Editor’s note: The following letters were written and received before Election Day.
A World Apart On Israel
Regarding your endorsement of Donald Trump (October 25): Americans may be closely divided on the presidential election, but Israelis aren’t. Channel 12, the country’s leading news station, finds that Israelis prefer Donald Trump to Kamala Harris by 66% to 17%, or nearly 4 to 1. They probably aren’t thinking about abortion, but they know how U.S. policy affects their region.
As president, Trump moved the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem and recognized Israeli sovereignty in the Golan Heights. Israel had waited decades for these solidifying steps. Far from alienating Arab allies, Trump delivered the momentous peace agreements of the Abraham Accords, which even this war has been unable to dislodge. The Trump difference was to ignore the professional peace processors, overcome the Palestinian veto, and focus on stopping Iran, the subject of his “maximum pressure” sanctions. Trump had blocked most Iranian oil sales, the proceeds of which Iran uses to fund Hamas, Hezbollah and the rest.
President Biden and Vice President Harris see the world differently. They stopped enforcing oil sanctions in a bid for Iran’s goodwill. They pushed for more concessions to the Palestinians than even the Saudis seek.
Trump also ordered the January 2020 strike that killed Qassem Soleimani, architect of Iran’s terror empire. Harris condemned that strike, warning it “could lead to a new war in the Middle East.” Iran, however, responded by backing down. It went to war instead under the Biden administration’s policy of appeasement. Harris repeats the Obama line: “All options are on the table.” After Iran’s October 1 missile attack, Biden told Israel not to attack Iran’s nuclear program. Trump replied, “Isn’t that what you’re supposed to hit? It’s the biggest risk we have, nuclear weapons.” He reportedly told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, “Do what you have to do.”
Harris led the calls for an immediate ceasefire. U.S. policy hardened Hamas’s stance. Sinwar told associates in March to refuse a hostage deal because Hamas had the upper hand, citing mounting U.S. pressure over suffering in Gaza as evidence.
Harris’ comments on the war blame both sides. And when she says “Israel has a right to defend itself,” a “but” is sure to follow. That was the case in Lebanon, where Harris pressed Israel not to escalate even after 11 months of rockets on Israeli towns. If Israel had listened, Hezbollah’s leaders would still be alive and Israel’s north would never be safe.
If personnel is policy, a Trump administration will be solidly pro-Israel. Harris staffers will reflect today’s Democratic Party: uniformly hostile to Israel’s government and increasingly hostile to Israel’s security needs, with a sizable wing hostile to Israel’s existence. Biden, a former Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman, has at times held back his deputies from throwing Israel under the bus. Would Harris have the conviction to do the same? She must negotiate between her party’s factions, as she does with activists who shout “genocide” at her rallies.
This dynamic may explain why the Biden administration created a sanctions regime against Israel. The rapidly expanding blacklist – against any Israeli deemed an obstacle to peace – may be the most dangerous innovation in U.S.-Israel policy.
Biden early on nixed Trump’s sanctions on the International Criminal Court (ICC) and restored the funding Trump had cut from UNRWA. He has blocked new sanctions against the ICC and tried to preserve UNRWA, even as the ICC expands and abuses its powers to attack Israel and UNRWA is exposed as compromised by Hamas.
Trump would likely restore his old policies, and he pledges to revoke the visas of antisemitic foreign students. From Harris, Israel can expect more sanctions and deference to international bureaucrats. Forget her snub of Mr. Netanyahu’s speech to Congress; Israel should worry about being abandoned at the U.N. Security Council.
Israel isn’t the central issue in the U.S. election. But those who care about it will recognize that it was one of Trump’s strongest policy areas as president. It could be one of Harris’s weakest.
Brian Goldenfeld
Thousand Oaks, CA
The Compelling – But Costly – Call Of Aliyah
One phrase in Dr. Amy Neustein‘s insightful article in the October 11 issue (“The Sociology of Envy – Moody’s And Israel”) – “the Jewish State’s robust real estate sector” – caught my attention because I have concluded that just as the Land of Israel vomited out the Jews in Biblical times because it couldn’t tolerate our ancestors’ iniquities, as Moshe Rabbeinu had warned us, America has now begun pushing out its Jews because the land is so filled with immorality that it can’t tolerate our collective righteousness. The process of marginalizing Jews has begun in education, especially universities, as well as in corporations, media, and literature and the arts.
If anyone has doubts about the immorality, just consider the cruelty we are inflicting on our children by burdening them with DEI, “wokeism,” and the transgendering craze that has reached the point where schools and health care providers are increasingly being forbidden to inform parents of a student’s transitioning without the minor’s permission, a policy that started on the West Coast and is proceeding across the nation by a process that one wag has dubbed “Californication.”
The problem is that for many of us, making aliyah is challenging because of the astronomical price of housing in Israel. Every advertisement I see for apartments anywhere near the central region shows a price tag of at least two to three million NIS – that is, well over half a million dollars. For those of us who can’t come up with that kind of money, what are we to do? Will we be left behind like Dora Bloch, a”h, in the Entebbe rescue?
Years ago, former MK Moshe Feiglin proposed a solution to the housing crisis. Since most of the land in Israel is owned by the government, he recommended that more of it be opened to development. Since as a quasi-libertarian, Feiglin is anathema to every political party in Israel, left, right, and center, his idea has gone nowhere. Perhaps it’s time to get past personalities and concentrate on doing what is right for Israel. Remember, Hashem doesn’t like for us to engage in machlokes (strife).
Richard Kronenfeld
Phoenix, Arizona
Iran Must Be Vanquished
I spent most of my life writing books on the Holocaust and finding ways to preserve Holocaust memory. Now I am spending most of my time on the election and helping Israel. I am not a general or Israeli politician, but I do predict that unless Israel destroys Iran’s nuclear and economic program, there will never be a long peace for Israel. Perhaps peace will be achieved for a few years, but history teaches us it will not last and our grandchildren in Israel will die fighting the enemy.
I have family in Israel, a son who made aliyah with his two babies and wife, a grandson in his third year in yeshiva, a niece finishing high school who will enter the army, and some cousins who are commanders in the IDF. Does anyone think that in the future Iran and its proxies will not try and gain more hostages?
Rabbi Dr. Bernhard Rosenberg
Via E-mail
