by Rabbi Dov Fischer in the Israel National News

I am absolutely, incredibly, utterly amazed that political pundits are absolutely, incredibly, utterly amazed that President Donald Trump won Iowa and New Hampshire easily by double digits.

As I have written dozens of times, Trump will win the GOP nomination. It is not close and will not be close. It does not matter how many times he gets indicted and how many times he gets convicted. I am proud to support him for President — again. I am there, on the record. Mark Levin spent the first 6 minutes of his TV show on Fox News quoting me as a Trump supporter. And so did President Trump himself: (embedded link beginning at 4:55)

Make no mistake as a Jew: America is Exile. Jews understandably ended up in America, desperately seeking refuge from worse Exiles. More than 90 percent of today’s American Jewish Exile stems from those who arrived from Eastern Europe between 1881-1914, fleeing the Tsar.

Israel was not a realistic option for most then, although Marxist idealists, socialist dreamers, and religious Zionists came and heroically created the foundation of Modern Israel. They planted. They suffered. They lived in ma’abarot (caravans and tents). And they ultimately formed underground groups like the Irgun, Lechi, and Haganah. Through the late 1930s and mid-1940s, the British sealed the boundaries of Israel, although heroes managed to evade them.

So millions of Jews ended up in the U.S. Another large cohort immigrated from the former Soviet Union during the 1970s and 1980s, as America made special allowances to be a haven for those escaping Communism until Prime Minister Yitzchak Shamir of blessed memory — Israel’s greatest prime minister, sez I — persuaded America to stop doing Jews so many favors, and stop diverting that aliyah from Israel.

In addition, a bunch of Yekkes arrived between 1840-1880 as Germany went through an era of reactionary politics, and Spanish-Portuguese classical Sephardim came in from South America starting in 1654, as Spain and Portugal exported their Inquisition to the New World in places like Brazil. And that’s the story of the five great Jewish immigrations: from 1654-1700s South America, mid-1800s Germany, pre-WWI Eastern Europe, Hitler, and 1970s-1980s Soviet Communism.

Yet, it is important that American Jews understand that, even as one or another local or national politician is the one to back now, the enthusiasm should be muted by recognizing that America is Exile. Eric Adams is not Eliyahu (Elijah) and even Donald Trump is not Moshiach. Even the best American political leader (and there are pitifully too few) cannot offer what even the worst Israel prime minister (and there have been pitifully too many) can: life at home on G-d’s land rather than in Exile. To mull over some lyrics by Neil Diamond, a too-typical Jew in Exile: “L. A.’s fine, but it ain’t home. New York’s home, but it ain’t mine no more.” And never was.

That’s what it is. It ain’t home. And it ain’t ours no more. None of it. And none of it ever was ours. Israel is ours. America, a place of respite to take shelter amid the storm. Zehu. (That’s it.)

This is important to remember as so many of us deeply proud and committed Jews enthusiastically back Trump. His “Deal of the Century” offered lots of great stuff, but it also entailed giving up parts of our land. Even as many of us endorse the movement to “Make America Great Again,” we all must remain focused on the ikar, not the tafel (the essence, not the dross). MAGA? The greater need is MIGA: to Make Israel Great Again. There is no leader on the horizon for that. There have been so few. Saint Isaac? No, he was not great or even mediocre. Begin proved great but flawed. Sharon proved catastrophic. The Ehuds — Olmert and Barak — proved and are proving very close to treasonous.

As to Europe, I am not a fan. More or less, as a Jew, I despise the whole lot of them on that continent. They used Jews when they needed us and murdered or threw out Jews when they incorrectly thought they did not. I understand why Jews who live within their borders have to pay lip service to them, whether in Europe or elsewhere. I feel pity for those Jews: Jews in Iran who have to say that the Ayatollahs are good to them. Right. Nothing like a Jew having an Ayatollah for a buddy. Wanna compare yarmulkas and turbans, ol’ pal?

