Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: Donald Trump

Showing posts with label Donald Trump. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 04, 2024

Hostage Betrayal: A Harsh Reminder That America May or May Not Defend Its Jews (Judean Rose)

Disclaimer: the views expressed here are solely those of the author, weekly Judean Rose columnist Varda Meyers Epstein.

With the death of American hostage Omer Neutra now confirmed, that leaves at most three American hostages in Gaza left alive. All told, there are seven American hostages still held in Gaza; four of them, including Neutra, are dead, their families denied even the right to bury their dead and process their grief. Does it matter that come January 20^th a new, tough-talking sheriff in the form of President Elect Donald J. Trump is coming to town?

It does and it doesn’t. The fact that someone in Israel’s corner is moving into the Oval Office doesn’t change the fact that the American hostages were betrayed by the most powerful nation on earth: America. It was always a possibility because that’s the way it goes with American Jews. American administrations come and go, some of them more and some of them less pro-Israel. Some of them more and some of them less antisemitic.

Joe Biden, or whoever operates under his guise, doesn’t care about some Jews who left America voluntarily to live in a state that is nothing but a pain in the neck to Joe. A thorn in his side. (Those pesky Jews.)

President Trump will be far better, as was proven on Monday afternoon following the news of IDF confirmation of Neutra’s death on October 7. Taking to Truth Social, President Trump issued a firm threat to Hamas:

Everybody is talking about the hostages who are being held so violently, inhumanely, and against the will of the entire World, in the Middle East - But it’s all talk and no action! Please let this TRUTH serve to represent that if the hostages are not released prior to January 20, 2025, the date that I proudly assume Office as President of the United States, there will be ALL HELL TO PAY in the Middle East, and for those in charge who perpetrated these atrocities against Humanity. Those responsible will be hit harder than anybody has been hit in the long and storied History of the United States of America. RELEASE THE HOSTAGES NOW!

This is my President! There must be serious consequences for holding any hostage but America needs to exact severe consequences for kidnapping and murdering AMERICAN hostages. https://t.co/Qh8dq78mUM
— Gov. Mike Huckabee (@GovMikeHuckabee) December 2, 2024

Netanyahu offered Israel’s heartfelt thanks to President Trump for this strong show of support. Trump’s stern warning was exactly what was needed but had been sorely lacking every day for the past 424 days. The Biden administration, however, was focused only on restraining Israel while appeasing Iran. Biden and his handlers just didn’t care about a handful of American Jews who had chosen to leave the Land of Opportunity for a country that everyone hates.

I want to thank President Trump for his strong statement yesterday about the need for Hamas to release the hostages, the responsibility of Hamas, and this adds another force to our continued effort to release all the hostages.

Thank you, President Trump. pic.twitter.com/sm4gvEDnwi
— Prime Minister of Israel (@IsraeliPM) December 3, 2024

The betrayal by America of its hostages in Gaza is real, and it should be food for thought for American Jews who have not yet been bit by the Aliyah “bug.” It’s a fact: American Jews cannot count on their government to protect them or help them in their time of need. The Biden Administration proves the point. Some presidents may indeed help American Jews when they are in trouble, but others won’t, and it won’t matter if said American Jews are held in Gaza, slashed in the face on a street in Brooklyn, or harassed and violently abused on an American university campus. Some administrations won’t care enough to come down hard enough on the perpetrators to put the fear of God into them.

Jews with American citizenship are, in the end, still less worthy of protection than other Americans. Witness the Biden administration’s lack of will to do much of anything at all for American citizens being held and brutalized in Gaza because they are Jews. Trump coming into office will change this dynamic for a while, and we can hope it will last a good long time, but for the sake of self-preservation, American Jews would be well advised to accept that America is not a place they can count on. When push comes to shove, American Jews may or may not receive the help they deserve at the time it is needed most.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

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Trump’s Cabinet Picks: Good or Bad for the Jews? (Judean Rose)

Disclaimer: the views expressed here are solely those of the author, weekly Judean Rose columnist Varda Meyers Epstein.

When Donald Trump won the election, there was great relief in Israel, something like a collective sigh. There was also anxiety. It’s a long time until January, and we don’t know how much longer the hostages can hang on. But there was, and is, a further cause for anxiety, and that concerns Trump’s cabinet picks, which here in Israel we can’t help but think: are these anointed ones good or bad for the Jews and for Israel?

Matt Gaetz

We might as well begin our examination with Matt Gaetz, Trump’s pick for attorney general, a bad choice by all accounts. Gaetz has what we call in Hebrew, “panim doresh steerot,” a face that needs slapping. There is a lot of noise about his sexual peccadilloes, corruption, and illicit drug use. We remember how Gaetz forced Kevin McCarthy out of his role as House speaker. It’s not as if Gaetz didn’t have plenty of support for the ousting of McCarthy. Nonethless, McCarthy insisted that Gaetz had led the charge against him specifically to wiggle out of an ethics investigation:

“I’ll give you the truth why I’m not speaker. Because one person, a member of Congress, wanted me to stop an ethics complaint because he slept with a 17-year-old, an ethics complaint that started before I ever became speaker. And that’s illegal and I’m not gonna get in the middle of it.

“Now, did he do it or not? I don’t know. But ethics was looking at it. There’s other people in jail because of it. And he wanted me to influence it.”

Indeed there are plenty of reasons to dislike Gaetz, but from the standpoint of the Jewish people, the main issue should be his horrid antisemitsm. Gaetz voted against the Antisemitism Awareness Act, saying that International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism would hold the bible itself as antisemitic because, Gaetz claimed, Christian scripture dictates that the Jews are responsible for Jesus’s death.

Um no. That would be the Romans. Which makes Gaetz a horrible person for pinning this death on the Jews. It’s that kind of slander that leads and has always led, to the letting of Jewish blood. There can be no benign reason for an educated person to say such things. Matt Gaetz hates Jews.

“This evening, I will vote AGAINST the ridiculous hate speech bill called the ‘Antisemitism Awareness Act,’” said Gaetz prior to the vote. “Antisemitism is wrong, but this legislation is written without regard for the Constitution, common sense, or even the common understanding of the meaning of words. The Gospel itself would meet the definition of antisemitism under the terms of this bill!”

Matt Gaetz, in addition to blaming the Jews for what the Romans did, invited Charles Johnson, a Holocaust denier and white nationalist, to be his guest at a 2018 State of the Union address. Gaetz claimed he hadn’t know these things about Johnson, then subsequently defended him, and denied the accusations. Johnson, said Gaetz, is “not a Holocaust denier. He’s not a white supremacist.” But Johnson is both.

