Tag Archives: Israel

The Friend of My Enemy

Posted on December 19, 2025 | Leave a comment

(First published at Israelnationalnews.com)

There is a well-known and ancient aphorism that affirms that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” Two countries that are rivals can still unite to challenge and overcome a mutual adversary that threatens them both. Thus, during World War II, the United States and United Kingdom joined forces with the USSR (after Germany breached their non-aggression pact) in order to defeat the Nazis. Shortly after the war ended, the enmity between the erstwhile allies resumed in full force and the Cold War began.

What about a corollary to that hoary principle? How does one characterize “the friend of my enemy,” or in our case, enemies? Is the friend still a friend? Does the friend become an enemy? Is there an intermediate stage – can a country become a frenemy?

This is our new reality, as Israel’s closest friend and ally in the world – the United States – curries favor with Qatar and Turkey, arguably two of Israel’s most implacable strategic foes in the world today. It is impossible not to conclude that those two countries are our enemies, and this despite Israel’s longtime willingness to ignore the provocations of both and to dream of the past (Turkey) or better days ahead (Qatar).

We should not delude ourselves any longer. Qatar has for quite some time been the sponsors of Hamas and other terrorist groups. It literally hosted and shielded Hamas’ leadership before, during, and after the October 7 massacre, and Qatari wealth has sustained Hamas despite its designation as a terrorist organization. Qatari money has allegedly fueled the anti-Jewish campus unrest in the United States the last several years. Their recent distancing from Hamas was solely the result of Israel’s attack on Hamas’ Qatar headquarters this past September, a shot across the bow that, among other things, informed the Qataris that the jig was up – and even induced them to pressure Hamas to free all the living Israeli hostages then held captive by Hamas.

Israelis still remember the Turkey that was the first (and for decades, only) Muslim country that recognized Israel. That bond was severed when Recep Tayyip Erdoğan became prime minister in 2003 and then president (apparently for life unless there is a coup) in 2014. Turkey before Erdoğan was a breath of fresh air in the Middle East. His ascension to power and his commitment to the tenets of radical Islam immediately soured relations, although Israel was slow to realize that and our diplomacy remained trapped in the fantasy world of the 1980’s. Nothing Erdoğan’s Turkey could do – supporting Hamas, dispatching the Mavi Marmara, repeatedly condemning Israel on the world stage, calling our government “Nazis” and our prime minister “Hitler” – none of that dispelled the Israeli illusion that this was still the same Turkey that exports dates and welcomes Israeli tourists, and that we are just a few conversations away from reviving that halcyon era.

Today, Turkey’s influence in our region is especially nefarious, and even in Israel itself. It designated its illegal consulate in Jerusalem, our capital city, as its “embassy to Palestine” – and we do nothing about it. Through a variety of social service, educational, and cultural organizations it sponsors in Jerusalem, funded by Qatar, it propagates radical Islam, rejection of Israel, and support for terror – and we do nothing about it. It routinely insults us, denies our legitimacy, and mocks our sovereignty – and we do nothing about it. The fantasy about the old Turkey even precipitated an apology from our prime minister after the Mavi Marmara incident. In other words, Turkey sent a hostile craft meant to break our blockade and supply our genocidal enemy in Gaza – and we had to apologize.

Now, the United States is friends or at least allies with these two of our enemies, and the price of that friendship has not been the diminution of their hostility towards Israel. Turkey and Qatar have captivated the US and it is not because of the shared values of those three countries – unless the primary value is money. These antagonists have infiltrated the US in different ways – Turkey as a longtime member of NATO serving as a counterforce to the Russians, and Qatar by spreading tens of billions of dollars of its oil revenues to buy influence in universities, politics, think tanks, school boards, and cultural institutions. Qatar has upped the ante in the current administration by engaging in sweetheart business deals with Steve Witkoff, President Trump’s ambassador for all things, and with Trump family members, and promising (although not yet delivering) investments in US infrastructure reported to be a trillion dollars.

