“Today, in the aftermath of the October 7th Hamas terrorist attack, support for the Jewish community and the State of Israel is more important than ever,” said the Republican Jewish Coalition in a mass email on Thursday, adding, “Donald J. Trump is the trusted friend we need in these perilous times.”
As you know, yours truly is crazy about checking stuff, and I couldn’t help remembering what Trump had to say about October 7 on October 11.
“He has been hurt very badly because of what’s happened here,” Trump said about Netanyahu on Fox’s “Brian Kilmeade Show.” Not a lot of empathy and friendship there. At the same time, President Joe Biden was scoring high marks for standing shoulder to shoulder with a traumatized Israel.
In a speech in South Palm Beach, Fl. That day, Trump declared that Netanyahu was “not prepared” for the Hamas attack, recalling how the PM “let us down” when it came to joining in the assassination of Iranian general Qasem Soleimani. Trump also suggested the Hezbollah fighters were “very smart.”
Trump was not wrong, obviously, but to call him “the trusted friend we need in these perilous times” is a bit of a stretch. You expect a friend to share your pain, not kick you when you’re down.
For the record, I believe that any pro-Israel voter in the US must not vote for Biden, who is involved in a disturbing conspiracy to turn the Hamas atrocities into a Palestinian State. And I will vote for Trump, despite the bad blood of the past five months, including his braggadocios statement that “October 7 wouldn’t have happened if I was in the White House.”
But having Trump back in the White House would be no guarantee of a better relationship between Israel and the US, including on the 2-state solution front. Remember, the same Trump administration that moved the US embassy to Jerusalem, refused to include the complete, unified city under its jurisdiction. With either Biden or Trump in office, the possibility of a Palestinian State with eastern Jerusalem as its capital remains on the table.
The RJC is correct in listing the Biden administration’s sins against the Jewish State:
“Joe Biden has proven that he cannot be trusted on issues of urgent concern regarding Israel. In just the past few months, Biden has: embraced the BDS movement’s anti-Israel premises by overturning the Trump-Pompeo Doctrine, which recognized that according to international law, Israelis have a right to live in Judea and Samaria; shamefully sanctioned Israelis by a first-of-its-kind executive order; pressured Israel to recognize a Palestinian state, which would reward Hamas’s barbarism; and said that Israel’s response to Hamas terrorists in Gaza has been over the top.”
On Tuesday, the GOP’s presumptive presidential candidate went on the record to declare that Israel must “finish the problem” in Gaza.
“You’ve got to finish the problem,” Trump said to Israel over Fox News, “You had a horrible invasion that took place that would have never happened if I was president.”
“Frankly, they got soft,” Trump went on about the Biden administration’s Gaza policy, adding, “That should never have happened. Likewise, Russia would never have attacked Ukraine” if he were in charge, he said.
Trump’s national press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement, “When President Trump is back in the Oval Office, Israel will once again be protected, Iran will go back to being broke, terrorists will be hunted down, and the bloodshed will end.”
But in September 2020, the Trump administration announced it was pulling a significant portion of the US military from Iraq and Afghanistan, expressing its trust in the Iraqis’ and Afghanis’ ability to fend for themselves. To turn his campaign press secretary’s promises into a reality would require renewing US involvement in the region, something for which Trump never had the appetite.
Fighting Iran will require more than sanctions, it will necessitate US boots on the ground. I’d like to hear if Trump is ready to declare an all-out war on the Houthis, Hezbollah, and the Revolutionary Guards.
Short of that, I would curb my expectations of Trump.
