Author Archives: Rabbi

Trump 2.0

Posted on January 22, 2025 | 1 comment

(First published at Israelnationalnews.com)

Donald Trump’s return to power and the world stage should presumably benefit the United States, Israel, and the free world while vexing the world’s enemies of virtue and justice, even as we do not put our faith in either princes or human beings (Tehillim 146:3). That being said, President Trump is bound to do many things that please us in Israel and some things that infuriate us. It bears keeping in mind that Trump is President of the United States and not prime minister of Israel, and while the United States and Israel’s interests are often aligned, they are not identical. We are expected to define our national interests and objectives, we are expected to make prudent decisions about our lives and nation, and we should be capable of saying “no” (or “no thank you”) when pressure is applied to coerce us into doing things against those interests and objectives.

If you haven’t yet noticed, Trump can be blustery in his pronouncements and downright tempestuous in his threats. We should also notice that few are carried out, most are uttered for their effect or for purposes of negotiations, and even he isn’t always aware of the ultimate consequences of his fulminations. He threatened “Hell to Pay” if all our hostages were not released by the time he took office, which of course did not happen, and with little prospect of that happening anytime soon. Trump boasted loudly that he would end the Ukraine-Russia war on “Day One,” with “one phone call,” which, do note, did not happen. Perhaps amid all the inaugural festivities, he had no time to place the phone call or maybe Putin’s telephone was busy.

A normal, self-respecting country knows how to say no when its national interests or the lives of its citizens are endangered. We in Israel have not yet achieved that status, and so, notwithstanding our passionate desire to gain freedom for our illegally-and-in-violation-of-international-law-held hostages, our government (again) has committed to releasing into society thousands of terrorists and murderers, all to terrorize and murder again. Suzie Dym of Mattot Arim calculated, based on past ratios of innocents released in exchange for terrorists, that more than 380 Israelis can be expected to be murdered in the coming years by these freed terrorists. Israeli TV generally downplayed the gleeful celebrations occurring in Arab villages in Samaria at the first batch of discharged terrorists; having Israelis watch that would dampen the ecstasy at the release of our first freed hostages. The message our weakness sends to our enemies and the world is that crime pays.

This is not the first time PM Netanyahu caved under pressure and likely won’t be the last but there is no other politician alive today who can put the most positive spin on the most craven surrender. He could depict Custer’s last stand as just a momentary setback on the way to complete victory. Netanyahu has done many positive things as Israel’s longest-serving prime minister but his legacy will forever be marred by the Shalit deal and this, the Netanyahu deal. He could have said no or not yet or not this deal.

Bear in mind that Trump has openly expressed his desire to reclaim the Panama Canal and seize Greenland, to which the prime ministers of Panama and Denmark responded, in their respective languages, “take a hike.” The world did not come to an end, the sun rose the next day, Panama and Denmark are still functioning, and Trump’s threats will go nowhere. (Humble prediction: Greenland will remain Danish, the Panama Canal will not be renamed the Trump Canal, and the US will negotiate slightly reduced passage fees.) What I cannot figure out is what is the American interest in coercing this deal, which, even temporarily, strengthens Hamas and better enables it to remain in power over its quite supportive constituents.

Pundits have opined that Trump wanted a victory on his first day in office, akin to Reagan whose inauguration coincided to the minute with the release of American hostages held in Iran after 444 days of captivity. (The US exchanged or paid nothing for this release, unlike Israel in our current imbroglio.) That reason strikes me as too facile, and even if true, only three Israeli hostages were released – along with numerous Arab evildoers – which is not quite Reaganesque.

Some maintain that this was a good will gesture from Netanyahu to win assistance on the Iranian front or to deflect future pressure, and that could be. But it is even more likely that Trump was testing Netanyahu and his inclination to fold under pressure, which makes it even more dangerous in the future. Strength respects strength and bullies devour weaklings, and it is time that we define our vital interests and protect them at any price.