When crazy Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene compared COVID public safety measures to the Holocaust, Gaetz defended her. “[Greene] defends Israel and attacks Democrats. Media falsely slams [Greene] as antisemitic. Some Republicans take the bait, sadly,” said Gaetz.

Our attorney general-to-be has been known to hire staff members who hang with white nationalists, and say white nationalist things. He called the ADL “racist” when that body called for Tucker Carlson to be fired from Fox News on account of Carlson pushing the Great Replacement theory. Matt Gaetz said that Carlson is “CORRECT about Replacement Theory.”

The Great Replacement theory, as described by the ADL, “claims there is an intentional effort, led by Jews, to promote mass non-white immigration, inter-racial marriage, and other efforts that would lead to the ‘extinction of whites.’”

RFK Jr.

Moving along, we come to RFK Jr., Trump’s pick for secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. RFK Jr. is another one for conspiracy theories. While dining with journalists, Bobby Kennedy Jr. aired a nutty conspiracy theory positing that COVID was designed to spare Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people.

“COVID-19. There is an argument that it is ethnically targeted. COVID-19 attacks certain races disproportionately. COVID-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and black people. The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.

“We don’t know whether it was deliberately targeted or not but there are papers out there that show the racial or ethnic differential and impact,” said Kennedy, who also claimed that vaccine mandates made people less free than Anne Frank under Nazi rule.

VIDEO:

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. claims coronavirus was an "ethnically targeted" bioweapon designed to be more deadly for caucasians and blacks — and spare Jews and Chinese https://t.co/xfAdovs0sY pic.twitter.com/og4xHdKs7x
— Jon Levine (@LevineJonathan) July 15, 2023

After the footage was leaked, Kennedy went into damage control mode, claiming that he never EVER suggested the virus was designed to spare Jews.

“I have never, ever suggested that the COVID-19 virus was targeted to spare Jews,” wrote Kennedy. “I accurately pointed out — during an off-the-record conversation — that the US and other governments are developing ethnically targeted bioweapons and that a 2021 study of the COVID-19 virus shows that COVID-19 appears to disproportionately affect certain races since the furin cleave docking site is most compatible with Blacks and Caucasians and least compatible with ethnic Chinese, Finns and Ashkenazi Jews.”

RFK Jr.’s friendship with Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan was cemented through just such views as these. Bobby Jr. in fact, called Farrakhan a “truly great partner” for helping him spread the idea that vaccines cause autism. Andrew Wakefield, now disgraced, concocted this “theory” in 1998 and was subsequently exposed as a fraud. When COVID hit, Farrakhan urged his congregants to "follow Robert Kennedy," claiming that scientists developed the coronavirus vaccine in order to "depopulate the Earth."

If RFK Jr. and Farrakhan agree on these nutty conspiracy theories, what other views might they share in common?

Of course, RFK Jr. was wise to quickly disavow his affinity for Farrakhan the antisemite at the outset of his presidential campaign. When asked about the relationship between during his campaign, Kennedy said he is an “opponent” of Farrakhan and "never endorsed anything that Louis Farrakhan has said," which of course, is a lie.

Should Jews look the other way on RFK Jr.? Perhaps. Bobby Jr., speaking to Reuters, expressed support for Israel’s fight against Hamas in Gaza, and for the return of the hostages. Asked if he was in favor of a temporary Gaza ceasefire, Kennedy said, "I don't even know what that means right now," commenting that every previous ceasefire was “used by Hamas to rearm, to rebuild and then launch another surprise attack. So what would be different this time?

"Any other nation that was adjacent to a neighboring nation that was bombing it with rockets, sending commandos over to murder its citizens, pledging itself to murder every person in that nation and annihilate it, would go and level it with aerial bombardment," said Kennedy.

"But Israel is a moral nation. So it didn't do that. Instead, it built an iron dome to protect itself so it would not have to go into Gaza," he added.

Nutty conspiracy theories notwithstanding, so far Bobby Jr. sounds okay on Israel. Perhaps he inherited his views from his father? Bobby Sr. spent time in Pre-State Israel, reporting for the Boston Post and was kindly disposed toward the Jews, and supported their efforts at statehood. Unfortunately, he was murdered because of this support.

Tulsi Gabbard

We come next to Tulsi Gabbard, who is to be national intelligence secretary. It’s hard to dislike Gabbard. She’s a serious person, and is unafraid to change her mind when changing her mind is called for. But she backed the Iran deal, and that’s a huge problem. Gabbard also voted against a House resolution to condemn the U.N. Security Council resolution regarding Israeli settlements in Judea and Samaria, saying, "While I remain concerned about aspects of the U.N. resolution, I share the Obama administration's reservation about the harmful impact Israeli settlement activity has on the prospects for peace."

Seriously?? Jews building homes has a harmful impact on “prospects for peace?” That’s just reprehensibly antisemitic, and I don’t care how popular it has become to repeat the canard that Jewish families building homes, threaten peace. It’s a disgusting and stupid thing to say no matter how many people say it and no matter how often it is said. It’s just, pardon my French, total crap.

I hope that Gabbard will now be able to take a step back and examine the issue from a more commonsense position with good people to take her through it. Maybe now, as part of the Trump cabinet, she’ll educate herself on Israel. In her past, however, she has taken some problematic positions.

Gabbard defended Ilhan Omar, for example, when Omar tweeted that US support for Israel is “all about the Benjamins.” Speaking to CNN, Gabbard said, "There are people who have expressed their offense at these statements. I think that what Congresswoman Omar was trying to get at was a deeper issue related to our foreign policy, and I think there's an important discussion that we have to be able to have openly, even though we may end up disagreeing at the end of it, but we've got to have that openness to have the conversation."

Gabbard also voted for House Resolution 246, which expressed House opposition to the BDS movement and affirmed support for a two-state solution. When asked to explain her vote, Gabbard said she supported "a two-state solution that provides for the rights of both Israel and Palestine to exist, and for their people to live in peace, with security, in their homes. I don't believe the BDS movement is the only or best way to accomplish that. However, I will continue to defend those who choose to exercise their right to free speech without threat of legal action."

