Donald Trump's Position on Israel

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                                                              

Franklin Delano Roosevelt
(1/30/1882-4/12/1945)
He had polio and was confined to a wheel chair.

Jews in the United States have tended to be Democrats at least since Franklin Delano Roosevelt's election, the USA's 32nd president from March 4, 1933 to April 12, 1945 when he died.  He was the Democrat from New York.  In 2008 when Obama was first elected, 71% of Jews identified themselves in the Gallup poll as Democrats.  By 2014, 61% are identifying themselves as Democrats.
                                       

President Roosevelt 

     

Donald Trump was a Democrat, but is now running as president in the Republican Party.  He has "consistently and strongly supported Israeli positions on many critical issues."  He agreed with Netanyahu on the Iran nuclear deal and Israeli-Palestinian relations.
                                                                               

He even criticized President Barack Obama about his attitude toward Israel and thinks Netanyahu is a good Prime Minister for Israel. " He accused Obama and the USA Secretary of State John Kerry of having sold Israel out and that it was the USA's job to do everything possible to protect and defend Israel.  He said that Israel was the only stable democracy in the region that is not run by dictators.  He called Israel America's best and most reliable friend." He said that Israel is the cornerstone of USA policy in the Middle East.

He admires Israel for being pioneers in medicine and communication and a close fair trading partner.  His father was always loyal to Israel and he has also, and said he would be doing more for Israel than anybody else.                                                                    

Salute to Israel New York Parade 2004

He's proven his admiration by having served as the grand marshal for the Israel parade in New York in 2004. He has received many awards from American Jewish organizations for supporting Israel.  Algemeiner, a Jewish news organization also on the web gave him such an award last February 2014.  Upon acceptance, he said that "we love Israel and will fight for Israel 100%, 1,000%.  It will be there forever!
                                                                               

Parchin, Iran and nuclear site

When Trump declared his candidacy on June 16, 2015, he attacked the Iran nuclear deal by calling it "a disaster that could threaten Israel's survival."  Those were also my sentiments, exactly, and many of my friends.

He and Netanyahu get along very well.  Before the 2013 Israeli election, he recorded a 30 second video message endorsing the Likud leader.
                                                                             

The last 8 years of USA presidency has been with Barack Hussein Obama II, and they have been disastrous for Israel. The things he has done to cause pain for Israel has been the following:
1. Blaming only Israel for the impasse in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations which has only strengthened Palestinian recalcitrance.
2. General handling of Israel, White House snub March 2010, leaving Netanyahu, staff in work room while he had dinner with Michelle which was 2nd snub.  .
3. Refusal to use the term "Islamic terrorism"
                                                                     

4. One thing that irks me is the referring to ISIS terrorists as ISIL (which includes the Levant-Jordan, Israel and Egypt) in ISIS's hands and references as only as non-Muslim about the Islamic State, which denies the  reality.
                                                                                   

John McCain after returning from Viet Nam on April 24, 1973,
age 37.  Today he's 79 years old born August 29, 1936.  

Things Trump admires about Israel are not necessarily things he has vocalized as his position, however.  He has made his own statements about prisoners of war, a stand Israel feels very strongly about but that Trump has said he doesn't admire.  This came up with Senator John McCain who was a POW in Vietnam for 6 years after his plane went down. He was a pilot.   John's father was an admiral and the Vietnamese offered him a special early release which he refused, wanting to be treated like others in this position.  Trump glibly remarked that" he was a "war hero only because he got captured."
                                                                             

IDF Gilad Shalit on October 18, 2011 at age 25 after 5 years as a Prisoner of War from being kidnapped. in a cross-border raid via underground tunnels near the Israeli border.
Captured in Israel by Hamas terrorists, and held hostage for five years until released in exchange for 1,027 Palestinian prisoners

Israel doesn't feel that way at all towards their POW, Gilad Shalit who as a soldier was captured and held as a hostage for 5 years by Hamas in Gaza.  Trump's crass comment was that "I like people who weren't captured."
                                                                           

