T. Belman. This is great news. Friedman has obviously had great influence on Trump’s evolving policies on Israel including supporting settlement construction.
In Feb 2016, he wrote End the two-state narrative in which he wrote “It was never a solution, just an illusion that served both the US and the Arabs.
His reflexive reaction to my involvement in the Trump candidacy lays bare how dangerous the Jewish left is to the State of Israel.
By David Friedman, INN
(Friedman serves as the President of American Friends of Bet El. He is a practicing trial lawyer in New York and maintains a residence in Jerusalem.)
Several weeks ago, I was “outed” as one of Donald Trump’s two advisors on the relationship between the United States of America and the State of Israel. It is an honor and a privilege to advise Mr. Trump on a critical issue that is near and dear to my heart, and I fervently hope that I have the opportunity to assist him in developing and implementing policies that strengthen both countries and the unbreakable bond between them.
Right now, however, the bloodsport of American presidential politics is in full bloom, and within that scented garden emerges a recent Op-Ed piece by CNN panelist, Peter Beinart, published in Israel’s left-wing paper Haaretz. Beinart, a well-known supporter of J Street, New Israel Fund and the BDS movement, decries Trump’s selection of Israel advisors as a cynical charade by which Trump leverages Jews in his employ to go “all in” on Israel solely to garner political capital. According to Beinart, these token Jews, myself included, are just willing pawns in a modern day Game of Thrones, all willing to fall on their proverbial swords for Trump the King.
I have never met Mr. Beinart nor do I care to, and he knows absolutely nothing about me. Had he made the slightest inquiry (apparently no longer necessary for modern journalists), he would have known that I am not in Mr. Trump’s employ, have hundreds of other clients, and hold views on Israel that are entirely independent of any political movement or candidate. Those views have been developed over more than thirty years of study of historical accounts and scholarly works, interaction with Israeli political, military and business leaders, and probably 100 trips or more to the Holy Land. I didn’t just come out of “central casting,” as Beinart implies, to facilitate some political theatre, and my beliefs are not for sale to the highest bidder. The same holds true for Jason Greenblatt, Mr. Trump’s other advisor, whom I have known for years.
But I do want to thank Mr. Beinart for getting this issue out on the table, albeit clumsily and disingenuously. Because his reflexive reaction to my involvement in the Trump candidacy lays bare how dangerous the Jewish left is to the State of Israel.
Let’s look at the criticisms offered by Mr. Beinart of views that I have previously expressed. He thinks I’m no good because (1) I have accused President Obama of “blatant anti-Semitism,” (2) I have questioned the wisdom of Israel bestowing the benefits of citizenship, including free tuition at some of its best universities, upon those who advocate the overthrow of the State, and (3) I have likened J Street supporters to “kapos during the Nazi era.” Let’s unpack each of those a bit.
First, Obama’s anti-Semitism. Here’s the context – Hamas puts on school plays in which 10 year olds dressed as terrorists plunge fake knives into 10 year olds dressed as Jews to the delight of the audience, and Palestinian Authority leaders (they’re supposed to be the “moderate ones”) bestow praise upon all participating in the “knife intifada.” Asked to comment on the unspeakable tragedy of innocent Jewish civilians being murdered by knife-wielding Islamic radicals, Obama and Kerry do little more than condemn the proverbial “cycle of violence.” I’m sorry, but this is pure and outright murder and any public figure who finds it difficult to condemn it as such without diluting the message with geo-political drivel is engaging in “blatant anti-Semitism.”
Second, the wisdom of free stuff for those engaged in advocating the overthrow of the State of Israel. Every civilized country other than Israel punishes treason. In the United States, advocating to overthrow the government by force or violence can get you life in prison. In Israel, Islamic radical citizens speak this way all the time, often on the way back and forth from world class institutions of higher learning which they attend for free. Is this a good idea? Is there no minimal allegiance required for Israeli citizenship? Sure seems like a fair question to me.
Finally, are J Street supporters really as bad as kapos? The answer, actually, is no. They are far worse than kapos – Jews who turned in their fellow Jews in the Nazi death camps. The kapos faced extraordinary cruelty and who knows what any of us would have done under those circumstances to save a loved one? But J Street? They are just smug advocates of Israel’s destruction delivered from the comfort of their secure American sofas – it’s hard to imagine anyone worse.