Although the US could easily detach itself from Turkey, whose weak economy is obscured by its bellicose rhetoric and grandiose ambitions, it could not easily disconnect from the Qataris, so extensive is their influence in the United States. Qatari money is spread across numerous industries such as real estate, energy, aviation, and technology, and most reprehensible is their funding of dozens of American universities, including study programs which extol the virtues of Islam and denigrate Judaism and Israel. Yes, money talks, and three American universities – Georgetown, Carnegie Mellon, and Northwestern – have received more than two trillion dollars to fund their campuses in Doha, Qatar.

The influence of Qatari money on American university campuses, and its connection to the rampant Jew hatred and anti-American activism that have erupted there in recent years, is being investigated. But the linkage should be unsurprising, as well the accompanying decline in support for Israel in the last few years among younger Americans.

Undoubtedly, Qatar and Turkey are masterful at playing the double game, promoting the interests of radical Israel under the pretense of befriending America and serving America’s interests. This should have been made clear to all through the machinations of Qatar and Turkey during the prolonged hostage negotiations, when both countries pretended to be intermediaries and peace seekers. In fact, their enmity to Israel was blatant. Even their supposed neutrality to Hamas was and is a moral obscenity. If part of their current game is currying favor with President Trump through money (including a promise of a new Air Force One, which has not yet been fulfilled) and overblown flattery, then it is working. And if a long-term Arab goal has always been to distance the US from Israel, then that hasn’t happened, but it is clearly on their agenda.

Well, how do we react when our strongest ally sees itself as friends with our enemies? We can pretend to our detriment that perhaps those enemies are no longer enemies because they are friends with our friend. That would be absurd, which is not to say unlikely given our diplomatic dithering. But it should be clear that one might be a friend of my enemy but that does not make that enemy my friend. An enemy remains an enemy because of divergent interests and objectives, and hostile actions. Friendship with a third party will not change that.

We cannot compete with Qatari money. Trump is a sucker for flattery and has been played by multiple countries – Russia, China, Syria, and others – but we should not play that unsavory game more than is necessary, such as calling Trump “the best friend Israel has ever had in the White House,” which is true but does not preclude Trump pursuing American interests first, as he should. We pretend to our detriment that US and Israeli interests are always aligned.

What we can do is try to minimize the impact of that so-called friendship by emphasizing our shared interests with the United States, and especially by calling out Qatari and Turkish actions that conflict with US interests, of which there are not a few. Qatar has announced it will not fund Gaza’s rebuilding, despite promises made to the Americans. Both countries have long flirted with America’s global adversaries and skillfully play one off against the other. The presence of a US Air Force base in Qatar serves one US interest but means that the US literally defends Qatar from all hostile elements, something that makes American troops targets which should trouble America Firsters. Israel has never sought that type of on the ground protection, and it is a mistake to allow an American base in Kiryat Gat.

Under Qatari and Turkish influence, the US will try to force Israel into accepting the disappearance of the deceased hostage Ran Gvili, diluting our insistence that Hamas be disarmed and disabled, speed up Gazan reconstruction, and advance our withdrawal (again, for the eighth time) from Gaza. None of this is in Israel’s interest, unless our goal is a few months or years of relative tranquility as the enemy prepares for the next, and even deadlier, round of terror and atrocities.

Trump has good instincts and is unpredictable because of his tendency to engage in bold actions. But he also has a short attention span, is easily distracted, and enjoys more the good PR from claiming diplomatic triumphs than the reality on which his wishes are implausibly imposed which is always less auspicious. Hence, the series of “wars” he has ended which have not actually ended – whether in Congo, Thailand, Gaza, or the Middle East. The day of agreement concerns him more than the day after an agreement. He lacks the tenacity and patience to see his vision through or to ensure it endures. That is why he urges Netanyahu to “take the win,” even if there is no win to be taken. It is akin to Senator George Aiken’s famous quote (he did not actually say it) in 1966 that the US in Vietnam should “declare victory and go home.” But Gaza is home, part of the land of Israel, and the enemy’s objective is to survive, and during the respite rebuild, rearm, and plan for the next attack. Now that Hamas is on the ropes and Gaza is devastated, we would be foolish to allow true victory in that tiny territory to slip away.