   
Another sore point are Trump's statements about immigration to the USA.  On June 16, 2015 he made comments   about Mexico sending in people who bring in drugs, are criminals and so bring in crime and rape people as well here.  Then he included other Latin American countries in this accusation.  After California's San Bernardino massacre, he called for a temporary ban on the entry of MUSLIMS to the USA until the government figured out "what the hell is going on."  Now, this is a sore point with Jews who have suffered being on the immigrant side throughout the centuries.  They have been saved by countries following open immigration.  This has happened with Jews fleeing Russia and Eastern Europe from anti-Semitism which developed into pogroms as well.  They have experienced mass immigration from the Arab countries to Israel in 1948 when Israel was created.
                                                                           

Ship, St. Louis refused entrance to Cuba with 900+ refugeesGerman Jewish refugees return to Antwerp, Belgium, aboard the ocean liner St. Louis on June 17, 1939, after they had been denied entrance to Cuba and the USA. Miami was so close they could see the lights, but they were not allowed to land. 

Before and after WWII, Jews could not get into other countries including the USA.  We all remember these horrors so gasped when Trump felt this way towards the thousands of refugees we all see on TV today fleeing from Iraq and Syria.  The difference of course is that Jews were not dangerous to others, but that some Muslim refugees could be.  Also, we all know that once a position has been taken, like stopping immigration of refugees can be longer than they can continue to be alive.  Jews died when refused entrance at the start of WWII.  My father was 21 years old in 1929, the year of the stock market crash causing everyone to be out of jobs.  By 1933 when Jews started to enter the USA from Europe, people were still out of work.  Perhaps they were afraid Jews would take American jobs away from them.  That's still no excuse!
                                                                     

On December 3, 2015, he made another faux pas.  He told Jewish Republicans rather jokingly that he thought they wouldn't back him because he was so rich and didn't need their contributions!  The Israeli media watched this newscast and saw an anti-Semitic slur instead.  It reinforced the anti-Semitic stereotyping of Jews being rich people who control the world and so can buy elections.  They didn't want anyone to think that Israel would be buying this coming election.
                                                                             

Jerusalem where one can find Jewish, Christian and Muslim places to see

So, Trump had told his TV audience that he was going to visit Israel on December 28th and said this just a few days before.  The fact was that it had been scheduled well in advance and had an itinerary planned 2 weeks before his Muslim ban statement on November 19th.  Because of this thoughtless comment which loomed huge in Israel's eyes, his trip had to be postponed.  He'll visit after Israel's presidential elections and said that he didn't want to put Netanyahu under any pressure.  Trump had wanted to accomplish much with this visit by contrasting his support of Israel with the Obama Administrations  abandonment of the Jewish State which really started with the Democratic Party's meeting on what to consider for this 2nd term and God and Jerusalem as Israel's capital  were taken off the platform. Oh, how the Pilgrims would have had a fit at that!

Update: 2/21/16 Donald Trump said on the 18th that he is taking a neutral position in the disagreements between the Palestinians and Israel.  Cruz attacked him for saying this in South Carolina since he feels it is showing that Trump sees it as a problem of false moral equivalency.
Update: 2/26/16  "Donald Trump: “My friendship with Israel is stronger than any other candidate’s. I want to make one thing clear: I want to strike a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. It is what I aspire to do. Peace is possible, even if it is the most difficult agreement to achieve. As far as I understand, Israel is also interested in a peace deal. I’m not saying I’ll succeed, or even that an agreement between Israel and the Palestinians is within reach, but I want to try. But in order for an agreement to happen, the Palestinians need to show interest. It’s a little difficult to reach an agreement when the other side doesn’t really want to talk to you.