Mr. Beinart, therefore, has done us a service, albeit unintentionally. He has shown us the danger of the Jewish left – the lost souls who blame Israel for not making a suicidal “peace” with hateful radical Islamists hell bent on Israel’s destruction. This is Hillary Clinton’s crowd, and they are no friends of Israel.
Donald Trump’s view of Israel isn’t quite as nuanced as that of Mr. Beinart nor as academic as that of President Obama. He thinks that when radical Islamic terrorists are trying to kill you, the right thing to do is kill them first. Don’t negotiate, reason or cajole. Just defeat them. Or as Mr. Trump would say, “win.”
So please read Peter Beinart’s latest column. It will leave you convinced to vote for Donald Trump.
Beinart’s Op-Ed piece
Trump and the Absurdity of America’s Israel Debate
He pretends to care about Israel, and the American Jewish Establishment pretends that he’s a respectable candidate for president.
Last month, with the New York presidential primary only days away, a group of Jewish activists and journalists came to see Donald Trump in his office. Trump surveyed the group and called in reinforcements. “Maybe I can get Jason Greenblatt down here,” he mused. “Jason is a person that has been so good, he’s a lawyer, he’s so incredible and he’s Orthodox.” Turning to campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, Trump added, “And you know who else? David Cohen.” Greenblatt is Trump’s general counsel. Cohen is his executive vice-president.
As the Jewish Telegraph Agency’s Uriel Heilman observed, “It was an exchange reminiscent of a memorable scene in the first episode of ‘Mad Men,’ in which the heads of the 1950s Madison Avenue advertising agency try to figure out if they have any token Jewish employees to be in the room for a meeting with a potential Jewish client. The agency ends up digging up a Jewish guy from the mailroom.”
When the journalists asked about West Bank settlements, Trump handed off the question to Greenblatt, who responded that the settlements “need to stay there.” When asked what term he uses to describe the West Bank, Trump turned to Greenblatt again, who said he didn’t like the phrase “occupied territories.”
Asked later where he gets his information on Israel, Greenblatt, a real estate attorney from Teaneck, New Jersey, said he reads materials sent out by AIPAC and listens to a weekly radio program featuring Malcolm Hoenlein of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. Greenblatt also said he sometimes talks to people in the Israeli government. He doesn’t know any Palestinians.
According to Trump, Greenblatt is one of his two main Israel advisers. The other is a bankruptcy lawyer who has represented Trump named David M. Friedman. Friedman serves as President of American Friends of Bet El settlement. In columns on the pro-settler website Arutz Sheva, he has accused President Obama of “blatant anti-Semitism” and suggested that unless Palestinian citizens of Israel decide “to support the state,” Israel should reconsider its policy of “bestowing upon them the benefits of citizenship.” In a column last July, he compared J Street to “Kapos during the Nazi regime.”
It all makes perfect sense. Donald Trump is not a subtle man. Whatever other politicians do, he does cruder and stupider. Last year, he joined a field of Republican candidates who were promising to crack down on illegal immigration. So Trump upped the ante: He said he’d make Mexico pay for a wall. His GOP opponents came out against admitting Syrian refugees into the United States. Trump called for banning Muslims altogether. His GOP opponents said they’d get tough on ISIS. Trump called for killing the family members of terrorists.
So it is with Israel. Trump realizes that running for president requires convincing the American Jewish establishment that he will give the Israeli government near unconditional support. Other candidates dress this up in high-minded language about how Israel shares America’s democratic values and serves as a vital ally in the struggle against terrorism. Trump’s approach is more blunt: You Jews want to know I’m pro-Israel? Here are Greenblatt, Friedman and Cohen. They all work for me. They’re all Jews. They’ll tell you whatever you want to hear. If they don’t, just let me know. I can easily find more.