The two-state solution is a naïve and unworkable concept, and always was. Neither of the parties want it. So why do pols continue to push the two-state solution down the throats of people who do not want it, and do not see it as the solution it is touted to be? Why does Tulsi Gabbard, who is clearly a clear-thinking person, think the two-state solution makes any sense at all?

There can only be two reasons for supporting the two-state solution: 1) Anti-Jewish prejudice, that is to say, a desire to take land away from the Jews and give it to the people who want to kill them, and 2) Ignorance on the part of people who have never actually studied the matter. “Two-state solution” is just something people say. Endlessly. Meaninglessly. One would hope that Tulsi would know better.

But we have all watched Tulsi Gabbard evolve in her politics. We watched her leave the Democratic Party, become an Independent, and finally, become a staunch, pro-Trump Republican. Perhaps Tulsi’s views will evolve on Israel and antisemitism.

There is reason to be optimistic about Gabbard. Tulsi Gabbard criticized Biden and Harris for not joining a solidarity March for Israel as the Jewish State fights the war forced on it by Hamas. She is clear in that she supports a strong U.S.-Israel relationship. When Gabbard was still a Democrat, in 2015, unlike 58 other Dems, she did not boycott Netanyahu’s address to Congress, stating that “It’s unfortunate that an issue as important as preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons has been muddled by partisan politics. This is an extremely serious issue, at a critical juncture, that should not be used as a political football.”

Gabbard also said that it was important to “rise above the political fray, as America continues to stand with Israel as her strongest ally.”

Nice words and a real show of support for Israel.

Mike Huckabee and Pete Hegseth

Now we come to Mike Huckabee and Pete Hegseth. I know what you’re going to say. Why are they included in this list of potentially problematic Trump candidate members? Both are staunch friends of Israel. They don’t fall prey to propaganda, don’t use terms like “Palestinian” or “West Bank.” They don’t have a problem with Jewish sovereignty, or Jews building homes in their indigenous territory.

Take for example Mike Huckabee, who is slated to become the next ambassador to Israel. Asked whether he would stop using the terms “Judea and Samaria” to describe what most of the world now calls the “West Bank,” Huckabee said, “I can’t be what I’m not. I can’t say something I don’t believe. As you well know, I’ve never been willing to use the term ‘West Bank’. There is no such thing. I speak of Judea and Samaria. I tell people there is no ‘occupation.’ It is a land that is ‘occupied’ by the people who have had a rightful deed to the place for 3,500 years, since the time of Abraham.

“A lot of the terms that maybe the media would use, even the people who are against Israel would use, are not terms that I employ, because I want to use terms that live from time immemorial, and those are the terms like ‘Promised Land’ and ‘Judea and Samaria’. These are biblical terms, and those are important to me, and so I will continue to follow that nomenclature unless I’m instructed otherwise, but I don’t think that’ll happen.”

Huckabee has also said plainly that there is “no such thing as a ‘Palestinian.’” Being that there was never an Arab state called “Palestine,” that makes perfect sense. As Huckabee rightly stated during his 2008 failed presidential campaign, the assertion of the existence of a “Palestinian” identity, is only “a political tool to try and force land away from Israel.”

So far, there is not one thing here with which this writer disagrees.

Of the moronic idea known as the “two-state solution,” Huckabee commented in a 2015 interview on Israeli TV, that it is “irrational and unworkable,” and also said that “there’s plenty of land” outside of Israel in the “rest of the world” for a Palestinian state.

All true.

Pete Hegseth, picked for secretary of defense, says all the right things when it comes to Israel. At a 2018 Israel National News conference Hegseth spoke of the right of the Jewish people to claim their indigenous territory for themselves, and themselves alone.

"I, and others, had a chance to go see the Western Wall, the Temple Mount, the Western Wall Tunnels, and so much of the Old City," said Hegseth. "When you stand there, you cannot help but behold the miracle before you."

"It got me thinking about another miracle I hope all of you don't see as too far away. 1917 was a miracle, 1948 was a miracle, 1967 was a miracle, 2017, the declaration of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel was a miracle, and there's no reason why the miracle of the reestablishment of the Temple on the Temple Mount is not possible. I don't know how it would happen, you don't know how it would happen, but I know that it could happen, that's all I know," he said.

"A step in that process is the recognition that facts and activities on the ground truly matter. That's why going to visit Judea and Samaria, understanding that the very sovereignty over Israeli soil, cities, locations, is a critical next step to showing the world that this is the land for Jews, and the land of Israel," concluded Hegseth.

So why are Mike Huckabee and Pete Hegseth included in an article on Trump cabinet picks who might not be good for the Jews/Israel? Both men are respectful of Jewish beliefs and rights. That respect springs out of their Christian faith, which is fine. What would not be fine is if either the two men or Israeli officials began to speak about “shared values” or “Judeo-Christian values,” as if that were a thing.

Judaism stands alone. We Jews have our own faith, our own laws, and a religious narrative we do not share with Christians or those of other faiths. We should not want Christians telling us they are like us, and we should not want Israeli leaders to do so, either. That should be and must be a red line that is respected on both sides.

We can see the good in these two men without searching for nonexistent religious common ground. It is hoped that Huckabee and Hegseth understand these sensitivities and will remain as respectful to the Jewish people as ever. On the other hand, will official Israel be able to control itself—to refrain from slobbering over these men? It’s a problem.

It is so rare for Israel to have staunch friends, people who understand us, and believe in our right to our rights. Their sincere friendship makes us Jews feel like we actually belong to the family of man—at last there is someone who sees us.

Within this warm circle of cozy coexistence lies a temptation—the temptation to assert that we are alike. But we are not, and it is wrong to say otherwise. Hegseth, despite the allegations against him in the media, seems like a nice person. Huckabee, too. And that’s where the similarities start and end.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

Kamala Harris Invokes Godwin's Law; Walz Jumps Right In (Judean Rose)

Disclaimer: the views expressed here are solely those of the author, weekly Judean Rose columnist Varda Meyers Epstein.

Kamala Harris didn’t actually call Trump a Nazi, but she might as well have. Echoing allegations by disgruntled Former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, she declared that Donald Trump wants a military that will be "loyal to him personally" and "obey his orders even when he tells them to break the law or abandon their oath to the constitution of the United States."

Vice President Kamala Harris continued on, saying, "It is deeply troubling and incredibly dangerous that Donald Trump would invoke Adolf Hitler, the man who is responsible for the deaths of six million Jews and hundreds of thousands of Americans. All of this is further evidence for the American people of who Donald Trump really is."

