Trump, Netanyahu and Hatred

” You know, to just be grossly centralistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right?  The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islam phobic  – you name it. And unfortunately, there are people like that.” [Hillary Clinton 2016]

What has became rather unusual was a recent suggestion by a Jew, that Donald Trump is an antisemite. One has to wonder if the individual had ever read David Rubin’s book, “Trump and the Jews “or Victor Hanson Davis, “The Case for Trump”.

David Rubin is a former mayor of Shiloh, Israel, founder and president of Shiloh Israel Children’s Fund [SICF], dedicated to healing the trauma of child victims of terrorist attacks. Rubin’s book [published on 2019] consisting of 10 Chapters and 205 Pages is extremely informative. In the introduction one reads, “Hopefully , by the end of Trump and the Jews, one would understand why so many Jews seem to instinctively hate Trump or love Trump. Further, why most Jews did not vote for him. In short, one is offered the opportunity to explore the facts, and thereafter to judge former President Donald Trump by the results of his presidency.”

Trump’s deep connection with the Jewish people goes way back to his childhood and his father’s building projects in some very Jewish neighborhoods. The question is often asked, what president has ever had a Jewish convert daughter, a Jewish son-in-law, and Jewish grandchildren?

Chapter 5 deals with the subject, “The New Jews and Trump”; serves many purposes, not least of which is the absolute to any suggestion of him being an antisemite.

Apart from Trump’s daughter Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner, David Friedman appointed to the position of US Ambassador of Israel, and Jason Greenblatt as Trump’s Special Representative for International Negotiations are all Orthodox Jews.

Liberal Jews, many of whom are now regarded as Leftist Jews, as coined by Dennis Prager, who are far from being liberal, as those who had played important foreign policy roles in previous administrations, the most recent being Obama’s Ambassador to Israel, Daniel Shapiro. Quoting his typical critique on Israel, which was rebuked by Prime Minster of Israel’s Netanyahu as follows:

Shapiro: “Too many attacks on Palestinians lack a vigorous investigation or response by Israeli authorities; too much vigilantism goes unchecked; and at times their seem to be two standards of adherence to the rule of law: one for Israelis and anther for Palestinians .”[INSS security conference in Tel Aviv.]

Netanyahu: “The words of the ambassador, on a day in which a murdered mother of 6 is buried and on a day in which a pregnant woman is stabbed—–are unacceptable and incorrect,” a statement from the Prime Minister’s office read. ‘Israel enforces the law for Israelis and Palestinians. The Palestinian Authority is the one responsible for the diplomatic freeze, and continues incite and refuse talks.”

Victor Davis Hanson, a Hoover Intellect authored,”The Case for Trump” [March 5, 2019], which explains why Trump won the 2016 election and why he and 624, 984, 827 other Americans [46% of the popular vote] supported him.

The author hopes that readers of the book will learn why Trump’s critics’ increasingly despise, rather than just oppose him. Often their venom reveals as much about themselves, and their visions for the country as it does about their opposition to the actual record of the governance of the mercurial Trump.

Frustrated voters in 2016 saw that unique absence of a political resume as a plus , not a drawback, and so elected a candidate deemed to have no chance of becoming president. Predictably as president, Trump said and did things that were also long overdue in the twilight of the 73 year old post-war order. Or as former secretary of state Henry Kissinger remarked in July, 2018 of the fiery pot that Trump had stirred overseas, “I think Trump may be one of those figures in history who appears from time to time to mark the end of an era and to force it to give up its old pretense.”

His past tawdriness was regrettable and at times he had found himself in legal trouble. But Trump had not yet abused the people’s trust by acting unethically while in office – even if the default reason was that he had never yet held elected or appointed positions.

Voters in 2016 preferred an authentic bad boy of the private sector to the public’s disingenuous good girl. Donald Trump’s agenda also arose as the antithesis to the new Democrat Party of Barak Obama. After 2008, Democrats were increasingly candid in voicing socialist bromides.

And there were many, including open borders, identity politics, higher taxes, more government regulation, free college tuition, single-payer government-run health care, tax- payer subsidized green energy roll backs of fossil fuel production and European like foreign policy.

To be called a socialist was now a proud badge of honor, no longer to be written off as a right-wing slur. At the end of the second year in office, the economy in Trump’s first 600 days was better than at any time in the last decade. From the morning after his victory, he met hysterical efforts to thwart his agenda and soon to abort his presidency.

In his first 18 months in office, he achieved initial economic and foreign policy results not seen in a generation. Trump is not just a political phenomenon. His person dominates the news, the popular culture, and the world’s culture.

Trump is a polarizing figure whose very name prompts controversy that soon turns to acrimony.

As for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his life story is fully detailed in his autobiography, “BIBI”. He enjoys several conservative models. Among them was Menachem Begin who anointed Israel’s entrance into the world of conservatism following 29 years of being strangled by various Marxists, socialists and even the occasional communist.

Jerold S. Auerbach’s, “Bothers at war, again” published by JNS on Feb.5 2023 serves as introduced, the current political turmoil in Israel, which seems to intensify daily, is not new to Jewish history in the Promised Land. The author provides a bottom line conclusion to this issue, by asking a base line question. “Can the Israeli Left reject Ben Gurion’s appalling resort to violence against Jews and accept the result of a democratic election?”And, or, can it accept Netanyahu’s reminder “to lose in elections is not the end of democracy, this is the essence of democracy.”

Both Netanyahu and Trump have suffered from hatred at its worst. The esteemed Rabbi Berel Wein, has emphasized our being witness to the effects of hatred in our societies hatred of the others becomes the rallying point for justifying the policies and opinions of ideological and political parties, groups and opponents.

The completely irrational behavior of much of the media regarding a duly elected president or prime minister of a country borders on the pathologically insane. “Knesset members who promote hatred and encourage violence must be brought before the ethics committee and censured. They must be removed from any positions of special power.”[Reuven Hammer, Jerusalem Post, August 13, 2015.]

Chapter 14 of “Begin” by Harry Hurwitz is entitled, “Earthquake”, referencing the reaction to Menachem Begin’s, appointment as Prime Minister. Golda Meir called the result “catastrophe”. The reaction among the traditional opponents of Jabotinsky’s Revisionist movement, were similarly confused and hysterical, flabbergasted, dismayed and stunned.

Financial Times Mehul Srivastava posted, “Begin and Bibi, the Leaders who Shaped Israel’s Psyche”, on Jan.4, 2019. Condensed concluding remark:

“Netanyahu and Begin’s greatest contribution to the Israeli psyche is perhaps a lot simpler: they have transformed what peace looks like to right-wing  Israelis from a negotiated settlement——-” Presumably unlike many in the media and Jewish “machers”, they understand Israel’s indigenous claims to the Land , and the origin of the PLO.

Moshe Dann’s  “Is Israel a Democracy” was published by the Jerusalem Post on November 9, 2019. His answer, “Yes, essentially, but there are major flaws in its political and electoral systems e.g. voters of parties that do not pass the threshold are discarded, and members of Knesset are not accountable to voters. This explains why so many Israelis [roughly 1/3] don’t bother to vote.”

Included amongst numerous excellent points is his reference to Professor Paul Eidelberg’s “ACPR Policy Paper #79, ‘Making Votes Count: They Don’t in Israel!’

Even the late and famous Professor Bernard Lewis posted on History News Network his “Israel Election System is no good.” [April 1, 2009]