Peloni: Context matters. If Trump had been in the White House, there would have been no attack on October 7, but at the same time, Trump would not have been restraining Israel from winning this war decisively as has been the objective of the Biden White House. As Trump noted, the war needs to be ended quickly. A decisive victory would not only stabilize Israel, it would stabilize the region. It would lead to greater recognition of Israel’s permanent status in the region, which in turn would lead to the Sunnis acting in accordance with this fact.
So as Biden is pushing for the war to end with a cease fire which would spell defeat and destruction for Israel, Trump is pushing for Bibi to ‘finish it up’ which would lead to victory and greater peace in the region.
Am I wrong in understanding Trump’s comments? I would be curious to hear what others think of his remarks.
Lots of headlines in this Trump interview with @HowardKurtz:
Israel somewhat at fault because they “stick” with the Dems.
Israel should “finish it up” in Gaza ground op “and do it quickly, and get back to the world of peace.”
He would have brought Iran into Abraham Accords. pic.twitter.com/7TjcNVgGkm
— Jacob N. Kornbluh (@jacobkornbluh) March 17, 2024
Former President Donald Trump has mostly kept silent since the massacre in Israel on October 7th and the outbreak of the Sword of Iron War in Gaza. Last week Trump broke his silence on Israel’s military campaign and called to, “Finish the problem.”
Asked about the war in an interview with Fox News, Trump replied, “You had a horrible invasion that took place that would have never happened if I was president. I kept Israel safe. Nobody else will. Nobody else can. And I know all of the players — they can’t do it.”
Trump’s office claimed that he has done more for Israel than any American President in history, “When President Trump is back in the Oval Office, Israel will once again be protected.”
NBC News reports that the Trump campaign promoted the former president’s record on Israel and blamed Biden for the ongoing turmoil in the Middle East.
@Edgar fascinating response. Thank you.
Dogsbody – Wikipedia
MOKEY-
As re your diatribe against Nixon, please recall (perhaps that period is vague to you with your sampling of various “Cocktails” In my day L.SD meant “pounds shillings and pence.) In your day…hmm!
And it was the ever popular hero Kennedy who got the US into Vietnam with his 5000 “advisors”, and his successor Johnson who boosted the numbers up to a half mill.
Nixon did what he HAD to do because people like you, perhaps even you, were staggering around stoned to the gills and shouting against the war. Ruined what could have been a top quality Presidency.
SEB-
I don’t understand your reference to Felix. What’s between Mickele and myself is as plain as his face. He’s the original dogsbody, and insists on pushing his idiotic views into my space.
LAURA_
You’ve hit it right on the mark. I said this a couple of times already, the more so wnen the large majority of Israeli voters are saying the same things and support his actions.
I have a wish that somehow Biden and Harris are forced out of office and Speaker Johnson becomes president.
I’m confounded as to why Bibi is unpopular in Israel. I’m in agreement with Mark Levin who sees him as Israel’s Winston Churchill.
@Edgar
I think you’ve been spending too much time with Felix, Edgar. What’s even weirder is that he’s gotten more soft-spoken and polite. 😀 Are you rubbing off on each other?
MICHAEL-
You certainly are showing BIG TIME how stupid you can be. Comparing a small flat seafront strip like Gaza to a tropical jungle like Vietnam where one couldn’t see more than a couple of yards at any given time.
And the vast difference in population numbers. not only the huge land mass areas.
Biochemists, know their professions, I presume even an outdated one like you, but not one that I ever heard of was a military strategist .
Are you the exception?????/ NO… certainly NOT .judging by your Israpundit contributions over time.
Michael you say your wife was smart, because she married YOU.
I don’t suppose that you’ve ever heard the saying…”The exception proves the rule”, nor if you had, you’d ever think of applying it to you and your smart wife.
I don’t know the lady but I inherently respect all ladies, including your wife. .So please don’t think I am being offensive towards her, with this first time ever casual mention
You brought her into it not I.
Peloni, I don’t know how “bright” you think I am, but it’s a moot point here.
I missed Felix’s latest comment about Trotsky. Is it different from earlier comments? As for the “Dr. Trump” comment, my wife got it right away. I’ve always known she’s a smart cookie.
Edgar,
Carpet bombing didn’t work in Vietnam in “a week”. In fact, Nixon dropped more bombs on Vietnam than all the bombs dropped in the history until then. It didn’t work in the Gulf War, where Saddam Hussein sandbagged his tanks (we had to use smart bombs, to take out the emplacements, one by one — and at that, we are STILL taking casualties in Iraq, 32 years later).
Great advice! You could have been an advisor for Richard Nixon and George HW Bush, and they would have listened to you!
Nixon managed to extricate us from Vietnam, after 10 years of fighting, only after striking a bad deal with Communist China. The war in Iraq, we have with us always (and its daughter wars in Afghanistan, Yemen, Sudan, Israel…).