The good news about Trump is that he comes to most world issues with only one preconceived notion – that he can solve any problem – but no others. He is untethered to the shibboleths of modern diplomacy, especially including the creation of another Palestinian state. We would do well to establish our red lines and soon, or there will be unwanted responses to unexpected events. Yes, Mahmoud Abbas is unlikely to survive the Trump term (he thinks he will be 93 when the Trump administration ends) but Abbas will surely be succeeded by a more polished leader who will beseech the world for the welcoming gift of Palestinian statehood, including the division of Jerusalem, and recite all the clichés the international community wants to hear. We should prepare for that.

The other bit of good news is that Trump is surrounding himself with a foreign policy team that is strongly pro-Israel and a welcome relief from the condescension of the Obama-Biden staff. The dark cloud in this is that Trump sees himself as master of foreign policy and likely will sideline his formal advisors (think FDR ignoring Cordell Hull and Nixon snubbing William Rogers). If so, the real variable is Steve Witkoff, fresh off cramming this horrible deal down Israel’s throats.

He is an unknown. In truth, there is an advantage to an outsider bringing fresh ideas into the staid foreign policy establishment. We benefited greatly from that in Trump’s first term, especially the decoupling of the “Palestinian” issue from other regional relationships which then engendered the Abraham Accords. Sages such as John Kerry, frozen in their outlooks (especially their cold contempt towards Israel), deemed that impossible. It took new eyes to see the possibilities and act upon them.

Yet, it is striking that the three primary architects of the Abraham Accords – Jared Kushner, David Friedman, and Jason Greenblatt – were all Orthodox Jews who possess a particular world view grounded in both realism and a sense of Jewish destiny. By contrast, Witkoff, a successful real attorney and developer, is typical of the secular American Jew who possesses a (thus far) tenuous attachment to Jewish tradition and a paucity of Torah knowledge.

That is a world of difference, illustrated by the attribution to him soon after his appointment as Trump’s Middle East negotiator, that Witkoff sees the conflict in Israel as a “complicated property transaction,” in which, presumably, each side wants something – land or money – and you try to find the middle ground through negotiations. Witkoff has certainly been involved in numerous real estate projects involving complex and acrimonious negotiations. And as a native New Yorker, I too know that New York can be a tough environment in which to live and do business.

Nevertheless, it is highly doubtful that Witkoff has ever been involved in a “complicated property transaction” in which the prospective buyer tortures, mutilates, rapes, and murders the sellers or their tenants. It is most unlikely that Witkoff ever dealt with buyers who routinely blow up the buildings they seek to acquire or kidnap the children of the sellers and hold them in torturous captivity only because these “buyers” are cruel, evil, Nazi-like psychopaths coddled by much of the world. Has Witkoff ever negotiated with malicious ghouls who murder and then hide the bodies of their victims? I think not. Even the New York real estate field is not that tough. Instead, we are in a war of ideas, of conflicting visions about life, human purpose, and destiny, and not in a war over condominiums v. co-ops v. commercial development.

Perhaps Steve Witkoff can learn a little more about Jewish history and Jewish destiny. He would learn that the Bible prophesied our exile from Israel if we sinned, and then our return to the land of Israel at the end of days. He would learn that our struggles in the land of Israel have little to do with territory and much to do with Torah, faith, redemption, Moshiach, and the revelation of G-d’s kingdom on earth. He would learn – many Israelis should learn this as well – that our rights to the land of Israel were given to us by the Creator. No nation and no international organization have the right to compromise that. Those nations that support us in the endeavor of the reborn Jewish state on this holy land will be blessed and those who try to frustrate our destiny will be cursed.

In the meantime, the Trump years will bring us moments of elation and others of deflation. We should not expect him to be everything we want. We should appreciate him as a relief from the nasty rebukes of the Biden years, Biden’s unbridled pursuit of policies that harmed us, and his sale of weapons to us just enough so that we should fight but not enough that we should prevail.

Most importantly, we should remind ourselves that decisions about the destiny of Israel must be made here, by us, by our government, and not by outsiders (or, for that matter, by our Supreme Court). We can listen to our friends and allies – and then decide what is in our interest. Above all, that means internalizing that, as King Shlomo put it (Proverbs 29:18), “when there is no vision, the people will lack restraint, but one who keeps the Torah is fortunate.”