And we would have to be insane to allow the introduction of troops from Turkey and Qatar into Gaza, knowing full well that they will do little else than facilitate their plans for our demise. Their forces would not be Trojan horses but rather the enemy itself, armed and dangerous and in plain sight. Qatar has infiltrated the highest levels of the American government and it should be sobering for us to realize the outsized influence Qatar now has on American foreign policy, including Trump’s pronouncements. It puts paid to the boring cliché prevalent among anti-Israel Americans that Israel controls US foreign policy, although it will not stop our haters from professing it. Every administration statement, including leaks to journalists from “senior officials,” has to be filtered through the prism of Qatari influence.

In truth, it is Trump who should “take the win,” the win being the release of all the living hostages at once which would not have happened without him. Everything else is smoke and mirrors. If we do not take advantage of Hamas’ current vulnerability, we will be left dealing with a resurgent terror network and an explosive Gaza long after Trump leaves office, and under much less favorable conditions for us to respond.

As always, Israel is remiss is not clearly defining our interests and sticking to them, in not establishing red lines and proclaiming their indelibility. Ruling out Turkish troops in Gaza is a god start but Qatari forces are no better. We, too, are desperate for friends and allies but we should be forthright in recognizing that our enemies are not just those who physically attack us but also those who subsidize the attackers. Israelis too have been seduced by the allure of Qatari business and investments. That the US is unduly swayed by Qatar and Turkey is probably inevitable, given the US interest in countering the growing sway of China and Russia, but it need not be permanent. Those countries’ influence on the Trump administration is troubling but not exclusive. We too have influence – and that influence is enhanced when our interests are unambiguously projected and our shared values are transparent and transmitted.

The reborn Jewish commonwealth after the miracle Chanukah foundered because of, among other reasons, ill-considered alliances with foreign countries that gradually undermined our sovereignty in the land of Israel. Having learned from our long and providential history, we know better. Or do we?

Happy Chanukah!

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Chanukah: Ancient Challenges

Posted on December 15, 2025 | 2 comments

(First published in the December issue of Jewish Image magazine)

It is not widely known but Jerusalem is at the center of each of the Jewish holidays. In addition to the three pilgrimage festivals, a second day was added to Rosh Hashana to facilitate the Temple service in case the precise appearance of the New Moon perplexed the authorities. The Temple service was at the heart of Yom Kippur and Jerusalem celebrates Purim on the same day it was celebrated in Shushan, one day after most of the Jewish world rejoices.

But on no holiday does Jerusalem feature as prominently in its history and observance as it does on Chanukah. The miracle of Chanukah – the burning of the Temple Menorah for eight days – occurred in Jerusalem and the liberation of Jerusalem was considered the apex of the military victory even though the war itself continued for another two decades. And there is much that happened on Chanukah that can guide us today as the challenges that bedeviled the Jewish people then are prevalent, not to mention, exasperating, in modern times.

The story of Chanukah almost 2200 years ago took place against the backdrop of three major crises. The Jewish world then had to wrestle with a foreign enemy, internal strife, and a spiritual malaise that threatened the continuity of Jewish life.

The Syrian Greeks led by a descendant of one of the generals of Alexander the Great captured the land of Israel and the Temple itself and embarked on a campaign of coerced Hellenization of the Jewish population. The Temple was defiled with a statue of Zeus, service in the Temple was summarily halted, and the Syrians attempted to force the Jews to abandon Torah study, circumcision, and other fundamental commandments in the hope that Jews would assimilate into the Greek culture as all other conquered nations had done.  Additionally, the Syrians exercised hegemony over the land of Israel and the Jews were subjugated in their own land.

Most Jews succumbed to the allures of Hellenism, embraced their conquerors, and fiercely opposed the rebellion of the Hasmoneans. In a real yet frightening sense, the war of Chanukah was as much a civil war among Jews as it was a rebellion against the foreign enemy. Jews were quite willing to lend support to the enemy and too many did not hesitate to abandon the particulars of Jewish observance and identity in order to integrate into the Hellenist culture that had swept the world.