And there it is, Godwin’s Law. The longer the election dragged on, the more inevitable it had been that someone would bring in the Holocaust. Not in the sort of, “We must never forget the Holocaust,” kind of way, but in the sort of, “He’s the author of the Final Solution, Adolf Hitler himself,” kind of way.

Harris running mate Tim Walz was happy to run with it, remarking that Trump’s alleged comment regarding Hitler’s generals “makes me sick as hell.”

“Folks, the guardrails are gone. Trump is descending into this madness — a former president of the United States and the candidate for president of the United States says he wants generals like Adolf Hitler had,” said Walz, who has lied about his military service.

Walz said he was a retired command sergeant major, but he wasn’t. He claimed he carried weapons “in war,” but never saw combat. In truth, he skipped out on his battalion only months before they were deployed to Iraq. J.D. Vance, among many others, condemned these falsehoods as “stolen valor.”

This is something to keep in mind when weighing the credibility of those Walz “orange Hitler”-style slurs. But it gets worse with Walz. Much worse, in this Jewish writer’s opinion.

From The Hill:

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic vice presidential nominee, compared former President Trump’s Sunday rally at New York’s Madison Square Garden in to a 1939 pro-Nazi event.
“Donald Trump’s got this big rally going at Madison Square Garden,” Walz said at an event in Henderson, Nev. “There’s a direct parallel to a big rally that happened in the mid-1930s at Madison Square Garden.”
An American Nazi Party held a rally at Madison Square Garden in February 1939 that lured 20,000 supporters to the iconic New York City landmark.
“And don’t think that he doesn’t know for one second exactly what they’re doing there,” Walz said.

When Walz speaks, he draws a picture. We can see that pro-Hitler rally in our minds. It hits you right in the kishkes.

Up next is Hillary Clinton. The former (failed) 2016 presidential candidate picked off where Walz left off, continuing on with the same “Trump is a Nazi” narrative, claiming that Trump with this rally was reenacting the infamous Nazi rally, held in that very same space. “Trump [is] actually re-enacting the Madison Square Garden rally in 1939,” said Clinton to CNN’s Kaitlin Collins.

“President Franklin Roosevelt was appalled that neo-Nazis, fascists in America were lining up to essentially pledge their support for the kind of government that they were seeing in Germany,” said Former President Clinton’s wife never-to-be-president Clinton.

"It is clear from John Kelly's words that Donald Trump is someone who I quote 'certainly falls into the general definition of fascist.' Who in fact, vowed to be a dictator on day one, and vowed to use the military as his personal militia to carry out his personal and political vendetta,'" said Clinton.

Harris, meanwhile, is not better than Walz or Clinton, only more boring—she doesn't believe her own rhetoric but is determined to get to the top with her gleaming eyes and maniacal laugh. She’s not even original. In fact, she’s a yawn. And frankly, unintelligent.

“I invite you to listen and go online to listen to John Kelly … who has told us Donald Trump said, why — essentially, ‘Why aren’t my generals like those of Hitler’s, like Hitler.'

“The American people deserve to have a president who encourages healthy debate … and certainly not comparing oneself in a clearly admiring way to Hitler.

“This is a serious, serious issue. And we know who he is. He admires dictators.

“The American people deserve to have a president who encourages healthy debate, works across the aisle, not afraid of good ideas wherever they come from, but also maintains certain standards about how we think about the role and the responsibility, and certainly not comparing oneself in a clearly admiring way to Hitler.”

Asked if Trump were a fascist, Harris' bluffed right on through. “Yes, I do,” she said. “Yes, I do.”

There was something in her smile. Something sly in it for that tiny split second.

Well, what else could Kamala Harris, famous for her word salads, do to win at this point but smear her opponent? She wants to be president, but has done so little to articulate her policies. Or rather, she’s articulated many words that go good with Thousand Island dressing.

As November 5 draws nearer, Harris seems to have stopped even trying to outline what it is she intends to do if elected president. Instead, she has begun this slow crescendo of hateful tropes, each day ranting and raving about Donald Trump ever more vigorously, insistently and repeatedly telling us that Trump is a very bad person.

There is a name for this. It’s called negative campaigning. Whether or not smearing one’s opponent is an effective strategy is up for debate, but it certainly seems the coward’s way out of articulating an actual policy. Something Harris can’t and hasn’t done.

We have seen Kamala Harris a lot these past weeks, Tim Walz, less so. I think they hide him. He’s scary. He has crazy eyes. And I did not like the look of hatred that flashed on his face, that downturn of the mouth when Walz was asked by a reporter about the hostages in Gaza—it was so quick I had to watch the exchange a few times to confirm it. Then the mask came down and Walz was Mister Friendly Guy once more—all smiley like he didn’t hear the reporter’s question. But we all saw it. I saw it. I saw Mr. Evil Man rear his ugly head for that little almost undetectable blip in time.

I dread the thought of Walz in a position of influence. Kamala is a power-hungry puppet who will not be kind to Israel should she win, but she is too stupid to craft or carry out policy, and that’s where others come in.

Will Walz distinguish himself as an advisor? Will he have a voice? More likely Walz is a signal to Israel-hating voters: Here is someone in Kamala’s corner.

Someone who hates the Jews.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

Losing the Jewish Vote: Trump will be Trump, A Debate Postmortem (Judean Rose)

Disclaimer: the views expressed here are solely those of the author, weekly Judean Rose columnist Varda Meyers Epstein.

The Trump-Harris debate was on every politically-aware person’s mind for the past month. We heard commentator after commentator weigh in in the run-up to that time: it’s crucial that he focus on substance, and not be, well, Trump, they all said. But we all knew, as did the commentators, that Trump would be Trump.

We hoped that Tulsi Gabbard, who had been enlisted to prepare Trump for the debate, would be a moderating influence. But we knew better. We knew that Trump would be Trump and that there was nothing and no one who could change that.

A lot of people like that about Trump—that he is what he is and doesn’t care what we think of him. But a lot of people don’t like that about Trump. And those are the people he needs to sway—the others were going to vote for him anyway.

I went to bed Monday night, knowing that the debate would begin while I slept here in Israel. I wasn’t upset about that. I only felt down, so sure was I that Trump would be Trump, and that as a result, Israel would have to contend with a hostile Harris-Walz government.

I woke up, and not at all hopeful, caught the tail end of the debate. It was exactly as we all knew it would be. Trump didn’t care how he said what he said, didn’t stop to think how offensive it would be for a Jew to hear from his lips, “Israel will not exist within two years from now.”