Thank you for the advice… maybe I can forward it to the White House.
Michael-
A week of carpet bombing, perfectly justifiable, would bring the war to a speedy end.
There would be warnings to the citizens to exit to/through the Philadelphia Corridor
And..Hey Presto…!!
@Michael
Indeed, this is why wars should never be entered into for frivolous or tangential purposes as has been the case for most of American wars in recent decades. Contrasting with the American examples, however, is the restraint and tolerance of devastation which has been leveraged against the Jewish people in the Jewish state. So, Israel is in no way going to war without need or provocation, but for her very survival. If you can not distinguish he distinction between what took place in Iraq, Libya or Serbia with what is taking place in Israel, well, you just wouldn’t be as bright as we all know you to be.
It is the most basic duty of a nation’s govt to provide its people with the protection and safety of its citizens, and this is all that Israel is currently doing today. While your allies among the American Isolationists suggest that Israel has no right to self defense or that it is committing genocide rather than being threatened with genocide, such blood libels are nothing new for the Jews, whose only perceived legitimate condition by the world is to be subjugated, threatened and slaughtered, which is why the Court Jews such as Schumer played the role of supplicating themselves to the leaders who hold power over the Jews in the Diaspora. To be rid of this sick condition is the very purpose for which the Zionist dream was first dreamt and why the Jewish people came to reclaim their nation in the lands of their forefathers. Thankfully today, the Jews have no master in Israel but the Jews themselves, they have no interests beyond the protection and preservation of their people and their nation. So as the American isolationists betray the truth with their antisemitic tropes and false dichotomies, they do so only to demonstrate how false they must be to gain any support for their fledgling views of the world. Of course this was not always true in Isreal, but I believe quite strongly that it is true today.
Israel will do as it must to survive, and at the moment this means war, no matter how long and costly it might become. Also, the more terrible it is seen to be, the longer the peace will be which follows it, which is only the benefit gained by having to enter into something so terrible and so unavoidable as a war with an existential foe.
As to your reference regarding “Dr. Trump”, I would lump that in with Felix’s earlier comment about Trotsky which made nearly as little sense to me, with all due respect to both you and Felix.
Dear Peloni et al,
Show me someone who says he can bring a war to a quick and speedy end, and I will show you, with all due respect to the President, a liar. Wars are sooooooooooooooooooo easy to start, and soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo hard to finish.
They ought to put some sort of memorial somewhere, of all the absolute disasters we’ve been treated to under Joe Biden:
1. Afghanistan
2. Ukraine
3. Sudan
4. Haiti
5. Israel
6. Yemen
7. Niger-Mali-Burkina Faso
8. Venezuela-Guyana, and, in theaters near you, coming soon,
9. Taiwan!
I put Israel at the middle of the queue, but they have a long, long wait. The doctor will not see you any time soon, not even Dr. Trump. All the doctors and nurses are out to lunch, and the janitor is running the clinic.
Agreed.
@Edgar
@Laura
And this is an important point to make. The pressure on Israel and Bibi is already quite present and terribly palpable. What Israel needs is the means to bring the war to a quick and speedy end, intensifying the effects of war on the short term which will both limit the costs in lives on both sides in the long term as well as to reestablish a strong deterrent against further outrages against Israel in the future.
The fact that Israel is determined to destroy Hamas, and that Trump supports this goal along with the encouragement to achieve it, clearly indicates that under his presidency Israel would not be facing delays in arms shipment as they are now encountering from the US, something which only serves to both prolong the war and diminish its effect at stabilizing the region and establishing the geopolitical environment needed to achieve peace with SA and other Sunnis.
LAURA-
He’s not “pressuring” he’s suggesting. He means that Israel should not let anything mess them around and go straight to destroying the enemy and not be so concerned about the “civilians” who place themselves in danger..
https://www.timesofisrael.com/at-campain-rally-trump-vows-to-bar-hamas-sympathizers-gazan-refugees-if-elected/
by contrast
That’s a lie.
Laura-
I read American Jews .
@Edgar Thank you.
SEB-
Under YOUR extremely tangled family circumstances you have done wonderfully well, and if you only have us, you have us whole-heartedly. At least ME..100%.
It took a lot of determination, courage and sitzfleish, to get away from it and be yourself. -a Jew. I admire it, as one who has never had any doubts as to who and what I am,
We are 2 sides of the same coin; as you are with the others on this site.
As for reading twice, I meant that some parts are DEEP and could do with thinking that they mean more than actually said.
I read twice or more for different reasons. I read THackeray becuase of the wonderful humour and cynical comments. , I read Napoleonic literature always hoping the end comes out differently. Betsey Balfour and Gorrequer’s Diary show me a different side of the guy, a normal, human
bourgois family side.
