An American Rabbi Says Thank You to President Trump

By now, many Americans are piling up on Donald Trump. They’re calling him a loser. They’re reveling in his defeat. They’re saying America is saved from the ogre.

But I, for one, will not join this criticism. Although I accept the results of the election, in bowing to the majesty of the American democratic tradition, I also submit to the Jewish values that tell me to show gratitude toward a true friend of our people.

Donald Trump was always a controversial figure. He could, at times, be deeply divisive, and he reveled in being a counter-puncher. But I will remember him as a staunch friend of the world’s most persecuted nation.

To be a Jew is to expect bigotry, double-standards, and prejudice. To be a Jew is to accept the unbelievable fact that in the lifetime of my parents, six million Jews were murdered by firing squads and poison gas. To be a Jew is to live with the almost daily vilification of Israel, the world’s only Jewish state.

On to this stage of tragic history rose President Trump, with an unfailing defense of our people at every turn. President Trump proved himself to be the greatest friend of Israel ever to occupy the Oval Office.

Trump fundamentally changed the tenor toward Israel at the disgustingly unfair United Nations, where the demonization of Israel was a seventy-year tradition. He hired the most pro-Israel people ever to serve in an American administration. From Nikki Haley to David Friedman to Jason Greenblatt to Jared Kushner to Avi Berkowitz to Mike Pompeo, and, of course, Mike Pence, Trump’s subordinates had Israel’s back at every turn.

They shut down the corrupt Palestinian Authority’s quasi-embassy in Washington because of Mahmoud Abbas’ constant incitement against Israel. They held Hamas accountable for their genocidal ambitions and actions against Jews, and they defunded UNWRA. They recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s eternal capital. And they recognized the Golan Heights as being forever sovereign Israeli territory.

Israel has had many friends in the White House, from John F. Kennedy to Lyndon Johnson to Richard Nixon to Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush. But Trump easily outdid them all.

Israel has had many friends in the White House. But Trump easily outdid them all.

But Trump was also a protector of Muslim lives, as he demonstrated in Syria when he fired American missiles at Bashar Assad, who gassed Arab children and was given a pass by Barack Obama. Trump did this even as he was vilified by his opponents as a hater of Muslims.
If he was has hated by the Arabs and Muslims, as his American opponents would have you believe, how is it that only Trump was able to forge peace between Israel and the UAE, Bahrain, and Sudan? Obama could not pull it off. To the contrary. The Arab nations despised Obama’s negotiations with Iran. Due to Trump’s policies, they began to see Israel as a kindred spirit rather than as an enemy.

Trump deserved the Nobel Peace Prize for possibly ending the Arab-Israeli conflict, but his critics gave him scant praise for this incredible achievement.

Most notably, Trump took America out of the execrable Iran deal, which legitimized a regime that hangs gays from cranes and stones women to death. He stopped immoral payments to a regime that is the foremost purveyor of terrorism around the world.

It is fashionable to attack Trump, now that he has lost the election, even though he garnered more than 70 million votes. But I will not be one who joins the demonization of a true friend of my people.

Rather, I will thank him and ask his successor, Joe Biden, who has a long history of friendship with the Jewish people and Israel, to embrace his predecessor’s approach and continue to champion the Middle East’s only democracy.

Gratitude is a dying virtue in our world, which puts partisan loyalty before basic decency and values. To be sure, Trump, like the rest of us, is a flawed man. And Trump, like all presidents who preceded him, made many mistakes. This is the price we all pay for human leadership.

But on the subject of Israel and the Middle East, he was exceptional and deserves to be recognized as such.

President Trump, I thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for your protection of a vulnerable people who have been massacred throughout the ages.

May God bless you and keep you, and may the country that you served for the last four years be fair and thankful in their assessment of your legacy. And may President-elect Biden follow in your trailblazing footsteps of friendship to Israel and the Jewish people.

Shmuley Boteach, “America’s Rabbi,” whom the Washington Post calls “the most famous Rabbi in America,” is the international best-selling author of more than 30 books and is the founder of The World Values Network. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram @RabbiShmuley.