It’s kind of refreshing. Most campaign discussions of Israel are a farce. Trump is just admitting it. At a recent J Street event, Stephanie Schriock, president of Emily’s List, which raises money for Democratic women candidates, explained how, when she served as finance director for congressional candidates, she developed their positions on Israel:
“Before you went to the Jewish community [to raise money], you had a conversation with the lead AIPAC person in your state and they made it clear that you needed a paper on Israel. And so you called all your friends who already had a paper on Israel — that was designed by AIPAC – and we made that your paper. This was before there was a campaign manager, a policy director or a field director because you have got to raise money before you do all of that. I have written more Israel papers that you can imagine. I am from Montana. I barely knew where Israel was until I looked at a map, and the poor campaign manager would come in, or the policy director, and I’d be like, ‘Here is your paper on Israel. This is our policy.’ That means that these candidates who were farmers, school teachers, or business women, ended up having an Israel position without having any significant conversations with anybody…when I look back at it, it’s shocking.”
But it doesn’t shock Donald Trump. Trump, after all, does deals. And when it comes to Israel, the deal is clear: He tells the American Jewish establishment what it wants to hear. In return, the American Jewish establishment treats him like a respectable presidential candidate. It does so even though he’s sowing hate against America’s most vulnerable religious minority, and even though he barely pretends to know anything about the Jewish state, let alone the Palestinians.
Europe and the United Nations keep trying to undermine America’s monopoly over Israeli-Palestinian relations. How dare they? If elected, Donald Trump — aided by Greenblatt, Friedman and Cohen — will have things well in hand.
Recently you see Paul Ryan and Jeb Bush turn on Trump, the presumptive nominee in such a manner that they are actually empowering the Hillarbeast.
This shows the new reality that Americans are beginning on to be aware of that both Trump and Saunders have brought to the foreground.
It’s not Dems versus Repubs but Globalists versus Nationalists.
As I have been saying for years, America is dominated by an establishment of economic fascists that are seeking totalitarianism. They have subverted both Democracy and Capitalism converting it to actual Stalinism. Is CNN or CBC today functioning any different that former Pravda? Or like Jewbaiter in demonizing critics of Islam (Islamophobes)?
Hijra, Islamic conquest by migration, is their final weapon agaisnt nationalists. The establishment itself is responsible for the Islamic Hijira.
For example, Two families in Canada (Thompsons and Desmarais – Power corp) control the media conglomerate that got Trudeau elected and that media continues to push the “diversity” narrative.
That media conglomerate all working together economically and politically comprises CBC, The National Post, Toronto Star, Globe and Mail, Gesca, La Presse, Sirius XM, and CP Wire services (to name a few). You all knew that didn’t you? Of course not , it requires hours of dedicated research and cross indexing books etc to dig it out ,even if motivated.
If you hear the narrative you should know that it’s across the board and it’s got a controller . …
Germany, UK Canada ,Sweden all appear lost to the globalists who are controlling the media, Social media facebook, twitter etc.
Will they end with a whimper or a bang?
What is paid little attention to is how the media inculcates attitudes in the masses which made them manipulable.
All those people who think “Trump is a racist” they actually believe that to criticize part of something is to criticize the whole. They ave been indoctrinated to avoid critical self inspection and critical inspection. They have been indoctrinated to believe that thinking negative things is BAD – not GOOD – Don’t do it! Only teddy bears are acceptable. Their reaction to Trump was dictated before there even was a Trump. It’s subtle, it’s hard to explain, but it is there and it is deliberate on the part of the establishment/globalists.
..
America may be the last hope for the world to stop this stealth Globalism, stealth totalitarian, stealth Jihadism , I hope not the last gasp. Maybe America can become the keystone of the Resistance.
London fell today to stealth Jihad. Today the toady, tomorrow the hammer. We know whnt the poor fools are in for , most of them still don’t.
What will happen to Israel when all of Europe falls?
Better have a nationalist in office in the USA. Better have Trump.
Along with the rest of our family, I have consistently supported Donald Trump’s candidacy for the US presidency since he announced that candidacy in summer 2015.
My reasons for supporting his candidacy have little or nothing to do with the State of Israel, except that I think his hands-off foreign policy approach for overseas issues not involving direct interests of the USA will be more likely to help wean the State of Israel, its people, and its government from the always demeaning and not infrequently dangerous dependence on this country.