“Don’t get confused there in Israel: I am currently your biggest friend. My daughter is married to a Jew who is an enthusiastic Israel supporter, and I have taken part in many Israel Day Parades. My friendship with Israel is very strong.”"

http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/18/politics/donald-trump-israel-palestinian-neutral/
http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/270045-cruz-slams-trump-for-being-neutral-on-israel-palestinian
http://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-says-will-remain-neutral-israeli-palestinian-conflict-if-428000

Reference:  The Jerusalem Report January 11, 2016, Donald Trump, Israel and the Jews.by Prof. Eytan Gilboa p. 6-7. It's a magazine from Israel.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/05/dnc-god-jerusalem-platform_n_1859200.html
http://www.denverpost.com/nationworld/ci_29149608/history-repeating
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/barackobama/7521220/Obama-snubbed-Netanyahu-for-dinner-with-Michelle-and-the-girls-Israelis-claim.html

Defending Israel's Right of Existence: Overview Proving Their Right

Nadene Goldfoot                                                             

Ayatollah Khamenei of Iran, bent on destroying Israel

In 2001, Faisal Bodi,  Muslim journalist, speaker and educator, had said some things I'd like to challenge. I don't think he's changed his mind yet.
                                                                                 

Auschwitz

 He stated in his student's newspaper that the Holocaust was garnishing sympathy that Jews were using to gain a foothold in Palestine.  (I'd like to ask him how many people he knew who were slaughtered to the number of 6 million just because they were Jewish?)  This is the very reason the Jewish leaders forsaw and worked so hard to get back our ancient land.     Jews have almost become extinct!  We're down to 14 million in the whole world.  That's less than 1%.  It's something like 0.02% of the world population.

 Then he had the audacity to say the same things at Leo Baeck College in London.  He felt that Israel had no right to exist and that there was no moral case for the existence of Israel.  This sounds like a page right out the Ayatollah Khamenei's book, or the Ayatollah  took his out of Bodi's.  At any rate, I can see that they cannot accept any facts about Israel's existence in the Middle East.
                                                                           

Golda Meier had made the statement that it was absurd to call Israel's legitimacy into account when G-d Himself called in the Jews to live there as stated in the Bible.  Faisal Bodi finally said, "That biblical promise is Israel's only claim to legitimacy, but he can't accept the boundaries written down that from the Euphrates to the Nile  belong to Abraham's seed, and now this is where Faisal errs big time.

It sounds like he doesn't want to accept the idea that Arabs and Jews are cousins.  DNA is proving that we have a connection, though Jews are closer to the Kurds.   He accuses Jews of taking the land by force and chicanery that was lawfully inhabited and owned by others.  He's bringing up the  Oslo agreement and the Arabs owning the land.  History is not his forte.  The question is ownership.  There were very few owners.  If an Arab shows legal claim to a piece of land, he is awarded this in Israel through the court system.  The land was not taken by force except in the days of Moses.  He does not dispute that day and age.  He's bringing the fight up to date to 1948.
                                                                             

70 CE, destruction of 2nd Temple in Jerusalem

But we must step back to look at history.  First of all, Judah, the southern part of Israel, was still standing when the Romans invaded and occupied Judah over 100 years before Jerusalem was destroyed along with the Temple in 70 CE.  Jews were taken prisoner and marched into Rome as slaves.  Some Jews left town just before that main attack.  Many hid in other parts of Judah.  Some became the Jews who went from Rome to France and Germany who picked up the title of Ashkenazi Jews.  Others headed for Spain and became the Sephardi Jews.  Those who remained in the area  in other countries were the Mizrachi (Middle-eastern) Jews as Mizrachi refers to Egypt.  But mainly, there were Jews stayed in Judah.   Throughout the years, Jews returned either singly, in family groups, or larger groups to the land of their fathers.

 In  the 1880's, anti-Semitism was causing pogroms, attacks that often led to deaths, in Russia and thereabouts.  It drove Russians into returning in 5 groups called Aliyahs starting in 1880.  It was hard living, but they were determined to get along with the few Arabs there and the Ottoman officials.   During this period, Jews bought land, legally bought it according to the law of the land.  They had an angel help who was the banker, Rothschild.  He helped out some of those who made Aliyah until they got on their feet.
                                                                         

Bedouins in their tent

There was no other country who created a state out of the destroyed Israel or Judah.  There were empires who took land through the ages, but did nothing to very little with it.  They were there to collect taxes from people there and that was it.  It was empty wasteland, a backwater nobody wanted to reside in.  The Arabs there were not former citizens of Judah like the Jews.  They were wanderers.  Only a  few had bought land from the former Ottoman Empire and were landowners.