None of these predicaments are unknown to us today. The Jewish state, and Jerusalem itself, hosts a large Arab population that does not necessarily perceive its destiny as identical to that of Israeli Jews. There are hostile foreign elements within Jerusalem – chapters of Hamas, Turkish anti-Israel organizations, Qatar money funding a variety of nefarious activities, and European consulates that operate in Jerusalem as embassies to the Palestinians in defiance of Israeli law and thus threatening Israeli sovereignty in the Holy City, including that of Greece, of all countries, our ancient tormentor.

The internal disharmony in Israel over the last few years, which itself precipitated the Hamas attack of October 7, 2023, was mostly papered over by the war but has now slowly re-emerged. It mostly centers on starkly different, even diametrically opposed, visions of Jewish destiny, the meaning, importance, and even continued relevance of a Jewish state, and competing notions of Israeli and Jewish identity.

To be sure, the good news is that the state of affairs when the rebellion of Chanukah began was far more precarious than it is today. We have endured much as a people, weathered conquests, expulsions, exiles, pogroms, and Holocausts, only to return to our land – as promised in the Bible – and reestablish thereon the third Jewish commonwealth. Jews for the last two millennia could only dream of an independent Jewish state in which Torah study is abundant, the observance of mitzvot is woven into the societal structure, a Jewish army can rise up against our foes in righteous self-defense, and Chanukah is a national celebration. Indeed, despite all our differences and the superficial discord, somehow, we have created and maintained a thriving society, prosperous and caring, boisterous but determined, tolerant and broadminded, embattled but audacious, and in many respects, the envy of the world.

We should never ignore the gifts we have been given nor trivialize the opportunities with which we have been blessed. The Jewish population of Jerusalem has not been as sizable as it is today since the destruction of the Temple over nineteen centuries ago. The challenges that we face today – both domestic and foreign – pale before the challenges we overcame throughout history.

That is because the great light of Chanukah still illuminates our way forward and reminds us of the great days of faith, unity, and redemption ahead.

Happy Chanukah to all!

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Just Because…

Posted on November 28, 2025 | 3 comments

(First published at Israelnationalnews.com)

It is high time we reconsider one of the most hackneyed clichés of our era – the one that claims that just because a person criticizes Israel does not mean he hates Jews. In its most concise form, it is the assertion that just because people are anti-Zionist does not mean they are anti-Jewish. It has become the most common defense of every anti-Semite in the world, at least for those who are looking for a defense.

This axiom has become so prevalent and harmful that we need to reformulate it. The truth is that just because people criticize Israel does not mean that they are not anti-Semites.

In fact, I would go as far as to say that anyone who criticizes Israel should be presumed to hate Israel and Jews. In legal terminology, let us call it a rebuttable presumption. We can safely assume that such people are anti-Semites, and if they challenge that conclusion, the burden of proof is on them. They must demonstrate love for Jews, notwithstanding their contempt for the Jewish state. And if they can’t, it speaks for itself. I would love to hear their explanations.

Part of the double standard, or really lack of any standards at all, pertaining to people’s views on Israel, is the attribution by these haters of their disdain for Israel to Israel’s government, to decisions of PM Netanyahu, or Smotrich, or Ben Gvir, or the bogeyman of their choice. It is not that anyone is above criticism; it is rather that the criticism usually contains some dismissal of Israel’s leadership as if they are unrepresentative of the people who keep electing them, as if the democratically-elected government of Israel is somehow illegitimate and therefore Israel by extension is illegitimate.

I am hard-pressed to think of a comparable example across the world. There are people who despise Trump or Biden or Obama or Putin or Macron or Kim Jung Il and yet do not question the legitimacy of the countries they lead (or led). Indeed, there is no other country on the planet whose “right to exist” is even a topic of discussion, much less negotiation. Certainly, no other country’s “right to exist” is considered a concession to be wrung from its enemies, if in fact that is even possible.

There are undeniable telltale signs of Jew hatred masquerading as anti-Zionism. Obviously, the protesters roiling American streets and harassing its Jews don’t just hate Israel and its right to exist but all Jews. Consider the following anomaly: the fabricated fear of “Islamophobia” rests on the assumption that all Muslims should not be blamed for acts of terror committed by some Muslims (even if most terror in the world is perpetrated by Muslims and has been for many decades now). And that is a reasonable assumption even if the other Muslims are never asked to denounce and repudiate Islamic terror. We even created a new term – Islamist – to distinguish between the good and bad Muslims.

