Power Suits 10 December 2015
Donald Trump (Gage Skidmore/Flickr)
Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump announced Thursday that he has canceled a planned trip to Israel “until I become president of the US.”
This will disappoint at least one prominent Israeli, the TV personality Judy Shalom Nir Mozes, who is also wife of Israel’s vice prime minister and interior minister Silvan Shalom.
On her Facebook page, Mozes railed at the Anti-Defamation League for its lukewarm criticism of Trump’s proposal to bar all Muslims from entering the United States. (As I’ve written, the ADL, a pro-Israel group that poses as a civil rights organization, has done much to feed anti-Muslim hatred.)“Donald Trump wants to prohibit Muslims from entering the US. The ADL (Jews) rage at him,” the indignant Mozes wrote.
“I really understand Trump and think that all the political correctness, the compassion, the understanding and the human rights organizations cause the rise of Islamic terror around the world,” she added.
Mozes claimed that “I don’t hear Muslims aggressively confronting their co-religionists who, by their deeds, sully and hurt many values that represent Islam.” The frequently repeated lie that Muslims are silent functions to place all Muslims under suspicion and to tar them with the acts of a minuscule minority, thus legitimizing Trump’s and Mozes’ bigotry.
“Trump’s disputed declarations are not so far out there and wrong, despite the problematic generalization,” Mozes said.
And in a PS – demonstrating her apparent ignorance of the past and present of Zionism – she concluded, “The Jews have never been terrorists, I don’t understand why the ADL butts into it.”
Mozes has gotten into trouble before. In 2012, she expressed a desire for Palestinian children to “suffer,” an ugly comment she made while she served as chair of the Israeli fund for the UN children’s agency UNICEF.
More recently, she apologized for offending Israel’s biggest patron, after she made a racist jab at the US president. “Do you know what Obama coffee is?” she wrote, “Black and weak.”
Netanyahu’s relief
But while Mozes may be among the Israelis who are disappointed that Trump won’t be showing up any time soon, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is likely breathing a sigh of relief.
After a day of awkward silence, the prime minister’s office issued a press release Wednesday asserting that “Netanyahu rejects Donald Trump’s recent remarks about Muslims.”
“The State of Israel respects all religions and strictly guarantees the rights of all its citizens,” the statement added. “At the same time, Israel is fighting against militant Islam that targets Muslims, Christians and Jews alike and threatens the entire world.”
The statement said that Netanyahu would nonetheless receive Trump if he asked for a meeting, as he would any other candidate, and that this would “not represent an endorsement of any candidate or his or her views.”
The irony of Netanyahu posing as a champion of tolerance and the rights of Muslims is too rich.
Israel is founded on ethno-religious bigotry. As much as Israel’s apologists might try to spin it, the sole reason that millions of Palestinian refugees are barred from returning to their homes now in present-day Israel is that they are not Jews.
Israel has 50 laws that directly or indirectly discriminate against the 1.5 million Palestinians who are citizens of Israel, again just because they are not Jews.
This is also the same Netanyahu who infamously exhorted Jews to get to the polls on election day because “Arabs are advancing on the ballot boxes in droves.”
And no one has been louder on the international stage than Netanyahu in exploiting recent murderous attacks in Paris to push the dangerous and toxic narrative of a “clash of civilizations” between the “West” and “Islam.”
Yet while Netanyahu’s politics and Israel’s anti-Muslim policies are, in fact, very close to Trump’s, it says something that even official Israel is embarrassed to openly embrace the reality TV star and real-estate tycoon.
It’s no secret Netanyahu wants a Republican back in the White House. But he may calculate that Trump is less likely to be able to beat a Democrat in the general election. That might be one reason Netanyahu is snubbing him.
And while Trump may be a genius at generating publicity, he just doesn’t fit in with Netanyahu’s ongoing efforts to rebrand Israel to appeal to US progressives.
Dena Shunra provided translation.
Comments
Side Show Donald
Permalink Zionism Is Not Judaism replied on
The selectoral race for fascist corporate state spokesperson for the USA hasn't even hit full gear and already Donald Chump has begun to make a name for himself in terms of sheer nincompoopery. But ask oneself what is the Donald saying publicly that all these jokers (with the exception of Bernie Sanders) are not saying behind closed doors?
Even Bernie Sanders is to viewed with a good deal of reservation. For he is guy who promotes Bernie Sanders, first and foremost, and not the community, as the late Murray Bookchin noted on several occasions.
The problems that face the United States are not going to be decided by sham elections, corrupt politicians or megalomaniacal figureheads spouting nonsense, but the residents and inhabitants of the US going outside the parameters "our owners" have set for us.
Isn't about time we get creative?