We need to articulate a Jewish vision for the future. People with a strategy will always run circles around those without a strategy – and leaders without a strategy eventually wind up with Oslo Accords, expelling Jews from Gaza, repeated wars in Lebanon and Gaza, incentivizing hostage taking by rewarding the kidnappers, and conquering Gaza with no plan to reassert sovereignty and reestablish Jewish settlement there. Our enemies have a vision; we could use one.

The purported suggestion that Gazans will relocate to another country and Israel retain security control over that tiny, doomed territory, is a good start, far more encouraging than the hostage deal. And Donald Trump will respond more favorably to a nation with a vision that can simultaneously further American interests in the world for peace and prosperity (or vice versa) than a nation that lurches from crisis to crisis, groping in the dark for a way forward because it eschews the light of Torah.

We need a clear vision because Trump is mercurial, temperamental, transactional, and unpredictable. He wants concrete accomplishments and not just diplomatic babble, deeds and not talk, but like many others, he considers an “agreement” and a “signing ceremony” to be an accomplishment, regardless of its enforceability or future hazards. Like many in politics, he can be a “stage one thinker” as well, never contemplating the longer-term effects of any action. As such, our vision, and our commitment to implement it, are indispensable.

If we ascertain and solidify our vision, the Trump years can be a boon for Israel, the region, and the world. If our leaders cannot figure that out, then we need new ones, faithful ones, and soon.

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Has Anything Changed?

Posted on January 17, 2025 | 8 comments

(First published at Israelnationalnews.com)

For all the government hype, spin, and bluster since October 8, 2023, in the end, has anything changed? The current hostage deal would seem to indicate that the conceptziya is alive and well. This is not the agreement of either a victorious nation or a nation poised for victory in six weeks. Hamas is not defeated. Gaza will continue to pose a security threat to Israeli citizens, and all the hostages will likely not be released. For why would Hamas release all of them? Hamas is evil but not foolish. The hostages are Hamas’ best asset, because Hamas knows its incarceration of Israeli hostages leads our people and government to act emotionally, which is to say self-destructively and recklessly.

There will be joy at the release of the freed hostages, at least by the families of those released. I will feel relief, not joy. The joy will appear on the faces of the Arabs who have once again seen their psychopath-terrorists murder Jews and literally get away with it., They will be whooping it up, handing out sweets, and plotting their next massacre of an “unwise and foolish people” (Devarim 32:6). Indeed, I imagine this is the same feeling that Jews had after the Holocaust when the survivors were liberated – not joy but relief. How can there have been joy, knowing what they suffered in captivity, knowing how many did not survive?

Relief, not joy, but at least when the Holocaust survivors were freed, the Nazis were defeated. Here, in our case, we have empowered these Nazis to fight and murder us another day, we have even emptied our prisons of more homicidal Nazis so they should be able to resume their life’s work of murdering Jews. Imagine winning the release of survivors by granting freedom to Goebbels, Goring, Hoess and Eichmann. That is our choice, and our fate.

Today, ours is not the face of victory. Have we squandered the lives of our precious soldiers just to restore the status quo of October 6, 2023? Have we elated our enemies just because we think that now Trump and the Americans will give us a free hand to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities? Most importantly, if the war resumes after the end of the cease fire, how many our soldiers will be killed once again conquering the same swaths of Gaza, now fully booby-trapped and mined? Why would any soldier want to go back there, especially knowing how ephemeral are any gains we make and how permanent is their loss of life?

For all the talk, we will still be prolonging the war and strengthening our enemies by lavishing even more provisions on these “innocent civilians,” not one of whom embraced Israel’s offer of $5,000,000 and free passage in exchange for information leading to the return of our hostages. The war is still managed by defeatists in the General Staff and the intelligence services, who still want to mow the lawn and prepare for another battle in this endless war, despite Hamas now on the brink of defeat. Just like in the Second Lebanon War, we are still sending our soldiers – our finest youth – to be killed and maimed seizing territory on Monday that we will surrender to the enemy on Thursday. For what? For what did they die? And we wonder why Haredim refuse to serve in an army that, too often – it is painful to say – is cavalier about the lives of our soldiers, refusing to bomb from the air buildings where no civilians should be, forcing our soldiers to serve as sitting ducks for the enemy, and still refusing to cut off food, water, electricity, and internet from our enemies.

