical response was telling. He went into an unhinged diatribe about how Jews and Christians differ, sighting how one group believes in Jesus and the other does not. Have you noticed that he never uses the term Judeo-Christian values but instead only uses the term Christian values. He took a page directly from Obama’s presidency. Divide the public. Obama was a master deceiver at this. He did it with Blacks vs Whites, Jews vs Christians, rich vs poor, etc.

Most important, we all know that it was thanks to his ‘good friend’ Tucker who got him the job as VP. When asked about Tucker’s obscene Jew/Israel hatred he replied that although they might disagree on certain issues, Tucker remains a very good, close friend! That would be like saying that although I disagree with some of Hitler’s policies (like murdering 6 million Jews in the most horrific way), we share a love of German shepherd’s so we remain good friends.

The fact that he refuses to condemn his ‘friend’ for his blatant, overt antisemitism is the most disturbing issue and it has nothing to do with foreign policy or ignorance thereof.

I compare him to his friend Tucker, Kanye West, Candace Owens, Megan Kelly and others on the right who slowly but surely turned on us. We all had hopes and wishes at the beginning that they are our friends who just needed more explaining. Believe me, I held the same hopes for Vance. But as I predicted in my blog post: https://leonupsidedown.blogspot.com/2025/12/antisemitism-from-right-jd-vance.html

that unless Vance is confronted both publicly by members of the Republican party (Congress, cabinet members and citizens) and privately by his boss (Trump), his subliminal Jew hatred will become more overt and obvious.

I also want to note that I think Vance is viewed as the best contender for the Republican nomination. He is very articulate and checks all the boxes for your average conservative citizen to choose. The fact that many Republicans in Congress oppose his foreign policy is near moot.

If someone asked me what I thought about him as the next US president I would respond simply with: G-d forbid!