Curious, then, that the same courtesy is not extended to Jews. Our enemies – that is, these critics – enthusiastically and indiscriminately blame all Jews wherever they are in the world for the alleged crimes of Israel. That is bad enough, patently hypocritical, and worse when we consider that Israel’s alleged crimes are not crimes at all.

Thus, the most execrable of the Jew hater who claims he is only anti-Israel will whitewash the Hamas atrocities of October 7 by claiming that Israel deserved it. In other words, Jews deserve to be slaughtered – but Jews do not deserve the right to defend ourselves. The slightly more refined among these haters will declare that the Hamas massacre, rapes, and kidnapping were wrong, and that Israel has the right to defend itself – but not in the way Israel did. They do not really go into details and are nonplused when asked for alternative means of fighting an urban war against an enemy that in gross violation of international law used (and uses) its own people as human shields and held innocent civilians as hostages. They have no answers but just know that Israel did not do it the right way. Yes, that is Jew hatred, and we should make no mistake about it.

Another clue as to the Jew hatred of these anti-Zionists is that “international law,” legal farce that it is, only works one way. It is a cudgel against Israel, and only Israel, and never seems to be applied to our enemies. Only Israel can violate international law, a shape-shifting doctrine that impugned every tactic Israel used and tried to rule out anything that could produce victory. And these foes accuse Israel of the very barbarism of which they are guilty – genocide (their fantasy solution to the Jewish problem) and starvation (which they inflicted on our hostages) – and moan about the devastation of Gaza (the bases and tunnels of terror built with billions of dollars of Western and Arab money).

And the most obvious evidence of the falsity of the claim that one can be anti-Zionist without being anti-Jewish is the utter rejection of Jewish nationalism. Zionism did not emerge in the abstract but is rooted in the Bible, which repeatedly addresses the covenant between G-d and the Jewish people that is founded on the Torah and the land of Israel. Any denial of the rights of the Jewish people to the Jewish homeland not only repudiates the Bible but seeks to nullify one of the pillars of Jewish life. If someone claimed to have no animus towards Jews or the Torah but simply disavows Shabbat, circumcision, Kashrut, acts of kindness, etc., we would not say such a person is just anti-Torah. Such a person is anti-Jewish because they take the essence of Jewishness and render it meaningless. One who says “I love Jews but hate everything Jews stand for” actually hates Jews.

Nevertheless, there is a weak point in this argument, a self-inflicted wound that has caused us endless suffering. One of these haters might retort that he does not hate Jews, only Israel, and use as proof random articles and op-eds in Haaretz, or reports on most of Israel’s news stations. We may not like Al-Jazeera or the BBC, and with good reason, but the most anti-Israel invective, the most vulgar vilifications of Israel, are found in Haaretz. Any anti-Israel, anti-Jewish media outlet could not do better than to simply cite passages from Haaretz and leave it at that. If all Tucker Carlson did was read Haaretz on the air every day, he would have more than enough material to satiate his most rabid listeners and vindicate his hateful views. Indeed, if our detractors just quoted Israel’s former, now-disgraced military prosecutor and her wild accusations against our soldiers, and just played her doctored video, they would have enough ammunition to besmirch Israel to their satisfaction.

Does that make Haaretz anti-Zionist and anti-Jewish also? Well, yes, it does, and there is not much we can do about it. It has its audience – those disappointed in an Israel that is Jewish in practice, not just in name; those horrified by an Israel that takes the Torah seriously; those disgusted by Jews who wish to settle all of Israel, from the river to the sea, and see that endeavor as a fulfillment of the prophetic vision of the Bible; and those confounded by Jews who believe that G-d really exists and that the Torah is true. It is really a simple metric: if I read an anti-Israel article in Haaretz in some other newspaper, would I deem it anti-Semitic? If the answer is yes, then that is the reality.