We are still being lied to by our government. As I wrote during the first week of the war, defeating Hamas and freeing all our hostages are both worthy objectives but they are incompatible absent a miracle, and yet those goals are still being trumpeted as realistic and impending. The opposition, meanwhile, is still focused on toppling Netanyahu, with victory over our foes and freedom for the hostages merely secondary considerations. The streets are still filled with protesters who contrive fears of a Netanyahu dictatorship while obviously, and vehemently, preferring an actual judicial dictatorship, notwithstanding that the former is subject to elections while the latter is not and wishes simply to perpetuate its power by any means necessary.

After all the promises of “absolute victory,” and after PM Netanyahu demonstrated resilience and resolve such as he had never exhibited before as prime minister, he reverted to form, caved under pressure, and snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. Certainly, we were – and are – traumatized by the invasion and massacre of October 7, but few lessons have been learned. Pressure from Biden or Trump should be meaningless if they weaken our core values and interests. That is how independent nations act: they define their interests and do everything to achieve them. True resolve causes even the most intense pressure to dissipate. Israel has never learned that lesson, which is why we have suffered consistent diplomatic defeats for more than fifty years, and time and again, we rehabilitate and strengthen our enemies.

We still fall for Hamas’ psychological mind games – dangling hostage videos, murdering some, threatening others – all to achieve their aims, which they do. We know these are their tactics – and yet we still succumb to them. (Hamas demanded the release of more than one thousand of their terrorists? Why aren’t some of them being returned in body bags, like too many of our hostages?) We are easily manipulated, our enemies know it, and so they do it repeatedly. We learned nothing from the disastrous Shalit deal – nothing. That lopsided and immoral exchange not only murdered hundreds of us in the ensuing years but also guaranteed that the enemy would try to seize more hostages again, because, why not? It works. And it will work again in the future because the release of murderers in exchange for innocent civilians incentivizes the enemy to do it again. And again. The prattle about not releasing any of the murderers from the October 7 massacre in this round only guarantees that there will be future hostage-taking to win their freedom. Has anything changed?

It would be more plausible if many of those who disseminate the canard that “pidyon shvuyim,” the ransoming of captives, is the most important mitzvah in the Torah actually understood the concept, and perhaps even observed some of the other mitzvot in the Torah. (What the Sages meant is that “ransoming captives” is the highest form of tzedakah because it encompasses all dimensions of that mitzvah.) And as is well known to those who open a Gemara, we do not ransom hostages “for more than their value, for the betterment of the world” (Gittin 45a) because “overpaying” will ultimately bankrupt the community and encourage more hostage-taking. We do exactly what the Gemara says not to do, and obviously to our detriment.

Releasing bloodthirsty murderers is not just the “difficult price” we must pay, as the senseless and repetitive cliché uttered by numerous commentators and politicians puts it. It is not moral; it is immoral, because it has, does, and will put many others at risk. We do not endanger the entire community to save a small group. It is well meaning but also flat out stupid. And we need not speculate that this release might endanger the rest of us. It will! It always has. Terrorists leave our prisons more hardened and more hateful of Jews than they entered, and even more contemptuous of us because they know our weaknesses and how we cannot overcome them. More of us will be murdered, and still others of us will be taken hostage in the future. The only thing we don’t know are the names of the future victims.

Have we learned anything? Aryeh Deri announced that he would support “any deal.” And what if Hamas demanded that Yeshiva students must serve in the IDF? Would he pay that “difficult price”? Haredim should be embarrassed that they largely shirk army service but what is almost as embarrassing, this refusal has compromised their ability to present a true Torah view on “ransoming captives.” They lack any credibility, as they necessarily must prefer any option that does not involve the military in which they do not serve. That means you, Degel HaTorah, which has been forced to furl that flag and, in the process, muted the voice of Torah.

We are still tormented by a legal and judicial establishment that prioritizes the lives of our enemies over our own and which fetishizes the chimera known as “international law,” all progressive doctrines that favor the evildoers in any conflict and render victory impossible for those foolish enough to be guided by it. We are supposed to be the “light unto the nations.” We are the ones who should be teaching the true ethics of war to the world – not vice versa. We should be proudly and unabashedly disseminating the Torah’s ethic of war and not constraining ourselves by absurd moral notions concocted by human beings that cannot produce a better, more just world. Indeed, since the first Geneva Conventions were adopted in 1864, the world has experienced in the last 160 years unprecedented carnage and brutality. We have learned nothing from the evildoers’ exploitation of “international law,” that has effectively deprived the West of winning any war since World War II.

