Jewish Groups Spar Over Trump National Security Adviser McMaster’s Israel Record
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
(JTA) — Jewish organizations sparred over the views of H.R. McMaster, the national security advisor, with the Zionist Organization of America attacking him as anti-Israel and the American Jewish Committee defending him.
ZOA, one of the few Jewish organizations to consistently defend President Trump, issued a report on Thursday sharply critical of McMaster.
In the report, ZOA claims that McMaster is undermining Trump’s Middle East agenda and the relationship between the United States and Israel by firing officials supportive of the Jewish state and critical of the Iran nuclear deal, including Ezra Cohen-Watnick, the hawkish former senior director for intelligence on the National Security Council.
The report calls on Trump “to remove General McMaster from his current position and reassign him to another position where he can do no further harm on these critical national security issues.”
Dan Shapiro, who served as ambassador to Israel under President Barack Obama, and the American Jewish Committee criticized the ZOA report.
“ZOA claims, on the flimsiest of pretexts that McMaster has ‘animus toward Israel’ and ‘opposes Trump’s pro-Israel policies’,” Shapiro tweeted. “Nonsense. Every Israeli official who met McMaster has found him to be deeply sympathetic, friendly, consistent with longstanding U.S. support for Israel.”
The centrist American Jewish Committee shared one of Shapiro’s tweets, adding: “Agreed. We were honored to host Gen. McMaster at AJC Global Forum and chatted with him before. His admiration for Israel was crystal-clear.”
On Friday, Trump called his national security adviser “very pro-Israel,” an apparent bid to end a barrage of attacks from the right that have depicted McMaster as hostile to Israel.
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover. All donations are being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