Another poke at Faisal Bodi's argument against Israel existing is that he claims that under international law, the Balfour Declaration was null and void.   Here I go.
                                                                       

The Ottoman Empire, headed by....joined forces with Germany in World War I. "On November 14, 1914, 101 years ago in Constantinople, capital of the Ottoman Empire, the religious leader Sheikh-ul-Islam declares an Islamic holy war on behalf of the Ottoman government, urging his Muslim followers to take up arms against Britain, France, Russia, Serbia and Montenegro in World War I."

 Germany and their partners lost the world-wide war.  The conclusion was that they  lost land they held.  The League of Nations had been created for just such an event in 1920.  "The League of Nations was an international organization, headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, created after the First World War to provide a forum for resolving international disputes. Though first proposed by President Woodrow Wilson as part of his Fourteen Points plan for an equitable peace in Europe, the United States never became a member.Even so, it was always practiced that if you lost a war, you had to make a deal and sign a peace treaty.  The deal was a loss of land.  
The League lasted for 26 years; the United Nations (UN) replaced it after the end of the Second World War on 20 April 1946 and inherited a number of agencies and organizations founded by the League."
                                                                     

The League of Nations gave Britain a mandate.  That was a pact of being watchdog over the land for 30 years.  The War was from 1914-1917, and that meant they were taking care of the land until May 14, 1948.  They did a bad job.  They gave TransJordan to Abdullah I and made him king.  It was land that was part of Palestine-meant for the Jewish Homeland.  Then, when Nazi Germany started harming Jews in the 30's, they kept out Jews trying to enter Palestine.  The Sherif of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, started riots in Jerusalem in 1929 that brought death to Jews.  He was a minor leader who was afraid of losing his post given to him by a British Jew!!!  Jews were trying to save Jews during WWII and the Brits were busy catching Jews and hanging them for doing so.
                                                                     

 However, The “Mandate for Palestine,” an historical League of Nations document, laid down the Jewish legal right to settle anywhere in western Palestine, between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, an entitlement unaltered in international law. The “Mandate for Palestine” was not a naive vision briefly embraced by the international community. Fifty-one member countries – the entire League of Nations – unanimously declared on July 24, 1922:
                                                                                

“Whereas recognition has been given to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country.” Then in 1922 they gave 80% of it to Abdullah for a kingdom.  He was from Saudi Arabia and missed out on the chance to become king there, so he wanted to here.  

                                                                                     

United Nations 1948

The United Nations took a vote and accepting Israel as a nation was passed.  So they had to stand a double vote upon themselves and go through that stress after all that had been done to them.  But Faisal Bodi stated that Palestine had belonged to Turkey, not Britain-and he accepts the fact that this is under the pact of the League of Nations.  No Mr. Bodi.  They lost land because they lost the war.  Palestine was in the hands of the League of Nations to decide what to do with it.  The lesson here is that one should not be the aggressor and try to take other people's land.  When you do you lose your holdings instead.  Germany had the same thing happen to them.  They invaded land in Europe.  Those countries declared war on Germany in return.
Japan invaded Pearl Harbor.  Look at their lesson.  They were hit with 2 atom bombs.

Jews were not welcomed with a welcome wagon on their return to their land even though they had the blessings from Emir Feisal, the most important Arab leader of the day.  He realized the handicap they were under, no education, no skills, and was hoping they would benefit from the Jews' presence.  At the same time, he wanted land for himself because his main concern was selfish.  He wanted to be a king.  Neither the Jewish leaders or Feisal were told by the Brits that they were in competition for the same pieces of land.  Feisal went on to become king of Syria and then king of Iraq.  Either country would have been in better shape under his rule.
                                                                                 

War of Independence 1947-1949

The moment the Brits left on May 14, 1948, the Jews claimed statehood.  Before that Jews had been shot at and attacked by the Arabs who were aroused by their leader, Husseini in Jerusalem.  My own 3rd cousin, Stanley Goldfoot, was involved as he had been chosen as the Chief of Intelligence by the Stern Group, a group created that was tougher then the main defenders of land led by the Jewish leaders, the Haganah.
                                                                           