 We have learned nothing from the Oslo debacle, from the Gaza Expulsion catastrophe, from the half-hearted waging of the Second Lebanon War and the various eruptions in Gaza, from the “hostages for terrorists” exchanges now four decades old, and from our reluctance, even fear, of acknowledging the true character of our enemies and dealing with that reality. When the next attack comes – and it will – and we suffer again, and go to war again, we will be accompanied yet again by the same false promises, the same lofty words, the same “together we will win!” – even as we disdain any plan for real victory.

We are victims of a terrible failure of vision, and of leadership, in the government and the opposition, in the upper echelons of the military and legal establishments. This deal is a classic example of “stage one thinking,” a visceral reaction that does not consider “stage two,” the real-world consequences of that emotional decision. Watch the glee on the faces of our enemies – and the agony on ours – and determine who thinks they won, and who thinks they lost.

It is especially galling that we take pride in our humiliation. Our enemies have not been deterred. They have been emboldened, inspired, and heartened by our surrender. They do not care about life – even their own. They care about murdering Jews and destroying the State of Israel, and we – wittingly or unwittingly – are abetting them.

Sadly, nothing has really changed. As a nation, we have been repeatedly let down by our leaders. The only redeeming value of the current government is that any potential replacement would be far worse. That is our fate – and a good reason we pray daily for judges and counsellors as of old, those who can hasten the coming of Moshiach and the kingdom of G-d on earth. May Moshiach come soon and may Hashem in His mercy spare us the harshest consequences of our folly.

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We the People

Posted on January 8, 2025 | 1 comment

(First published at Israelnationalnews.com)

Israelis do not usually agree on much but there is consensus on two related issues. Most Israelis feel there is a need for a commission of inquiry to investigate the catastrophic Hamas invasion of October 7, 2023 and its aftermath, and most Israelis feel that such a commission of inquiry will not be objective, impartial, or fair. Hence the stalemate – and both points have substantial merit.

Obviously, the systemic breakdowns that allowed the invasion, massacre, torture, and hostage-taking to occur – an epic failure – need to be scrutinized if only to preclude a future recurrence. Yet, there is no foreseeable circumstance in which an objective tribunal can be formed because there is no element of military, political, and judicial apparatus that is untainted, and no establishment organ that has clean hands in this disaster. Any investigation will necessarily seek to deflect blame from the sponsors of the investigation, point fingers at the “other,” and exploit the conclusions for crass electoral purposes. The blameworthy are being asked to investigate themselves, a pattern familiar to Israel and occurring now in the purported investigation by the military prosecutor’s office of the military prosecutor’s office and its alleged fabrication of evidence in the Sde Teiman fiasco.

Who is guiltless in the wake of the Hamas massacre? Certainly not the military leadership who failed to anticipate the invasion or respond to the initial encroachments effectively. Israel’s vaunted intelligence – whose craftiness and ingenuity have been astonishing in the last year – failed miserably in the weeks before October 7. Repeated reports by the reconnaissance scouts of unusual Hamas activity as late as the morning of October 7 were studiously ignored. Vital intelligence was not passed up the chain of command, and definitely not to the political decision-makers, another recurring phenomenon in Israel. The military’s embrace of a small, smart army relying on technology was an abject failure. The few generals and commanders who vocally objected to the complacency and indifference were edged aside, reassigned, or dismissed. Groupthink prevailed and the echo chamber was deafening. Accountability will not be readily forthcoming, a disservice to our dedicated soldiers whose bravery and professionalism will inspire generations to come.