And what about other anti-Zionist Jews, Neturei Karta and their ilk, whose hatred of the State of Israel is based on a misguided reading of Jewish sources? They, too, should be held to the same standard, a rebuttable presumption that they are anti-Jewish as well. One obstacle they would have to overcome is their seeming contempt for any Jews who are not exactly like them, but if they can rebut this presumption by showing their love for Jews but not Israel, I am all ears.

To be sure, one can criticize Israel’s government and its prime minister, its army, its media, and its judiciary, and not be guilty of Jew hatred – but from a place of love, a place from which the legitimacy of the country is not challenged. Like it or not – and I don’t always like it – PM Netanyahu has found his way to power repeatedly, through free and fair elections. If anything, his waffling and vacillation, his unkept promises, frustrate his base even as they torment his adversaries.

Yet, the great biblical commentator Malbim notes (II Divrei Hayamim 9:8) that “the throne of Israel is G-d’s throne, and Israel’s king is the king ascribed to G-d.” PM Netanyahu may not officially be a “king of Israel,” song notwithstanding, although he has served more years as leader than most kings of ancient Israel and Judea served. But, as we know, people who are anti-America hate the United States regardless of who its leader is, and people who despise a particular leader do not usually then loathe the entire country. That sort of perverse ignominy is reserved for Israel.

We should not accept it and we should no longer be fooled by it. The dichotomy between anti-Israel and anti-Jewish is false. It is false in the media, on the campuses, and in the capitals of the world. If any other country in the world were as relentlessly criticized as was Israel, we would rightly assume that the critic has animus towards that country and its people. Those who claim to love Jews but hate Israel should prove it. My bet is that they cannot. And we who love Israel and Jews should give thanks both for the challenges and privileges of our generation, which – for all the current unpleasantness and the media loudmouths – previous generations would have loved to have.

Count us among the grateful – and those who stand with pride for the gifts with which we have been blessed as well as the opportunities to confound our enemies and bring redemption closer. And always remember that just because people criticize Israel does not mean that they are not anti-Semites.

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Trump’s New Wardrobe

Posted on November 19, 2025 | 2 comments

(First published at Israelnationalnews.com)

Are we getting rolled? Again?

Israel has a wretched history of winning wars and losing the negotiations after. The territorial gains of the Sinai Campaign and the Yom Kippur War were reversed within months and those of the Six Day War have been largely dissipated in the nearly six decades since. It is why we keep fighting over the same land, repeatedly, such as Gaza, recently for the seventh but obviously not the last time. Such diplomatic malpractice is a result of an utter lack of strategic thinking, an inability or unwillingness to articulate our strategic goals and to insist on them in any negotiations. It is also a consequence – for decades now – of PM Netanyahu’s strengths as a conflict manager but his weaknesses as a conflict solver. He never acts decisively until he is compelled to by events and always stops short of any measures that can produce victory, much less total victory. He is a master at kicking the can down the road and then eloquently and convincingly explaining how that secures our future.

Israel’s strategic interests currently include destroying Hamas, asserting sovereignty over Judea, Samaria, and Gaza, relocating the hostile population of Gaza, neutralizing Iran, and monitoring our unfriendly neighbors to the north (Syria and Lebanon) and the south (Egypt). It does not mean we can achieve all of them, but we are presently negotiating ourselves into a situation in which none of that will be possible. Since President Trump has declared “peace in our time,” he is less than concerned that Iran might be rebuilding its nuclear program or Hezbollah and Hamas are already rearming. Peace is already here. He is enamored with the thugs who seized power in Syria and is a sucker for flattery, the more extravagant the better.

To use a Trumpian expression, “everyone knows this.” When Putin said, “I never would have attacked Ukraine if Trump were president” (literally, a Trump campaign line,) it was music to Trump’s ears and enables him to condone Putin’s brutality and disregard for Trump’s wishes. Every foreign visitor to the White House must pay homage to Trump as peacemaker, even if the reality is otherwise. Of the eight or nine campaigns he claims to have ended and brought peace, most of us were even unaware that those countries were at war. These were skirmishes that – of course – will continue but gain little attention because, after all, they made peace.

