Former President Donald Trump received the Zionist Organization of America’s highest honor on Sunday – the Theodore Herzl Gold Medallion – for his actions on behalf of the State of Israel.
Donald Trump speaking at the ZOA Gala in NYC:
‘You do have people in this country that happen to be Jewish that are not doing the right thing for Israel.’ pic.twitter.com/MP47CzHnJv
— Jacob Henry (@jhenrynews) November 14, 2022
The event at the Chelsea Piers in New York City was the former president’s first public appearance following the US midterm elections. It also came on the heels of his youngest daughter’s wedding the night before at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
The audience was one that included several Israeli Knesset members, including MKs Simcha Rothman and Amir Ohana, among others.
Conservative commentator and talk show host Caroline Glick, a dual US-Israeli citizen who also attended the gala, tweeted following the event: “No US president has been a better friend to Israel, or American Jewry.”
ZOA President Mort Klein said in presenting the award that the former president has been “a great friend of Israel and the Jewish people.”
Klein noted in his remarks, “The Torah promises that Israel is the Jewish homeland and will always be the Jewish homeland.
“Unlike politicians – except President Trump – God keeps His promises,” Klein said.
In his remarks, Trump noted the sad phenomenon of American Jews who “are not doing the right thing for Israel.” He added that Democrats get “75 percent of the vote (from American Jews), which is hard to believe, right? We can’t let that continue.
“There are people in Congress that hate Israel. Fifteen years ago in Congress, Israel was certainly. . .you couldn’t touch Israel. You couldn’t say a bad thing about it,” he noted.
“You mentioned ‘AOC plus-three,” Trump went on, in a reference to the members of the so-called Democratic “Squad” of anti-Israel Congress members who include US Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York City, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, as well as Cori Bush of Missouri, and Jamaal Bowman of New York City.
All were re-elected to the House in the recent midterm elections by the respective constituencies.
“Now it’s a lot more than three. We have to stop that. Israel’s too important,” Trump commented.
The former president received a standing ovation for having moved the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, having brokered the historic Abraham Accords, formally recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, having strengthened Title IV of the Civil Rights Act to protect Jewish students, his administration’s stand against Iran, its defunding of the Palestinian Authority’s “pay to slay” policy and its withdrawal of the United States from membership in the UN Human Rights Council, among other achievements.
The former president was introduced via Zoom by mega philanthropist Miriam Adelson, a previous honoree of the ZOA’s Theodore Herzl Award and who was a major supporter of GOP Jewish causes together with her late husband, billionaire philanthropist Sheldon Adelson. The Republican Jewish Coalition is slated to gather later this week in Las Vegas for its annual convention.
“Who knows what added miracles you have up your sleeve?” Adelson said in her introduction. “What we do know is that like Herzl, your name adorns Zionist history – a history that is still being written and in which you will no doubt continue to play an epic role.”