Led by the military’s analysts, the political class assumed that Hamas was deterred and would not dare to attack. The politicians, including the Prime Minister (but notably excluding some of the leading Religious Zionist leaders), were guilty of abetting Hamas, allowing unrestricted funding, building, plotting, and finally execution of Hamas’ nefarious plans. The politicians failed in one of the most basic calculations in military strategy – fighting a definite war today with X casualties versus fighting a potential war in the near future with 5X casualties. The “quiet for quiet” gambit was an abysmal failure. They all guessed wrong and for more than a decade, letting Hamas fester and its capabilities metastasize, with devastating consequences to life, health, families, and not least to the Israeli psyche.

Few objected to the Hamas buildup, with prominent exceptions, among others, Betzalel Smotrich and Michael ben Ari, with the latter even being banned from political life. Almost every political party left, right, and center, has a role in this debacle, including the Haredi parties whose repudiation of military service for their constituents leaves them without a coherent or credible voice on security-related matters. Of course, Binyamin Netanyahu shares this guilt as well – but so does almost every other conceivable candidate for prime minister for the next decade. The conceptziya devoured an entire generation of Israeli generals and politicians, even as they try to avoid the day of reckoning.

The mainstream media are also culpable, for unquestioningly parroting the establishment views, and especially for their relentless and obsessive hatred of PM Netanyahu as the gravest threat to the Israeli polity. As it turned out, they were wrong: the gravest threat to the Israeli polity was located in Gaza, and Lebanon, and Syria, and Iran, and in the Arabs of Judea and Samaria. The media also misconstrued the temporary calm in Gaza as something permanent and irrevocable and favored short-term solutions to Israel’s military challenges so as to better focus on their most important agenda item: getting rid of Netanyahu.

The legal and judicial establishment – particularly those nominally charged with appointing a commission of inquiry – is also guilty. They are guilty of micromanaging the IDF’s response to everything, guilty of favoring the lives of terrorists and enemy civilians over the well-being of our own soldiers, guilty of tying the army’s hands, and guilty of persecuting the Prime Minister over legal and literal nonsense. The Attorney General has assumed dictatorial powers, with the entire land of Israel her fiefdom. The military advocates allowed the enemy to approach the Gaza border unmolested, continue to hamstring the soldiers and are also anti-Netanyahu activists. Is there any chance their culpability will be exposed? Not as long as the judges play a role – or actually participate – in any investigation. And the Kaplan protesters redefined democracy – now construed as “rule by the self-appointed elites” – and desperately, illegally, and occasionally violently protect the hegemony of the legal and judicial establishment in defiance of all democratic norms.

At the risk of offending readers, another component of society is also responsible for this calamity – we the people. We the people who prefer an illusory calm to dealing with real threats, we the people who seek quick fixes (and encourage the politicians to do the same, even as their popularity continues to be foolishly measured in weekly polls), we the people who supported the Oslo cataclysm and the Gaza expulsion, we the people who would rather be soothed by the elegant words of false prophets of “peace now” than confront the harsh reality of the neighborhood in which we live, we the people who might again be seduced by lullabies sung to us by whoever succeeds Mahmoud Abbas, we the people whose rabid support for political parties and personalities rather than ideas and policies mimics the fervor of football fans and their favorite teams.

Who can judge, when everyone is guilty, including the judges?

Perhaps, then, we should learn a lesson from Yosef. Ramban, the venerated biblical commentator, assumed that Yaakov never found out what happened to Yosef (Commentary to Breisheet 45:27). How is that even possible – wasn’t he curious, didn’t he ask, wasn’t he told?

It seems that Yosef sent Yaakov a clue at their very first interaction: “And [Yaakov} saw the wagons that Yosef sent” (ibid), on which Rashi comments, utilizing the play on words of agalot (wagons) and eglot (heifers), “Yosef informed Yaakov of the religious subject he had been studying with his father at the time when he left him, to wit, the section of the axed heifer.”

The symbolism is dramatic. As the Torah relates (Devarim 21:1-9), a heifer has its neck broken as part of the rite accompanying the expiation of an unsolved murder – a crime for which there was only a victim but no accused, no evidence, and no witnesses. In that scenario, it is the society that assumes the guilt, not any individual or faction. This was a subtle message to Yaakov not to investigate what happened to Yosef. In essence, Yosef told Yaakov we are all guilty – you for favoring me, me for disrespecting my brothers, they for selling me. The fewer details you know, the better, because our society could not survive a fair and complete investigation. No one will walk away unscathed. The same is true today. Even if three unbiased people could be found in the entire country, the elitists will never allow an investigation whose conclusions are not preordained.