This is offensive on so many levels and some of those levels are difficult to express. There’s a visceral recoiling from those words, it’s instinctive, and surely that’s not what Trump wants the undecided Jewish voter to feel right now. Trump thinks he will frighten us into voting for him. In actual fact, the statement gives grave offense to us. We existed before Trump, and we will continue to survive as a nation should he lose, but it would, God forbid, take a toll. A “terrible” toll, as Donald Trump might say.

Still, it’s an alienating thing to say; and if Trump alienates the Jews, they won’t vote for him, and as a result, Harris may win. And that is exactly why I blame Trump for what happened last time. I believe Trump’s bull-in-a-china-shop attitude, at least in part, led to a win for Biden. Trump’s attitude and manner of behavior is every bit as much to blame for the division in America as the politicians who slander anyone who does not agree with them, and the news media and the echo chamber that echo them.

So much of what Trump said was good and true. But the effect of that is destroyed when he says, “I believe that Israel will not exist within two years from now” (emphasis added):

[When] she mentions Israel, all of a sudden, she hates Israel. She wouldn't even meet with Netanyahu when he went to Congress to make a very important speech. She refused to be there because she was at a sorority party of hers. She went to go to the sorority party. She hates Israel. If she's president, I believe that Israel will not exist within two years from now, I've been pretty good at predictions. I hope I'm wrong about that one.
She hates Israel. At the same time, in her own way, she hates the Arab population, because the whole place is going to get blown up. Arabs, Jewish people, Israel, Israel will be gone.
It would have never happened. Iran was broke under Donald Trump. Now, Iran has $300 billion because they took off all the sanctions that I had. Iran had no money for Hamas or Hezbollah or any of the 28 different spheres of terror. And they are spheres of terror, horrible terror."

Is Donald Trump wrong about any of this? Aside from saying Israel won’t exist, he’s probably right. But even if he’s not wrong about any of it, God forbid, that’s not the way to say it. The right way to say this is—as I’m sure Tulsi Gabbard tried to impress upon Trump— “A Harris win poses an existential threat to Israel.”

Would it be so hard for him to say those words instead of the ones that make us bristle?

At the Republican Jewish Coalition summit last week, speaking to a Jewish audience, it was even worse, and at the same time, even better. Trump expanded on what he would do to help Israel were he to win. He listed many good things he has done in the past and also all the good things he will do for Israel and the world should he win the election. Many, many good things.

Unlike at the debate, Trump’s words at the RJC summit were heartening and hopeful in many respects. At the same time, it’s upsetting to see how Trump sabotages his own campaign, likely losing the Jewish vote again, only for his refusal to speak like a human being instead of like an ape.

The RJC speech, on balance, is very fine, and worth reading in full, as I found out when I read over the transcript I cobbled together from YouTube auto-generated text. If it weren’t for the threats and childish nicknames he slings at his opponents, the good would outweigh the bad, and Trump would have many more Jewish votes in his pocket. But Trump can’t seem to help himself—or rather, doesn’t care enough about Israel and the Jews—to even try to speak and comport himself with enough moderation to tip the scales in his favor (emphasis added):