Or the poor, pitiful Jews of South Africa having to speak nicely about the descendants of cannibals who now are in charge of that high-murder, high-rape failed state. Yep, good ol’ South Africa. Great to live there. Gotta love that biltong. Sure. I hope the Jews there wear T-shirts that say “Warning: My skin is not suitable for Vegan, Organic, or Keto diets.”

France? In 1242, they burned our Talmuds and original handwritten manuscripts of scholarship that are lost forever. It was before Gutenberg and Xerox; there were no copies. Maybe there was a volume there like Maimonides’s philosophy or his cardiological knowledge. Maybe a cure for cancer or bubonic plague that was coming soon to a cinema near them. All gone. They may speak a Romantic language and have quiche and mousse. But they also lined up their own innocent people for the guillotine. In World War II, they could not stand up to Nazism, and they even found plenty of high-ranking Hitler-lovers to form a Vichy government. No thanks. Non, merci. They have a catchy national anthem? I prefer Ishay Ribo.

Spain and Portugal burned us alive at the stake. England threw us out for 400 years and then, in the modern period, barred the gates of Palestine in Haifa harbor to Jewish refugees from Hitler, assuring their deaths in the millions. During their half century of imperialist occupation, England barred Jews from defending themselves from Arab marauders and mass murderers. They even barred Jews from sounding the shofar at the Western Wall.

The Brits also tore away land meant for the Jewish country and created a false notion of a “West Bank,” west of the Jordan River within Israel proper, a complete geographical fallacy. Anyone who has visited the “West Bank” has seen for themselves that 95 percent of Judea and Samaria are nowhere near any water to be denominated a “bank” of anything. All of Judea and Samaria was part of Israel until the British broke it off and created that “West Bank” fallacy in Jewish Judea and Samaria.

The day yet will come when the “Palestine Authority,” which never should have been created in the first place, will go down in rubble and disappear, and all that land will revert to Israeli sovereignty to create one unified land mass. From the River to the Sea, All of Israel Will Be Free. Again: From the River to the Sea, All of Israel Will Be Free.

Gaza, too, in its time.

There has been only one truly great country in the entire world these past 150 years, the United States of America. The rest of them who would pretend to be civilized are so only because they have followed America’s lead. Great Britain? Watch a movie about pre-America England. They always begin with a beheading. And they don’t chop off the heads of traitors. They chop off reasonably headed necks. The king wants to get rid of his wife? Divorce lawyers take too long, and they are too expensive, so he chops off her head. Genug (Finished). Next head — er, wife. Henry VIII just chopped away. A guy like Sir Thomas More spoke truth to power. So they chopped off his head, too.

Why has G-d blessed America? Can Jews of faith doubt the connection between the blessings the United States has enjoyed and G-d’s plan for America to be a haven for Jews in peril before Israel arose and to stand at Israel’s side this past half century? So, as in His blessing to Avraham (Abraham) in B’reishit (Genesis) 12:3, He has blessed those who blessed the Jews and cursed those (the fallen empires through to Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, and Imperial Japan) who cursed the Jews.

America was unique until Obama. Obama did not fulfill much. The rivers did not stop rising. The sun did not stop shining. But he was transformative in one key way: he made America mediocre.

He hated America, jealous of bogus White Privilege — even though privileged Whites have bestowed and even showered undeserved benefits on him, the son of a White mother in Hawaii and reared by a white grandmother, throughout his life. He was determined to cut down the White “privileged” class to size, even though Whites no longer were any more privileged than Blacks. If any privilege primarily predominated profoundly as Obama rose, it was the Affirmative Action that privileged Blacks like him. Job openings and federal programs privileged Blacks — like him. Scholarships privileged Blacks — like him. But Obama came in and propagated a lie that caught like a California wildfire because his accommodating left-wing mass media assisted him.