To be sure, there must be an investigation at a certain point of the October 7 devastation, if only to draw operational conclusions of what went wrong, why, and how the flawed process can be rectified. Future military and intelligence leaders must ensure that their ranks are filled with a diversity of views, especially views that challenge conventional wisdom. And there needs to be reflection on the goals we seek to achieve as a society, given our enemies across the region and our profound yearning for peace – so profound that it has often engendered the pursuit of fantasies and illusions and a headlong rush from reality. Those goals should feature the creation of a more Jewish state, a nation proud of our uniqueness and our identity, something that ironically the war has catapulted to center stage.

There will come a time when the assumption of personal and collective responsibility will be in order, without such being bogged down in politics. That time is not now. The rival committees now investigating will do little other than stoke the flames of discord by pointing the finger of guilt at their respective political adversaries. There will be an unseemly search for convenient scapegoats and a mad scramble to avoid personal responsibility. For now, it suffices to say, as Yosef implied, we are one nation, we all have much to regret, we all have much we did wrong, we all have much to be proud of – and we all have a grand and majestic destiny to which we look forward.

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A Vision for a Second Trump Term

Posted on December 20, 2024 | 1 comment

by Chaim Silberstein and Rabbi Steven Pruzansky, Esq.

President-elect Donald Trump’s first term was noted for its remarkable accomplishments in stabilizing the Middle East, strengthening Israel’s strategic position, and especially embracing creative thinking and policies that transformed the reality on the ground. Decisions such as recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and moving the American embassy to Jerusalem paved the way to the historic breakthrough of the Abraham Accords.  All this was achieved largely to the consternation and even dismay of the foreign policy establishment, whose reassertion of traditional diplomacy in the last four years has contributed to the outbreak of violence in this region and other parts of the world.

The proposed nominees for the critical positions that will determine US foreign policy in the coming four years have gratified supporters of Israel. Marco Rubio, Mike Walz, Mike Huckabee and others have been steadfast supporters of a strong Israel that is a genuine friend and trusted ally of the United States. While the plate of any new administration is full, and the most pressing matters in Israel today concern the need for decisive defeats of Hamas and Hezbollah and the return of all Israeli hostages, there are several items worthy of the new administration’s agenda that can solidify the advances made in the first Trump administration and further promote peace and security in the region.

These proposals focus on securing the future of Jerusalem. It should be lost on no one that Hamas called its invasion of Israel on October 7, 2023, the “Al-Aksa Flood,” as it and all Israel’s enemies perceive the conquest of Jerusalem as the ultimate objective. What can be done to reinforce Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem? There are five proposals, some merely restoration of Trump policy in his first term, others a blueprint for preserving Jerusalem into the future.

First, shutter (again) the US Office of Palestinian Affairs (OPA) in Jerusalem. The OPA functions in violation of American, Israeli, and international law as a quasi-diplomatic mission in the heart of Israel’s capital that deals exclusively with the Palestinian Authority and Palestinian residents of Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria. It reports not to the US Embassy in Jerusalem but directly to the State Department. This mission was closed by President Trump after the embassy was moved to Jerusalem but was reopened by President Biden shortly after he assumed office in 2021 notwithstanding Israel’s objection and denial of recognition.

The OPA encroaches on Israel’s sovereignty and, by bypassing the serving US ambassador to Israel, undermines his effectiveness and the integrity of his mission. As was demonstrated during the first Trump term, handling Palestinian affairs from the US Embassy in Jerusalem is efficient, proper, and comports with international law and diplomatic norms. The OPA should be closed and its activities subsumed by the Embassy.

 Second, restore “Jerusalem, Israel,” as an official place of birth on American passports. For decades, American citizens living in Israel whose children were born in Jerusalem could not register their child’s place of birth as “Jerusalem, Israel,” due to the State Department’s claim that Jerusalem’s status as part of Israel was disputed. The place of birth was simply recorded as “Jerusalem.”

