Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 06:39 pm
We have seen how Donald Trump is not popular in England and that a petition to keep the notorious demagogue out is gaining traction there. But it turns out Trump also plans to visit Israel and the Temple Mount, and some in Israel are equally unhappy at the prospect.
The Jerusalem Post reports that “Republican US Presidential candidate and real estate mogul Donald Trump is strongly considering a visit to the Temple Mount when he comes to Israel for the first time at the end of the month.”
Trump announced the visit on December 2 at a rally in Virginia by saying that,
“Very soon I’m going to Israel. I’m going to be meeting with [Prime Minister] Bibi Netanyahu who’s a great guy…I love Israel and will support it whole-heartedly.”
Maybe Trump should enter politics in Israel, and leave us alone. Like most Republicans, he seems to favor allowing Israel to dictate America’s foreign policy, indicating that both Obama and Kerry have “sold Israel out.”
During his visit, on December 28, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu plans to meet with Trump. To be fair, he has expressed a willingness to meet with any presidential candidate who visits Israel, and the Jewish Telegraphic Agency points out that “The meeting was scheduled two weeks ago, before Trump’s comments this week calling for a ban on Muslims entering the United States.”
According to a source close to Netanyahu, the prime minister “does not agree with every statement by every candidate.”
Chairwoman Zehava Gal-On of the left-wing Meretz party has stated that Netanyahu should not go forward with the meeting, calling it a “slap in the face to Muslim citizens of Israel.”
“It is embarrassing that Netanyahu is willing to legitimize Trump as a reasonable candidate who is worth a meeting with a head of state. Netanyahu’s willingness to meet with Trump despite his serious racist statements authorizes what the prime minister’s statements showed about him long ago: That there has never been such a racist, irresponsible prime minister.”
There is a petition circulating among members of the Israeli Knesset, begun by Meretz’s Michal Rosin, asking Netanyahu to cancel his meeting with Trump, and MK Omer Bar-Lev of the center-left Zionist Union tweeted that,
“As far as it depends on me, this racist Donald Trump should not be welcome in the Knesset.”
According to Haaretz, the petition “was primarily signed by opposition lawmakers from Meretz, Zionist Union, Joint List and Yesh Atid – as well as two coalition MKs – Yakov Margi of Shas and Roy Folkman of Kulanu.” Kulanu is a centrist party, while Shas is an ultra-orthodox party.
The reaction from Joint-List, an alliance of Arab-dominated political parties, is even more strident in its rejection of Trump:
MK Ahmed Tibi of Joint List tweeted that, “I asked [Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein” to ban neo-Nazi Trump and all Trumps from entering [the] Knesset, though his statements are not strange to some racists in [the] Knesset.”
Arabs make up about one-fifth of the population of Israel.
MK Essawi Frej of Meretz went so far as to request, reports The Jerusalem Post, “that Interior Minister Silvan Shalom ban Trump from entering the country.”
Frej told an Israeli radio station,
“Imagine that a country or a candidate would say entrance to Jews is forbidden, the whole world would stand up in protest, saying this is a racist anti-Semite. A racist like this has no place here among us.”
Donald Trump has become a political hot potato not only here in the U.S. but overseas as well, as a result of his hateful rhetoric. Jewish groups in the U.S., including the ADL, the The American Jewish Committee, J Street, and the National Jewish Democratic Council, have already slammed Trump for his announcement that Muslims should be denied the right to immigrate to the U.S.
Donald Trump makes his own trouble as he goes, though he always presents himself as the hero of the piece, and it’s ultimately tragic victim. Foreign Policy‘s Rula Jebrael, a foreign policy analyst, has correctly addressed “the dangers of letting Donald Trump set the national dialogue,” and if the media won’t do anything to curtail his vile rhetoric, then people and politicians must be the conscience of the nation – whatever nation that might be.
The White House has correctly pointed out that neither Trump, nor any of those candidates who support him, are qualified to serve as president, and Trump seems determined to put the exclamation point on that statement. Unfortunately for him, he is not the only one capable to doing so, as justifiably outraged people England and Israel have demonstrated.
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