America’s great secret always was equal opportunity. Obama changed America to focus on equal outcomes. Not opportunity that entails great risk but offers enormous reward, but outcomes that guarantee mediocrity for everyone. The Brave New World of Equal Outcomes applies everywhere except in areas where Blacks excel, like professional basketball and football. Notice that there is no Affirmative Action or DEI or Equal Outcomes in NBA basketball. Why not? If there is DEI in medicine and medical school, where lives are at stake, in law firms and in Disney, in Hollywood and on Broadway — why not in the NBA? Why not open the NBA to more Orthodox Jews? There is not a single one, although there is one who is competitive. Why not more Irish? More Germans? More Italians? More Plain Whites? If Whites are 76 percent of America, why isn’t the NBA 76 percent White? The NFL?

Obama destroyed America. Trump was the kaparah (atonement).

There is absolutely no one else on the horizon strong enough to — maybe — get things turned around and Make America Great Again. Trump #47 will be better than Trump 45 because he has been there, done that. He won’t lose two years with a weak Attorney-General. Last time, he talked about draining the Swamp but had no idea how deep the Swamp was. None did.

The most patriotic Americans always emphasized they were condemning only James Comey and the top FBI Crooks, but not the brave and loyal men and women in the FBI ranks. Now, patriots recognize they honestly don’t know who in the FBI is on America’s side and who are the Swamp. Trump is the only candidate out there with experience as to how bad it is and with a personal stake in cleaning it up. If he does not, he will spend the rest of his life after his next term fighting indictments.

America so desperately needs to return to the pre-COVID Trump days: gasoline at $2.50 a gallon, food prices reasonable, almost no unemployment, booming economy, lowest unemployment numbers ever for Blacks and Hispanics, no foreign wars, demonstrable action on closing down the border and building the long-promised wall.

He had the foresight to try keeping out immigrants from America-hating Arab and Muslim dirt holes. He had the insight on advancing normal education and supporting Israel. He had Putin’s number, and there was no trouble with Putin for four years: no Russian wars, no invasions. He had the North Korea Doughboy’s number. He got the cheap, stingy, penny-pinching Europeans to pay up to NATO. He got death-grip sanctions in place against Iran.

What fair-minded American, without a personal political stake in this, would not want to return to those days? Remember how he obliterated Qassem Soleimani, leaving behind only a ring finger for a souvenir? Remember how he rubbed out Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi? Dead as a doorknob. Remember how he obliterated ISIS?

Can you imagine how quickly he would have pulverized the Houthis into Tutti-Fruitis if they shot missiles at American ships? If they dared under a Trump presidency — as if they even would? Instead, America has Biden with that disgraceful Afghanistan retreat, and allowing the Houthis to grow in power and actually close down Red Sea shipping. This is crazy: the Houthis?? They close down world shipping?? Biden can’t stop them?? He needs an international “force” of wimps and wusses to stand with America to show how all of them together cannot stop the Houthis? So America spends millions per anti-ballistic rocket to shoot down one of their $100 drones? Again and again, dozens and scores of million dollars to knock down some drones they could have assembled from parts purchased at a hardware store? How about a better idea: bomb all of Yemen into rubble?

Trump is missed. Indict him a dozen times, a hundred times, a thousand times. Convict him a hundred times. He cannot be put into a hundred prisons. There is only one of him. He will appeal, and that will delay his imprisonment. In the meantime, he either will be elected president in ten months or not. If he is, he will pardon himself, and the wheels will begin turning to lock up one Biden after another, starting with Michelangelo Van Gogh Crayola Biden and ending with The Big Guy. And if he loses, he will not be the only one sentenced. This entire country will be facing the death sentence.

I am for Trump, one hundred percent. G-d knows he could conduct himself in much more dignified ways, but he is a good man. He talks plain because real people talk plain, and he is real people. He wants to keep bad people out of America.

His Justice Department will beam in on campus antisemitism. He will try to throw out of America the non-American “students” at those universities who are from Muslim Arab countries. He will tighten the border. Will persuade more Arab countries to enter the Abraham Accords, whose momentum ended the moment Biden-Blinken-Obama arrived.

A new sheriff will stop pressuring Israel in the way Biden-Blinken-Obama have been. Trump won’t be perfect, but he will change the atmosphere, just as he did when he followed Obama.

Of course I am for him.

Originally published in the Israel National News