Op-Eds

The terrible, avoidable tragic mistake for Israel’s religious Zionist camp is that 256,629 votes were lost to the community in April. Six Percent. More than six seats. And that happened on the eve of the ever-looming Trump “Deal of the Century.

Sure, Mitt Romney reviles Trump, but at least Romney is conservative on several issues, even if he is the Father of Obamacare and soft on many other areas. But he is not against the entire Republican conservative agenda. But when it comes to Justin A Rash or this Ana Navarro, what in the world are they doing, walking around and filing their fingernails as “Republicans”? They do not stand for most anything that even the most moderate conservatives advocate.

At its root, the bill declares the Torah to be a bigoted document and all those who follow it to be bigots. Why? Because the Torah says men and women are different, that marriage is between a man and a woman, and that certain relationships are pure while others are not. Attempting to remain true to these beliefs could be construed as discrimination under the Equality Act.

Let’s assume for a moment that he actually believes what he writes. Let’s even assume for the moment that what he writes is the truth. That is, there was no Creation, the Biblical narrative is untrue, the Exodus never happened, and the Torah was written by several different authors over time. Then why does he have a synagogue?

“Oh my, what a beautiful baby!” People always say that, no matter how much a lie it is, no matter how much the baby looks like Aristotle Onassis on a bad day. Besides, most babies, in truth, look basically the same. Are they cute? Beautiful? They have no hair. They have no teeth.

My hope is based on a simple strategy that requires only sanity among the religious-nationalist community of Israel. I know that is asking a whole bunch. But here goes. We lost as many as six religious Zionist Knesset seats in the April election, seats for which the voters actually cast ballots that had to be flushed down the drain

Trump may be politically incorrect and imprecise with his language, but he is neither a racist nor an anti-Semite. Actually, it is just the opposite — he enacts policies to equally benefit all Americans, and appears to take special pleasure celebrating minority achievement.

Anyone who ever has been in any business or profession knows the difference between the challenges of trying to get something done with others who have differing, even competing, goals versus the utter impossibility of accomplishing anything serious and meaningful with people bent on personal vendettas of destruction.

How can Kate Smith’s work be obliterated so instantly by the kind of Truth Squad that tears down statues of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, while elevating the race-baiting Al Sharpton to democracy’s kingmaker? It is the kind of bald-faced hypocrisy and double standard that sometimes makes me rue the day I took an interest in the public sphere.

When Ilhan Omar tweeted that Jews control because “It is about the Benjamins, baby,” she revealed herself not a convenience-store-quality bigot but a ready-for-primetime Nazi. Muslims led by the Grand Mufti, Haj Amin el-Husseini, were among Hitler’s best Nazis. When Omar tweeted about “the Benjamins,” she revealed her Nazi moorings.