The US Embassy website in Israel notes: “Applicants born in Jerusalem are able to request either “Jerusalem” or “Israel” as their place of birth (POB) on U.S. passports ….  If you write “Jerusalem, Israel” as the POB on the passport, consular staff will ask you whether you prefer the U.S. passport to be printed with a POB of either “Jerusalem” or “Israel.”

This, too, purports to undermine Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem and contradicts the spirit of the US recognition of Jerusalem’s as Israel’s capital city. This policy should be repudiated, and US citizens who so desire should be allowed to have their place of birth recorded as “Jerusalem, Israel.”

Third, President Trump should immediately defund UNRWA, as he did in his first term. UNRWA has long outlived its usefulness – it is the only refugee relief organization that seeks to perpetuate refugee status among its beneficiaries – and has been justly accused of being part of the Hamas terror network. Some UNRWA staff members participated in the atrocities of October 7, 2023, and many UNRWA facilities in Gaza harbored terrorists and concealed terror infrastructure. An Israeli court ordered UNRWA’s eviction from its facility in Jerusalem which UNRWA illegally occupied. The United States should support that eviction, halt (again) its funding of UNRWA, and urge the disbandment of the organization and the reassignment of its duties to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

Fourth, support the construction of new Jewish neighborhoods within the existing municipal boundaries of Jerusalem especially in the eastern section. The physical footprint of Jerusalem needs to grow in order to accommodate a growing population. There are several areas in Jerusalem’s environs that are available for Jewish residence and the development of new neighborhoods. Examples are Givat Hamatos to the east, Givat Hashaked to the south, and Atarot to the north. There are thousands of dunams available for development that can create housing for hundreds of thousands of new residents.

All these neighborhoods are within Jerusalem’s municipal boundaries. Given the housing crisis in Israel, it is wrong that they remain vacant and undeveloped. President-elect Trump, a real estate maven, can take the lead in supporting these plans and enabling Israel to fulfill its vision for Jerusalem.

Fifth, support Israel’s consideration of the Greater Jerusalem Metropolis Plan. Jerusalem is today’s Israel’s most populous city, and urban and economic expansion are a national priority to ensure the capital’s economic, political and demographic security.

Today Jerusalem is geographically trapped with expansion options limited – Ramallah is to the north, Bethlehem is to the south, there is a ‘green’ ecosystem to the west. So far, the options are to expand vertically in existing expensive neighborhoods. That does not solve the severe problem of lack of affordable housing. Increasing the supply through expanding the municipal borders and establishing large new neighborhoods would significantly reduce prices and, together with increasing job opportunities, help reverse the negative immigration from Jerusalem. Over the past 30 years, over 400,000 Jews have left Jerusalem because of lack of affordable housing and job opportunities.

Incorporating the satellite cities surrounding Jerusalem will be a benefit for all the residents in both areas. It will free up hundreds of thousands of dunams for development of residential, commercial, tourism and leisure industries. Today Jews constitute approximately 60% of the population. Expanding the municipal borders will also contribute to securing its Jewish majority by adding over 200,000 residents to the city. The Greater Jerusalem proposal would include the city of Maalei Adumim to the east of Jerusalem and Gush Etzion to the south, Givat Zeev to the north  and possibly also Mevaseret Zion to the west.

Note that none of the proposals displace even one Arab and essentially just redraw Jerusalem’s municipal boundaries in a way that bolsters Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Expanding Jerusalem’s municipal boundaries need not impede the final status negotiations that have been a goal of American diplomacy for decades. Similarly, the mere prospect of future negotiations should not leave Jerusalem in permanent limbo unable to develop and flourish because of the veto power over negotiations exercised by Israel’s enemies. This logjam can be broken by creative diplomacy and a diplomatic green light by the US to Israel to pursue the expansion of Jerusalem.

These proposals will be to the immense benefit of all the residents of Jerusalem, Jews, Muslims and Christians and ensure Jerusalem remains the eternal capital of Israel and the Jewish people with a free, secure and flourishing future.

The implementation of these proposals would be a natural continuation of the policies of the first Trump administration and secure his historic legacy of support for the State of Israel and transformation of the Middle East.

Chaim Silberstein is founder and president of the Jerusalem Center for Applied Policy, where Rabbi Steven Pruzansky, Esq, serves as Senior Research Associate.

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