King Abdullah II of Jordan

It isn't our religious birthright that keeps us in a never-ending cycle of conflict, Mr. Bodi, which you say.  It's the constant refusal of making peace coming from the Arab leadership.  For 67 years, your people refuse to accept the fact that Jews are back.  Egypt finally made peace.  Jordan finally made peace.  In fact, you could call Jordan the Palestine, but King Abdullah II wants none of that.  He's a Hashemite-from Arabia, and that is his kingdom now.  He refuses to take in any more Palestinian Arabs.  You say, "Rightful inhabitants are Palestinian Arabs?  Most came in following the Jews of the Aliyahs in search of jobs.  There were only a few who were landowners.  They were Bedouins, wanderers.  Hamas refuses to make peace.  They are terrorists and that's what they want to do; drive Israel into the sea. They never have wanted peace.
                                                                       

Israel:  a country with a 9 mile width

As for your idea of one state for Jews and Arabs, it already exists.  Israel has 6 million Jews (the amount lost in the Holocaust) and 1.7 million Arabs.  I would not want to see what happened to Lebanon happen to Israel.  The Christian minority in Lebanon has been slaughtered by their own Lebanese Muslims and by ISIS.  Major Hadad, Christian Militia, was a great friend of Israel.  He saw it coming.  A certain segment of Muslims have followed those that sermonize hatred and killing, which is just ruining the Middle East.  They've taken their own religion and have bastardized it for the peaceful followers of Islam.  Israel was created as a Jewish country.  2,000 years have gone by and we have been guests and citizens where citizenship was taken away because of being Jewish.  Israel is the only Jewish country in the world.  You have 48 Muslim majority countries in the world without having a Palestine.

You should now lecture and practice what you are preaching, in that justice has to be restored instead of stepped up as Muslims are going wild in Jerusalem today attacking Jews with knives and guns.  As it turns out, many of the terrorists are from Judea and Samaria-the West Bank.  The Hadassah Hospital is close by, and those terrorists are attacking the Hospital.  1/3 of the Arabs in the community nearby are the terrorists.  So much for a one-state solution.

Sderot, constantly hit from Gaza

                                                                       

Ashkelon, Portland, Oregon's sister city, hit from Gaza with missiles, mortars, rockets, with the hospital in danger forcing doctors to operate underground.  

Israelis have turned the other cheek so often it makes my head spin in the onslaughts against them.  When they reach the point of knowing it's enough and have warned and responded, they hear from the other nations because they are not returning rocket, mortar and missile fire with David's slingshot.  No, they are trying to keep their small and almost extinct population alive.  First the Nazis set about to kill all Jews in the world. No, I take that back.  The first was Haman in  Persia in Queen Esther's day.  He plotted to kill all the Jews in the Persian Empire, which was huge!  Now the Arabs and the ancient Persians named the Iranians are plotting to do it again.  Well, we're all stubborn.  Be nice to Jews and Jews will be nice to you.  Try to kill Jews and they won't sit for it.  They will defend themselves.   Jews are in no hurry to die.

Mr. Bodi's views were too strong for the BBC who let him go for that reason.  My fear and reason for writing this article is that all too many Muslims believe as he does to an even worse extreme.  He was for a one state solution and accepted the word of G-d as Mohammad had also been impressed once.  Muslims are to have a reverence of some of the Jewish Biblical persons.  However, there are parts of the Koran that are very negative towards Jews, and that part is being used by the Ayatollah to bring down even more than plain hatred upon them.
                                                                           

Ankara, Turkey

The Ottoman Empire was lucky in that they were left with their own country, Turkey  What they lost is what they had taken from others in their empire building.  They did not get to keep Palestine.

Edited with additional maps and comment: 11/9/15
http://www.mythsandfacts.org/conflict/mandate_for_palestine/mandate_for_palestine.htm
.Resource:  comment@guardian.co.uk
http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/Islam/2001/06/BBC-Allegedly-Fires-Muslim-Journalist-Under-Pressure.aspx
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/ottoman-empire-declares-a-holy-war
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/League_of_Nations
https://history.state.gov/milestones/1914-1920/league
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/study-finds-close-genetic-connection-between-jews-kurds-1.75273














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