To my friends convinced of who not to vote for

It continues to be a difficult time, to say the least, for those connected to Israel. We are resilient, we affirm life, we are at the front lines of a war waged against the free world, and we will survive this period of history, too, although the price is painfully high. With an election in the US fast approaching, what impact, if any, will the results have on Israel and, indeed, all of us?

Here are some readily available data points worth considering:

From 2013 to 2016, during Barack Obama’s 2^nd term, 89 people were murdered by terrorists in Israel, including women, men, infants, the elderly, Jews, Muslims, Christians, etc. Twenty-two people each year on average, meaning we opened the news approximately every other week to the devastating news of another innocent life destroyed, another family altered forever. The worst year was 2014, with 40 people murdered by terrorists.

From 2017 to 2020, at the time of the Trump administration, there were 45 terror victims in Israel, with a steady decline from 17 in 2017, 14 in 2018, 11 in 2019, and 3 in 2020. Every life stolen by a terrorist is unacceptable, but the trend was moving in the right direction. A 50% reduction from one administration to the next is a noteworthy start.

From 2021 through September 2023, under the Biden administration and prior to the pogrom of October 7^th, there were 69 people murdered by terrorists in Israel, a renewed average of 25 per year. And then October 7th, Shemini Atzeret, and the ensuing year-plus.

Is the discrepancy happenstance or is it worth considering the impact of various decisions and policies of the different administrations?

From 2013 – 2015, the Obama administration joined the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the Iran nuclear deal, between Iran and the P5+1 (Russia, China, France, UK, US, + Germany), and the EU, giving Iran legitimacy and a path to nuclear capability. Iran’s crude oil exports increased from 1 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2015 to more than 2.1 million bpd by 2018. The sale of all that crude oil on the global market resulted in tens of billions of dollars flowing into Iranian coffers.

In September 2016, just 4 months before leaving office, the Obama administration delivered $1.7B in cash to Iran. (The banks in the US and Israel are so intimidated over money laundering that my 98-year-old mother-in-law must jump through many hoops to transfer her own money from her US bank account to her Israeli account. Nevertheless, cash to Iran seemed like a good idea.) In January 2017, Obama released $221 million in humanitarian aid to the Palestinian Authority (PA), even though two Congressional committee members had placed the distribution on hold. The President is not bound by Congressional holds, but why the urgency in his last hours in office? Most importantly, where did all this money to Israel’s sworn enemies go?

One of those murdered in 2016 was Taylor Force, a U.S. Army veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan and who was on a school-sponsored trip to Israel through Vanderbilt University. He was randomly stabbed by an Arab terrorist near Jaffa port. In 2017/2018, the H.R.1164 Taylor Force Act was enacted by the US Congress, preventing funds from going to those supporting terrorism. This directly affected the PA which maintains a pay-for-slay program, paying terrorists for acts of terror on a sliding scale that increases with the severity of the attack, or pays money to the families of those killed while committing an act of terror. In 2018, the Trump administration suspended funding of UNRWA, the UN agency known to abet terrorism and to indoctrinate Arab children with hatred and glorification of terrorism. In May of 2018, Trump pulled out of the JCPOA over Iran’s non-compliance with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and placed economic sanctions on Iran. Iran’s crude oil exports dropped from 2.1 million bpd in 2018 to 404 thousand in 2020.

In February 2021, Biden’s first full month in office, his administration lifted sanctions against Iran and sought to rejoin the JCPOA. Iran’s crude oil exports bounced back from 404 thousand bpd to 1.3 million bpd by 2023, once again filling Iran’s reserves with tens of billions of dollars. In April 2021, $235 million annually was restored to the PA, sidestepping the Taylor Force Act and ignoring the PA’s pay-for-slay salaries. Hamas terrorists, and their families, who participated in the October 7^th pogrom became eligible to receive such stipends from the PA. In June 2023, the Biden administration contributed $153 million to UNRWA. In September 2023, the Biden administration cleared the release of $6 billion in frozen Iranian assets in exchange for 5 Americans sinisterly held by Iran. (The US reversed this last decision after the October 7^th attack against Israel by Iran’s proxy Hamas.) Just ahead of the 1-year anniversary, USAID announced an additional $336 million in “…humanitarian assistance for the people of Gaza and the West Bank…”, bringing the US funding total to more than $1 billion since October 7th.

Where does all this money go? The Americans (and Europeans) are not strong on demanding transparency when it comes to giving money to Israel’s enemies. We know, however, that Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis are Iranian proxies. We know that Hamas and Hezbollah built very expensive, elaborate tunnel networks, armed themselves with a wealth of deadly weaponry, developed intricate defensive capabilities, and enriched their upper echelons. We know, quite openly, that the PA administers a pay-for-slay system today that rewards terrorism. We know that UNRWA is controlled by Hamas in Gaza. So where does all that money transferred into the hands of Iran, Iran’s proxies, the PA, and anti-Israel UN agencies go? Is it possible that it goes, not to those for whom it is intended, but into the hands of the terrorist organizations, ensuring prolonged suffering of the people under their control, and the continual murder of more of our people?

A policy of appeasement does not work. One can see that it has emboldened an axis of evil. It renders battling this axis more difficult, more deadly. Our enemies are only too happy to use our own resources against us. Do not, furthermore, be lulled into thinking this only affects Israel. The tentacles of terror span the globe. We should be clearheaded that if Israel, G-d forbid, fails in its fight for survival, the terror masterminds will absolutely not stop there.

We are told we must hate Donald Trump. Ok. But decide what you hate more, Donald Trump or reading the news of yet another victim of terror.

Turns out it’s not who we vote for, as many would have us believe, it’s what we vote for.