U.S. President Donald Trump does not mince words. He gets right to the point. He cuts to the chase.
The problem is that the media doesn’t like hearing the truth. They would rather listen to Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) spout one untruth after another.
It isn’t because Omar and Tlaib are hurting Israel (which by their pro-boycott stance and calls to cut aid to the Jewish state, they are) that they need to be called out, but because they are harming America. And it isn’t just the Democratic Party that is suffering from their misinformation campaign, it is the American people who are losing the most.
The president is simply being honest and forthright when he asks where the Democratic Party has gone.
“Where have they gone where they are defending these two people [Tlaib and Omar] over the State of Israel? And I think any Jewish people that vote for a Democrat, I think it shows either a total lack of knowledge or great disloyalty,” Trump told reporters during a White House meeting on Aug. 20.
I did not take these words as did Jonathan Greenblatt of the Anti-Defamation League (an organization that has moved to the left since the days when Abraham Foxman ran it), who tweeted, “It’s unclear who @POTUS is claiming Jews would be ‘disloyal’ to.”
To me it was very clear who the president was talking about. Trump was simply trying to make the case that Jews should want to support Israel against Tlaib and Omar, and calling out the Democratic Party for its deafening silence. He was saying what most Jews felt but were afraid to say.
If the Democrats had criticized these two, I doubt Trump would have said what he did. Unfortunately, the Democratic Party has lurched to the left and given a free pass to the two freshman representatives, who should have been censured, roundly criticized and removed from their committee assignments.
The president in essence has become the defender of Israel and the Jewish people. He should be praised by all Jews for his unwavering support. Trump has done more to take on the Israel haters and bashers than any president in the annals of the United States. His “disloyalty” comments had nothing to do with American Jews’ loyalty to America, which is rock-solid and steadfast.
I always take these opportunities to point out how grateful President George Washington was to Haim Solomon (more than 70 letters between the two are extant) for financing the Revolutionary War and passing away penniless as a result so that the United States of America could be born. No one can question the loyalty of the Jews to the United States. Solomon taught us the way and we have followed on it ever since.
America needs Israel, which is its only reliable ally in the Middle East, and Israel needs America. It is a symbiotic relationship that Omar and Tlaib want to destroy. They fail to understand that their views actually hurt America.
The president was drilling down deep to awaken the Jewish people with his remarks. I believe that in the long term, he will succeed.
Dr. Joseph Frager is first vice president of the National Council of Young Israel.