Did Trump prevent us from finishing the job in Gaza? Only in the minds of those who love averting responsibility for our leaders’ own failures. He – and, truth be told, our government – succumbed to the notion that the main purpose of the war was freedom for our hostages, which was literally the status quo on October 6, 2023. On October 6, Hamas was in power and held no living Israeli hostages. Hamas today is weakened, but still in power, growing in popularity, and planning its next moves against us. For Trump, the hostage release was the highlight, and he deserves acclaim for accomplishing it. We, of course, will pay the price in dead Jews, G-d forbid, murdered by some of the thousands of terrorists released from prison, in kidnapped Jews because the tactic works, and in the premature end to the latest war in Gaza. Already, the tide is shifting against us.

The original deal called for the disarming of Hamas before the rehabilitation of Gaza begins, but it now seems that the resolve to disarm Hamas is already waning. It takes a special kind of gullibility to assume that a third-party will forcibly seize Hamas’ weapons and emasculate it as a ruling force. Who will do it – the Egyptians who sealed their border to Gazan refugees who wished to flee, and who have dispatched thousands of drones carrying deadly weapons to nefarious entities in the south of Israel? Turkey – whose dictator calls our prime minister Hitler and thinks Israel has no right to exist? Qatar – one of the world’s leading funders of terror, long Hamas’ host and sponsor, and which already underwrites several anti-Israel organizations operating openly (our government turns a blind eye) in Yerushalayim? Indonesia – which has said that it will send peacekeeping forces once Hamas is disarmed?

For how long will be play this game, delaying and delaying the disarmament of Hamas until it is too late, the world’s attention has been diverted elsewhere, and this version of “peace” is applauded?

It must be stated that, indeed, Donald Trump is the best friend Israel has ever had in the White House. He has done things on our behalf that are unimaginable for any other president. Undoubtedly, a President Harris would have recognized a spurious Palestinian state several months ago, as did France, the United Kingdom, and Canada. (By the way, whatever happened to the punitive actions Israel was to take against those countries – closing their consulates in Yerushalayim, rethinking our ties with them, recalling our ambassadors, tongue-lashing theirs? These threats were made both by PM Netanyahu and FM Saar, and their execution? Empty as always.) A President Harris would have embargoed arms to Israel and retracted US support at the United Nations. We would be in a far worse position.

Nevertheless, it is important to realize that Trump is the US President, not Israel’s prime minister, and he rightly acts in what he perceives to be the interests of the United States, not the interests of Israel. Because he says the right things and has been so helpful in many ways, we are lulled into thinking that whatever he does must be good for us and whatever he is planning for us is necessarily beneficial. That is a mistake.

Trump is a secular materialist. He sincerely believes that money runs the world and that people who have money downgrade and dismiss their values and principles. That is false, as proved by, among many others, Osama bin Laden, a billionaire. In this part of the world, religion is the prime mover. Ideology is supreme. The secular materialist mind cannot understand the suicide bomber – or even today’s Gazans, among whom once again Hamas has majority support despite the devastation wreaked upon them. The secular materialist mind cannot fathom how and why restaurants are springing up across the Arab world – including in Jordan, a country with whom we are at peace – called “October 7” in celebration of the great massacre of Jews that took place on that day. It simply does not comprehend the hold of religion in the Middle East and how it can produce such virulent ideas and actions. What then does the secular materialist mind do? It wishes religion away, pretends it doesn’t exist, and declares peace because peace will make everyone wealthy.

Trump is a friend, but let’s face it. If a Democratic president sponsored and endorsed a UN Security Council resolution providing for a “pathway to a Palestinian state,” most wise and sane Jews would be outraged. If a Democratic president proposed selling America’s most advanced weapons to Saudi Arabia and Turkey – thereby eroding much of Israel’s qualitative edge – most wise and sane Jews would be horrified. If a Democratic president precipitately ended Israel’s war on terms that were favorable to the enemy who has vowed to exterminate us, most wise and sane Jews would be apoplectic. And yet, Trump is doing all of this, and has placated many of us, probably because he means well, and he means well despite his complete ignorance about the true nature of the hostility against Israel. Just because he is not Harris does not mean that everything he does is in our interest, and we must be mature enough to recognize that, and object when necessary – even saying a firm “no” and acting in our national interest without US support.