Take a look at what's happening with that whole group. Harris Biden Administration has sought to cast blame for these deaths on Israel. They have not been your friends. I don't understand how anybody can support them and I say it constantly, if you had them to support, and you were Jewish, you have to have your head examined. They have been very bad to you, let me state this very clearly; the blame for these wicked murders lies with Hamas and Hamas alone.
Only an evil and inhuman, really inhuman ideology, kidnaps, tortures, and murders innocent men, women, and children, and likewise, only a deeply sick political party here in America would make common cause with those who sympathize with such evil, and they are, there's nobody been close, closer than this group of people, radical left people running for office right now, and they're not going to win because they can't win, because we wouldn't have a country any longer and then Israel would not have an ally. That I can tell you and only a morally rotten president and vice president would seek to blame Israel for heinous acts of terror committed against its own citizens.
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are a disgrace to your nation and to my nation. If Kamala Harris and Crooked Joe Biden are looking for another cause for this crisis, they should do nothing more than look in the mirror: they are the cause. They gave you no support. They gave Israel no support.
The October 7th attack on Israel would never have happened if I was president. Zero chance. It was not going to happen, just like the disaster in Afghanistan would never have happened, and frankly the invasion of Ukraine by Russia would not have happened. Happen this November, we're going to replace weakness with strength; cowardice with courage and clarity; and war with peace. We're going to tell Comrade Kamala Harris, “You're fired.”
[Applause]
Thank you.
Now we have no choice in doing so. You'll never survive if they get in and our country America will never survive if they get in.
When I left office, America was safe. Israel was safe. The Jewish people were safe, and the whole world was at peace. Under my leadership, we obliterated the Isis caliphate. 100% done. We did it in four weeks. It was supposed to take five years I did it in four weeks, and it was done, over.
I withdrew from the horrendous Iran nuclear deal, and imposed the toughest ever sanctions on the regime. Iran was weak. Iran was broke. They had no money and they wanted to make a deal.
As president, I withdrew from the antisemitic United Nations Human Rights Council, which is terrible, absolutely terrible.
I defunded the Palestinian Authority and choked off the money to Hamas, and we actually defunded that. We were paying them a fortune every year. The United was States was paying a fortune, and I said we're not going to pay, they're not our friends, and not the friend of Israel.
I recognized Israel's eternal capital and opened the American Embassy in Jerusalem, something which every president said they were going to do, and they never did it. I got it done, and I also got the embassy built. Somebody else would have never gotten it built.
I also recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights. The Golan Heights was a big thing. We were talking to a lot of people. I got it done in 15 minutes. They've been negotiating it for 52 years. Nothing was ever going to happen without me.
With the historic Abraham Accords, we made peace in the Middle East. We had wonderful support, and had I been president for the remainder of that, the time that we're talking about, this year, period. Everybody, every country virtually, would have been signed into the Abraham Accords whereas Biden and Harris have done nothing. Nobody signed.
So, here at home, American Jews felt safe on our streets and college campuses when I was president, and we kept radical Islamic terrorists out of our country. They were out. They weren't allowed to come in, but all of that changed with Comrade Kamala Harris and Crooked Joe Biden in the White House.
Harris restored funding to the Palestinian Authority and even much more money than they were being paid before; and the UN Relief and Works Agency, which both funnel money now to Hamas, and they funnel a lot of money to Hamas, and nobody knows that better than you.
She supported removing the Houthis, to list—we had a terror list that was really, uh, very important for them to be on that terror list, and she took them off the terror list, a group whose motto includes the words “Death to America, Death to Israel” and “A curse on the Jews.”
This is their motto and they don't want them on a terror list.
Kamala Harris helped deliver over $100 billion in sanctions relief to Iran. Gave him all the money. They gave him $6 billion for hostages. They gave them money that Iran never expected—never, never could have made—and now because of them, in three and a half years they've got $350 billion.
When I was there they had no money. They wanted to make a deal, and we would have had a deal very easily if the election turned out the way it should have turned out, frankly, but the regime used it to expand its terror brigades and to fund Hamas. Iran was doing that, and funding them at a level that nobody thought even possible.
Kamala Harris is the candidate of the forces who want to destroy Western civilization and Israel. I am the candidate of those who want to defend Western civilization; defend Israel; and defend of course, the United States of [Applause] America. When I'm president, the United States will once again stand shoulder to shoulder with the State of Israel.
I will support Israel's right to win its war on terror and we will win fast. You have to win, and you have to win fast. We will restore stability and peace in the Middle East, and we will be using a phrase that's been used by some very great leaders over the years, including Ronald Reagan. “Peace through strength.”
You will have peace through strength.
If Kamala Harris wins, terrorist armies will wage an unceasing war to drive Jews out of the Holy Land and you know it, and we've had a great relationship with Israel, but I can say honestly that we got 25% of the vote, we got 26% after four years, after I did more for Israel than any other president by far, and this year we're probably around a 50% mark.
But I only ask you who are the 50% of Jewish people that are voting for these people that hate Israel and don't like the Jewish people, why are they, why are they voting, why? How do they exist?
Iran and his proxies will spread bloodshed and death all around the globe, and as she continues to set the world on fire, Kamala Harris will support unlimited migration from terrorist hotbeds into the United States, and will totally abandon Israel. You're going to be abandoned if she becomes president, and I think you have to explain that to your people because they don't know it, they have no idea what they're getting into.
You're not going to have an Israel if they become, if she becomes president Israel will no longer exist. When I'm president we will deport the foreign Jihad sympathizers and Hamas supporters from our midst. We don't want them in our midst, thank you very much, thank you. If you hate America, if you want to eliminate Israel, then we don't want you in our country.
[Applause]
I will ban refugee settlements from terror-infested areas like the Gaza Strip. We will arrest the pro-Hamas thugs who vandalize federal property, and I will put every single college president on notice. The American taxpayer will not subsidize the creation of terrorist sympathizers on American soil. Colleges will and must end the antisemitic propaganda or they will lose their accreditation and federal support. No money will go to them if they [Applause] don't.
In the Republican Party, we know that militant antisemitism and support for terror have no place in a civilized society. They have no place. We must reject antisemitism in our schools; reject it in our foreign policy; reject it in our immigration system; and reject it at the ballot box this November.
You must get Jewish people or people that love Israel, you must get them to vote for Republican {sic].
You must get them to vote for Trump, and if you don't, you're not going to have a country. I am telling you I've been very good at predicting things. You will not have a country. This is a radical left Marxist that we have running, you will not have a country.
With your vote, we will defend our citizens. We will defend our values; and we will defend our country America; and Israel will be respected [Applause] again.
We will deliver low taxes; low regulations; low energy costs; low interest rates; and low inflation. We will stop the invasion, end migrant crime; support our police; strengthen our military; build a missile defense shield like you have, slightly larger; keep critical race theory and transgender insanity out of our schools; and keep men out of women's sports in our country.
[Music]
We will defend the Second Amendment; restore free speech; and we will secure our elections. In everything we do, I will put America first. I will keep America safe, and I will work with you to make sure that Israel is with us for thousands of years. We're not going to let go of it.
If they win, Israel is gone. Just remember that if they win, Israel is gone. You can forget about Israel. That's what's going to happen, so they have to get out on November 5^th, and they have to vote for Trump. If they don't I think it's going to be a very terrible situation.
We're going to make America great again. We're going to, frankly, help Israel become great again. Right now, what you're going through is horrible, that you have to go through that, with all the death, destruction, and waste, and ruining a civilization.
You have to go on. You have to win, but you need a partner. You can never have that partner if these radical Marxists win the election, so I thank you, and God bless Israel, God Bless America, I'll see you soon, thank you very much.

As stated in his speech, the list of good things Trump would do for us is detailed and it is long. And many of us know that Trump would do each and every one of these good things for Israel and for the world. We know and we believe that he would defund every bad and evil influence possible; the gross George Soros people persecuting Jewish youth on campus; UNRWA; Iran. He’d defund them all, Trump would.

But first he has to get into office. And I fear that last night, with his threatening remarks at the debate, Trump has lost the election yet again, by alienating Jewish voters, put off by his off-putting words. Trump would have been smart, instead, to learn from the closing remarks of Douglas Murray when he faced off against Mehdi Hassan in June:

The Jewish State and the Jewish people have survived an awful lot worse than this. They have seen off every single one of their enemies, from Pharaoh to the Abyssinians, to the Babylonians, the Greeks, the Romans. They will see off Hamas. They will see off Mehdi, and they will outlive everybody in this [Applause] room.

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Donald Trump Put Joe in the White House So Shut Up Already Before We Get Kamala (Judean Rose)

Disclaimer: the views expressed here are solely those of the author, weekly Judean Rose columnist Varda Meyers Epstein.

Donald Trump has many times reiterated the claim that what happened on October 7 in Israel would not have happened had he won the 2020 election. I completely agree. Which is why, to a degree, I blame Donald Trump for what happened on and in the wake of October 7.

If Trump hadn’t been such a rude bully, perhaps Joe Biden would not now be pretending to be executive in chief with Kamala Harris waiting in the wings while contemplating the great significance of the passage of time (why Joe wasn’t pushed down a flight of stairs and said to be dead from COVID long ago, I have no idea).

You don’t need me to tell you that Trump is (in)famous for his ad hominem attacks on his opponents. Trump delights in inventing creative attack nicknames for his competitors, among them:

· Little Marco

· Lyin’ Ted

· Crooked Hillary

· Ron DeSanctimonious

· Low Energy Jeb

· Pocahontas

· Crazy Joe Biden

· Sleepy Joe

· Comrade Kamala

· Tampon Tim

The mean nicknames no doubt delight many Trump voters. For them, it’s all a part of Donald Trump’s charm. But what about those who take offense at the name-calling? They also vote. If Donald Trump really cares about America, shouldn’t he want their votes, too?