I do not care about peace for Israel, because I comprehend that Israel cannot and shall never have peace with the Arabs and other Moslems of the Middle East, unless and until those Arabs and other Moslems undergo a fundamental reformation in their relationships to their own religious beliefs and their societal norms based on those beliefs.
But unless and until that happens, I want Israel to develop into a carefully planned and increasingly powerful country of military and political aggressors who will take control over all their neighboring lands for purposes of annexation, Judaization, and national development.
All that is more or less what non-Jews think of Jews in any case. I never much gave a damn what non-Jews think of my Jewish tribe. So I take a contrary approach; namely, that aggression wins. And If it can profit the Jewish state and the Jewish nation, why bother lying about what obviously is required in order to keep Israel extant?
Arnold Harris, Outspeaker
Ken would like that because then the fleeing Jews of europe and the UK would have nowhere to run today. He would like to trap the jews like his muslim allies advised Hitler. Kens “catastrophe” is that the Jews have a chance to escape his “solution” for them this time…… if they wake up in time and see that Ken is the reincarnation of Adolph… who also collaborated with the muslim al husseini towards a solution.
If Israelis and their true friends in the USA remember
just one thing, that should be it.
there you go, in a nutshell… he also once said that the families of terrorists should also be killed.. I agree in the case of honor killers because they taught their children that jews are sons of apes and pigs to be slaughtered… no mercy..pullleaze.
Yes exactly… but my view is more accurate.
criticism is telling the truth… telling lies about Jews and Israel must be viewed in its historical context… medieval blood libels ALWAYS preceded pogroms and murder…. the lies were used intentionally to incite that murder of Jews… therefore it is attempted murder amounting to attempted genocide… in the case of Beinart and other serial genocidal inciters it becomes actual murder and genocide becuase Beinarts lies are quoted by muslims while in the act of murdering Jews. In such cases it is imperative that Jews pre emptively kill the jew killer in order to stop his murders. Beinart should be brought to Jerusalem like eichmannnnn, indicted, tried and then hanged…. if the logistics are difficult the verdict should be brought to him and all other funders and inciters of the murders of Jewish children. Criminal law in civilized nations now recognizes that accessories to murder are guilty of the crime of murder. BDS funders and liars are guilty of the genocide of Jews and should be liquidated any way possible.
even Netanyahu has finally come to agree with me on this issue:
and even Rivlin can say the words:
and yet neither treats the crime as a genocidal crime against the Jews as I advocate. The anti semite funder and inciter must be treated the same as Goebbels… as one who participates in the murder of Jews intentionally on a serial basis.
If BB and Rivlin were more than talkers they would make BDS libels, euro funding of jew killer connected orgs capital crimes and issue warrants for arrest. If they were more than holocaust day talkers the would make anti semitism in the one jewish homeland a crime minimally requiring mandatory deportation. If they were more than talkers they would never arrest Jews and Jewish soldiers for killing terrorists regardless of the circumstances of their incapacity or nuetralization because the attempt would already mandate their liquidation. It is a good deed to kill an anti semite who by nature is a Jew killer who has not yet reached a capability but even moreso a jew killer who has made an attempt. What a sick morality to consider that a jew killer should deserve mercy or “due process”. All attempted terrorism should be met with on site mandatory execution except in the case of needing info by torture. After the torture liquidate the jew killer. the concept of mercy for the attempted killers of jewish children should be wiped from the minds of Jews. Those that seek to give them mercy should not whine when their children are slaughtered.
@ David Chase:
Most likely “yes,” just out of a sense of “balance and fairness”. As did our Canadian Prime Minister, “Baby Doc” Trudeau…
When Beinart’ was talking about Trump, I thought he was talking about Obama who, as we know, really catered to his Jewish constituents only for political purposes. Did I hear someone say “Jerusalem will remain the undivided capital of Israel” and.”I’ve got Israel’s back” and what about Obama’s token Jews of Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod whose presence in Obama’s administration I consistently heard as bonafides of Obama’s clear support for Israel. I’d like to ask Beinart if it would have been more acceptable for Trump to have picked Muslims as his Israel advisors.