The gloves are off. The United Nations, knowing full well that it could pass anti-Israel resolutions designed to prolong the Arab/Israeli conflict only while President Obama still held office, moved forward with such a plan on Friday, December 23. President Obama made it possible. President-elect Trump had tried to take steps to forestall this blood libel. He had coordinated a day earlier with President al-Sisi of Egypt to orchestrate a delay, and went public with his own view that the U.S. should maintain its standard practice of vetoing all such resolutions.
But it is the office of the President that possesses actual power; the office of President-elect has only the bully pulpit. And President Obama chose to wield that power in a way that will make another Arab/Israeli war more likely, create a diplomatic crisis for the United States, and operate to the detriment of traditional Arab allies like Egypt. Following on the heels of UNESCO’s decision, earlier this year, that the Jews lacked any historical connection to Israel—notwithstanding three thousand plus years of physical, archaeological, documentary, written, and oral evidence—the UN Security Council has now decided that Jewish settlement in the historic Jewish homeland is illegal.
Merry Christmas. Happy Chanukah. And to all a good night.
Those who voice consistent, principled support for Israel are livid—but not remotely surprised. It has been clear for years that President Obama, Secretaries Clinton and Kerry, and Ambassador Power were true, deep sonei Yisrael, an ancient religious term far older than “anti-Semite” that translates literally as “haters of Israel.” There has never been much hope that the lame duck Obama would leave office before inflicting further harm on the Jews and on the Jewish State—though the harm he has inflicted over the past eight years has already been considerable.
Nor are Trump supporters surprised by the President-elect’s extraordinary intervention. We backed him—at no small risk to personal and professional relationships—because we saw a man far more interested in ensuring that the good guys win than in playing with a deck stacked to favor evil. We hope that principled Israel supporters who opposed Trump’s candidacy can already see the folly of their ways—and set aside prejudice and ego to judge our incoming president by his actions, not the media’s slander.
There is a limit, of course, at the rage one can direct at Jew haters for acting like Jew haters. It’s expected. Israel’s false friends—Jews and non-Jews alike—have enabled and condoned their hateful behavior. For years, Israel supporters have had to endure the obvious lies of American Jewish leaders that Obama was not only an excellent President, but a good friend to Israel. Even now they continue to insist that when it comes to Israel, there is no difference between Republicans and Democrats. Leading allegedly “pro-Israel” organizations made the case that even though the Obama/Iran deal was a clear existential threat to Israel, those who supported
it showed just as much love for the Jewish State as those who opposed it. That the empty platitudes of Chuck Schumer represent real advocacy or exertion then and now. That Israel or Prime Minister Netanyahu bear the blame for angering Obama and making the Democratic party and the left home to open anti-Semitism – by the crime of allowing Jews merely to live.
It would be preferable to think them fools rather than knaves, but it becomes harder to do so with each passing year. Genuinely pro-Israel voters and donors are misled by dismal political and organizational leadership either incapable of or unwilling to appreciate the difference between Israel’s true friends and genuine Jew haters. They are reprehensible, and those who continue to fund them or follow them anyway share culpability in their crimes against Israel and against the Jews.
To say that the vast majority of American Jews who not only voted against Donald Trump, but who spent months slandering him in the vilest of terms, owe him an apology is a vast understatement. What they need is a full program of self-reflection, a twelve-step program, and a full day of atonement. Their behavior has been despicable and reprehensible, and we are tired of it.
We believe strongly in Jewish unity, but some things are more important than unity. Jewish survival is among them. Or rather there can be no real unity until there is clarity and a commitment to Jewish morality and survival at its core. It is far past time for America’s Jews to learn how to tell their friends from their enemies, and the friends of Israel from its enemies.
The gloves are off. Barack Obama and Donald Trump have each removed any reasonable doubt that might have lingered. Obama is a Jew hater; Trump is our friend. There is no longer room for reasonable people to disagree.