Aside from the rude and childish name-calling, there was his mockery of the way the now-deceased John McCain used his hands. Love or hate Donald Trump, you have to admit that making fun of the disabled is repugnant, pure and simple. But it’s even worse when that disabled person is a former prisoner of war and war hero, whose disability is the result of maltreatment and torture. Is someone who mocks the disabled, someone who behaves in this fashion, worthy of being elected to the highest office in the land—a land that John McCain defended with his body?

My dad was an American hero. An icon. A patriot that will be remembered throughout history. I cannot buy a bagel without someone approaching me about how much they loved and miss him.

Trump is a piece of shit, election denying, huckster whose own wife won't campaign with him. https://t.co/f3RlWLqT9B
— Meghan McCain (@MeghanMcCain) January 7, 2024

The name-calling, crude references to manhood/menstruation, and public mimicry of the disabled are all problematic and, it must be acknowledged, at least in part to blame for Trump’s loss to Biden in 2020. Many are now warning Trump that here too in 2024, he stands to lose voters because of his coarse behavior. And then we’re really in trouble, because God forbid, we’d end up with two YUGE antisemites running the show, Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.

As Victor Davis Hanson explains it, there is only a short window for Donald Trump to define himself for the voters. When Trump calls Harris “stupid” without saying why, he only looks churlish. It’s a missed opportunity to present his case at a time when time is running out, or as Hanson put it, “No time for invective.”

Despite his at times unpresidential behavior, Trump was a damned good president according to just about every measure this author can think of. Think back to what your grocery cart looked like then compared to now, under the Bidenomics of which Kamala is so proud. Picture the signing of the Abraham Accords, and then see in your mind’s eye how Biden, instead of fostering peace, gave Iran the wherewithal to finance Hamas brutality while staying Israel’s hand from its own defense:

“I will end every single international crisis that the current administration has created, including the horrible war with Russia and Ukraine — which would have never happened if I was president — and the war caused by the attack on Israel, which would have never happened if I was president,” said Trump at the RNC.

“Iran was broke. Iran had no money. Now Iran has $250 billion. They made it all over the last two and a half years,” he adds, saying the Biden administration has provided Tehran sanctions relief.

“I told China and other countries if you buy from Iran, we will not let you do any business in this country.”

These are not empty boasts. I believe Trump when he says these things. And he’s right; Hamas would not have attacked Israel on October 7 had he been in office. They wouldn’t have dared; and now they remember all too well how things were when Trump was in office—and tremble. As they should.

Trump starved Iran of money, making it impossible for the Ayatollah to support his proxies, including the one in Gaza, Hamas. Joe Biden, on the other hand, has fed Iran a constant diet of cash, even as he stays Israel’s hand from obliterating this cruel enemy. There’s no reason to think this policy of emboldening those who murder, rape, and brutalize Jews won’t continue under a Kamala Harris presidency. And by now we must acknowledge that Joe cannot possibly be running the show. The unseen handler of Joe is likely to become the handler of Kamala Harris as well, if Trump fails to make his case.

Here in Israel, we feel the terrible strain of the hostage situation. We pray for the best, but anticipate the worst, and it is unbearable. That makes me—and I’d venture a lot of other Israeli Jews—feel kind of desperate about the American presidential election. We are desperate for Donald Trump to win. And angry that this might all have been avoided, had Trump behaved a little better in the run up to the last election. Who knows how many lives would have been saved had Trump kept a civil tongue in his mouth? It makes me ache to think of it. A good president who won’t behave, and people died.

And still, it is a pragmatic fact that Trump must win, because he is the president who will act decisively, and extract a price from Hamas for what it did and continues to do to Americans and American allies both dead and alive in Gaza. In spite of his rough behavior, it’s obvious that Trump has a strong sense of right and wrong. He feels the disgrace of what it means for Biden to have allowed this state of affairs to continue even as Joe helps it along—helps the terrorists along. Trump also feels the disgrace of America throwing an ally, Israel, under the bus.

Kamala, on the other hand, will be worse than Joe. She has expressed sympathy for supporters of Hamas and Hezbollah, again and again.

So we watch and worry. We worry that Trump will say more nasty, childish thing and that this will affect his chances at the polls. What will be of our hostages if Trump can’t shut his mouth and restrain himself. “Save it for Putin!” we want to shout.

Yet we know that in spite of any mean-spirited behavior to the contrary, in the bigger scheme of things, Trump has more morality in his little finger than there is in the entire Biden White House.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

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Cancellation of Pence's last planned trip to Israel as VP cost over half a million dollars

At the end of December 2020, then-Vice President Mike Pence canceled a planned trip to Israel and other countries.

A planned visit to Israel by US Vice President Mike Pence was called off less than two weeks before he was due to arrive, the US Embassy confirmed Wednesday.

No reason was given for the cancellation, which was first reported by the Ynet news site.

Pence was reportedly scheduled to make a number of stops on a final world trip before leaving office on January 20. Earlier this month, Politico reported that the vice president planned to take off on January 6 — the same day the US Congress is scheduled to confirm President-elect Joe Biden’s electoral victory — visiting a number of countries, including Israel from January 10 to 13.

Though his stop in Israel was never officially confirmed by the US Embassy, the Israel Police and other Israeli authorities had begun preparations for the visit.

Earlier this month, Regional Cooperation Minister Ofir Akunis, a member of Netanyahu’s Likud party, confirmed the visit, saying, “Pence is planning on visiting Israel. I don’t want to commit to the dates. It’s likely that during the trip itself there will be a declaration of normalization” with another Muslim country.

A US Embassy spokesperson confirmed to The Times of Israel on Wednesday that the vice president would not be coming to Israel.

In its report, Politico said the trip abroad appeared to be an effort by Pence to avoid the ire of US President Donald Trump and his supporters over the vice president’s expected validation of the 2020 election results in his capacity as president of the US Senate. The president and his allies have claimed without basis that the election was stolen from him.

“I suspect the timing is anything but coincidental,” a Pence ally told Politico.

The news outlet cited a government document showing Pence was set to visit Bahrain, Israel and Poland, but said planning was tentative and that more destinations could be added.

Why was the trip cancelled at the last minute?