There is NO doubt but for Ney going temporarily crazy that day and interfering with D’Erlon’s division, Nap would have comfortably won and destroyed the British and Prussians without there even being a Waterloo.
An alternate world nearly happened.
It sounds as if he’d be pressuring Israel for a quick end if he was president. You don’t have control over how long it’s going to take. You can’t just order it to be done within a certain time frame. I want Israel to be victorious and annihilate hamas even if it takes a while, especially since they are also being told to avoid hitting “civilians”. I don’t know what he means by Israelis “sticking with the Dems”. They have no control over which party in America comes to power. Does he really mean American Jews stick with the Dems?
@Edgar I left out a pronoun and lost the edit feature. The whole passage was about MY voting choices. I wound up voting for Cruz on the strength of Caroline Glick’s endorsement of him, but by the time the primaries rolled around to New York, it was between Trump and Cruz, Really, aside from Huckabee, the 17 Republican candidates were indistinguishable to me in 2016 except for Huckabee who recognized Jewish sovereignty over all of YESHA and and Rand Paul who wanted to cut all U.S. military aid, including to Israel, the Republicans all opposed the Iran Deal and were more supportive of Israel than the Pals compared to the Dems but they all gave lip service to the TSS including Trump, though he just made ambiguous comments about making everybody happy and leaving it to the people in the region to decide. They all did say they were opposed to imposing anything on Israel, I think. When Trump adopted Cruz’s platform, it was important that the Republican party platform now left out the TSS mantra though it really diidn’t and doesn’t go far enough.
It’s really a shame Huckabee dropped out in January. He wasn’t just spouting rhetoric. He led delegations to YESHA every year for 40 years and he told the press this as he was throwing his hat into the ring in August 2015 – the first one to do so – from YESHA where he was meeting with the YESHA council. I registered as a Republican that year just to vote for Huckabee. In case, you don’t understand the import, registering or voting Republican in my family and in the circles in which I have lived my entire life here on the Upper West Side of Manhattan is the equivalent of an Orthodox Jew in Borough Park converting to Christianity, which would not be such a big deal around here. In fact, my uncle converted to Christianity. In my immediate family, – I have Jewishly observant cousins,as well as Buddhist/Unitarian Universalist and Christian ones, and past tense because I am the only survivor of my immediate family now since my mother passed away last year, 2 months before her 99th birthday, she would have been 100 in July this year – the ideal was Japan where people might have Shinto Weddings and Buddhist funerals and nobody would know what the religion or religions was of their immediate family members because it’s a private thing. Religion isn’t our God, politics is, as David Friedman, who said he grew up in New York, so he understands, astutely observed of Chuck Schumer. In my family, nobody discusses religion, my extended family, that is, at least with me. I guess that would include my late mother’s circle of friends, also a variety of religious backgrounds but the same left-liberal politics. I’m actually, kind of alone except for you guys. 😀
Trump always made noises about negotiating some kind of an accommodation with the Pals, amounting to a TSS without calling it that. People read into him what they wanted to. It shouldn’t be a surprise. He’s the best friend Israel has with a chance of being in the White House but don’t expect too much, is all I’m saying.
As for the readings, I’m in the middle of everything. I read several books at once and I’m a slow reader. If I have any questions, I’ll ask you. I just started reading, “Paper Walls…” by David S. Wyman, the sequel to which is his “The Abandonment of the Jews…” as an ebook on Nook.
Yes, I have to read books twice to comprehend them which makes me even slower.
SEB-
Your ambiguous comment made it seem as if he was the 3rd choice of the Republican Party, when in fact you mean that he was YOUR 3rd choice
How’s your reading coming along. Did you look up the content of those Disputations yet?? Or finish the Dona Gracia story?? Zeitlin can and should be, read more than once, as should Sykes.
VIVARTO_
I don’t recall that Trump ever supported the 2SS. Perhaps you are referring to the clause in the negotiations which gave the YESHA Arabs 4 years to decide,..?
If so, he already knew that they had rejected the whole issue without any discussion, and as well, the 4 years was a limit after which Israel had full access and conrrol over all YESHA.
Another thing, whether he begins a complicated matter with no knowledge is immaterial, because he is a genius and has almost immediate comprehension.
@Vivarto Trump is the best one out there but he was third choice in 2016 after Huckabee and Cruz, whose platform Trump adopted when he won, and who I voted for in the Republican primary that year. I switched, just for that election, from independent to Republican in 2015 so I could vote for Huckabee when I read this article:
https://www.timesofisrael.com/huckabee-israels-claim-to-judea-and-samaria-stronger-than-us-tie-to-manhattan/
Anyway, any Jew voting for Biden instead of Trump is a SCHMUCK!
Trump is certainly well-meaning.
He is not well-educated about the Israeli-“Palestinian” conflict.
He, too supported the suicidal and impossible 2-state-solution. Or maybe he pretended.