The reality is that much of Trump world is a chimera. Extortion, bluster, boasts, volatility, effervescence, and caprice are all part of the act. At his core, he is a huckster, a bluffer, a fulminator prone to outlandish claims and tempestuous threats (yes, I voted for him three times!). All this served him relatively well in the real estate and the entertainment industries, built as they are on such bravado, and in this unusual era, made him an incredibly and wildly successful politician.

Those traits are less helpful in effective governance. Thus, despite the braggadocio, the US dollar is its weakest in years, the deficit is skyrocketing, inflation is persistent, the on-again-off-again tariffs have not produced much in revenue and have confounded merchants, suppliers, and consumers, the health care system is a mess, the government is dysfunctional, cities are tinderboxes, China is ascendant, and little that Trump accomplishes will survive him, especially if he is succeeded by a Democrat. Thus, his favorite expressions are “we’ll have to see what happens,” “the best ever,” or “there’s a great chance of…” whatever happening, which of course never happens. He is not held to his word or his claims because they can shift tomorrow, and sometimes even that same day. Most administrations have always operated with a “message of the day,” something they want the media to cover and report; the Trump administration offers several messages an hour, occasionally conflicting, and quite often stimulating, amusing, or distracting.

But like the emperor’s new clothes, we cannot allow Trump to force us into a reality that we know is not so. The real world in which we live is warning us that peace is not coming here anytime soon. Hamas will not merely lay down its weapons, Hezbollah is not surrendering and the Lebanese government is not anxious to provoke a civil war. An Iran even thirsting for water still prioritizes its fantasies of destroying us. We can be hopeful of the path of Syria’s new president – but also quite skeptical. Even the Abraham Accords should be put in perspective. The original countries that joined represented a real breakthrough – an agreement between nations, including ours, of equals. But now? We have a peace treaty with Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan for more than thirty years already. What is added by them joining the Abraham Accords, other than access to American money if they seek it?

Is it worth it to us to have Saudi Arabia join the Abraham Accords if the price is that we effectively renounce sovereignty over Judea and Samaria, pave the road – even rhetorically – to a Palestinian state, allow Hamas to survive, and arm the Saudis to the teeth? Not as I see it.

In a perfect world, an American military base in Israel has value, especially when seeing how the large US airbase in Qatar ingratiated the Qataris to the Americans. But a base that supervises Gaza should be located… in Gaza. As “peace” now reigns, there should be no fear of having a base in Gaza. An American base in Israel is undesirable because it will more inhibit us than it will pressure Hamas. Worse, if an American soldier is killed by a Hamas rocket, Israel will be blamed, and Jew haters in the US, already inflamed, will now add “Americans are being killed because of Israel!” to their growing list of calumnies. And foreign troops invited to a country tend never to leave. It is bad optics, unnecessary, and dangerous for them and for us, and it nullifies the traditional Israeli assertion that we do not ask any other country to defend our soil. We can still say “no, thank you.”

As Trump arms the Muslim world and finds the right words about a Palestinian state to appease the Saudis, we should be concerned. We must plan for a future in which one of these well-armed Arab fiefdoms overthrown by radicals, in which the PA’s Abbas dies and is replaced by a smooth-talking, Western-educated Jew hater, who also wants to annihilate us but knows how to speak the slick, facile, and unctuous language of the West, in which the American president is someone – Democrat or Republican – who has little sympathy for Israel, cares nothing about the Jewish vote, and is now armed with a Security Council resolution in which the world endorsed a Palestinian state.

Perhaps our leaders have planned for the day after. We can only pray that it is so for it never seems like it. What is comforting is that as we approach the era of complete redemption, our few allies will fade away, one by one, as our unique destiny takes center stage, and, as promised by the ancients prophets who spoke of our national return as well, G-d’s kingdom on earth will be manifest through us. May that day come soon with minimum of suffering and hardship, heralding a world of true peace and brotherhood.

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