According to Pence's book "So Help Me God,"

I also had plans to travel to Israel and the Middle East right after the proceedings on January 6, but on that the president said, “I don’t think you should go... more important to have you here.”

That's all I can find on the reasons - an offhand comment from Trump around the 28th or 29th of December.

That comment was expensive.

Records from the US Embassy in Jerusalem show that the cancellation was not cheap: hotel cancellation fees were over $360,000 and transportation cancellation fees were $180,000.

This seems to indicate a large entourage, but I don't know if that is unusual for a vice presidential trip.

It seems unlikely that there was a plan to declare a new Abraham Accords signatory in that time period, although there were lots of rumors that something like that would happen in the last days of the Trump administration. It seems that this is just another small data point in the disorganized final days of the Trump administration.

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Why do Palestinians always declare victory when they lose?

If this is what victory looks like....

Hussain Abdul-Hussain, an analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, tweeted a criticism of Arabs who keep declaring "victory" over Israel:

The Arabs have a chronic and permanent feeling that they are on the verge of victory over Israel, and that the passage of time is in their interest. This is how Nasrallah appeared yesterday saying that Israel does not dare to remove his border tent because Israel's deterrence capacity has diminished, and because Israel is no longer as strong as in the past, and Lebanon is also not weak as in the past.

This feeling that Nasrallah transmits regarding the Arab struggle against Israel is improving in favor of the Arabs, is not born yesterday. "Israel is weaker than a spider’s web.”

Like Nasrallah, Arab Americans feel that anti-Israelism in America and the world is expanding, and that times are changing in favor of the Arabs. Of course, these feelings are not based on facts. Rather, they are from the core of the Arab heritage that replaces truth with poetry, empty pride, and bragging about imaginary heroism and victories.

This Arab non-reality is passed down through the generations. For example, in the closing statement of the Arab League summit held in Tunis in 1979, when Nasrallah was still a teenager, it was stated that the conferees expressed their relief that the world had begun to turn against Israel: Noting with satisfaction the increasing isolation of Israel in the world arena, the shrinking of its international relations, and the growing awareness of the justness of the Palestinian cause and all occupied Arab lands among the world public opinion, it warns against all attempts aimed at restoring the relations of some countries with the Zionist enemy or recognizing Jerusalem as its capital, and declares that the Arab countries will take the necessary measures to protect Arab rights.

Decades, even centuries, of Arab statements made of pure excrement. Statements aimed at masking the complete Arab collapse (with a few exceptions in the Gulf), often by attempting to divert Arab attention by blaming Israel. Arabs who live in illusions and feelings, there is no measurement of the truth, no appreciation of reality, no comparison between what was in the past and what is today (performance indicators), nor how the future can be, nor how can we deflect its path to our advantage. Only drums and honking, and woe to whoever comes out with a different point of view because he departs from the consensus, and that is treason.

Unlike Hussain, Saudi analyst Abdullah bin Bakhit hates Israel. But he also criticizes the Palestinians for declaring victory, specifically in Jenin, from a completely different angle (which includes a dose of classic antisemitism):

Well-known Palestinian journalist Abdel Bari Atwan wrote the following text on Twitter: "The resistance battalions did not leave Jenin until after the enemy withdrew in defeat. The battalions are entrenched, preparing for the next round, and celebrating the great victory politically and militarily despite their limited capabilities and the failure of the authority and Arab governments to them.. The march of honor, redemption, and resistance continues."

However, all that we saw, heard, and expected was that the Israelis destroyed, killed, displaced, arrested, and accomplished everything they came for, and that day will not be late when they will return to do it again. When Israel uses the most powerful warplanes to bomb Gaza and destroy the already worn-out infrastructure, we hear Palestinian officials and journalists celebrate the great victory achieved by the resistance.

In fact, this is free propaganda for the Israelis, as all their crimes are blotted out by this false victory in front of the world. Thanks to these celebrations, the Palestinian situation worsens, the Palestinian cause recedes from the forefront, and Israel moves closer to the Arab street.

The conflict between Palestinians and Israelis is a struggle between absolute power and absolute weakness. The defenseless Palestinian is fighting against all the forces available in the twenty-first century, tanks, planes, intelligence and unlimited global media support. The Palestinian celebration of the delusional victory misleads not only the Palestinians, but also misleads everyone who wants to extend a helping hand to them.

...
The calamity of the Palestinians began when Yasser Arafat stood at the United Nations platform in the 1970s. Instead of explaining to the world the catastrophe of his people and their pain, he began threatening the world, saying, "Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand." The world thought that the man was hiding a mighty force waiting for a signal from him. .

Arafat's speech at the United Nations was the prevailing discourse in the Arab world at the time, and this discourse continued in the conscience of the Palestinian man, who did not want to abandon him. At a time when the Jews continued to weep to this day over the tragedy of their people, and they are the victorious occupiers who own everything in the world of the West. You will hear the representative of Israel at any conference in which he participates, asking those present, with tears welling in his eyes, to pause for the souls of the Jews.

It is clear that the Palestinian mind is still imprisoned in the revolutionary discourse of the sixties, when the process of liberating Palestine was at the door, and it only needed the Nasserite, Baathist and nationalist drums that would accompany the fighters upon entering Haifa, Jaffa and Jerusalem.

While Hussain's criticisms are reality based, Abdullah bin Bakhit still wants to propagate lies, but his preferred lie is the opposite one. Knowing that the West favors the underdog, he wants to paint the Palestinians as the ultimate losers - who need billions of dollars and political aid.

To my mind, the Palestinian desire to always declare victory - whether in Gaza or Jenin - is mostly a result of honor/shame culture. Losing is ignominious. The only losses that the Arab world admits are those that are too obvious to lie about: 1948 and 1967. Otherwise, everything is a victory - and Israel is always on its last legs.

This denial of reality serves another purpose: it helps Palestinians avoid the compromises necessary for any kind of peace. If they only need to wait until Israel implodes in the next few years to get everything they always wanted, the thinking goes, then they won't have to make any hard choices now. This denial of reality helps fuel intransigence and terror.

Yet no Western leader (with the possible exception of Donald Trump) has been willing to say, publicly, that the Palestinians are wrong and have always been wrong, and their decisions and self-deception ultimately hurt their own people more than they hurt Israel. Instead, they play into the lie, which leads directly to more terror attacks and more Palestinian enthusiasm that they are winning - which recruits far more into the terrorist camp than losing does.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!