Trump: Obama Weakened Israel, Jews in Europe
President Obama’s treatment of Israel has emboldened the enemies of Israel and those seeking to harm Jewish communities in Europe, Donald Trump charges in an interview published on Wednesday.
“They have already learned that they can do whatever they want and get away with it,” the presumptive Republican presidential nominee said during an interview with Mishpacha magazine, a New York-based Orthodox Jewish weekly. “Obama taught them that.”
Drawing a page out of his AIPAC speech last month, Trump said, “I don’t get why the Jewish community supports Obamas, or why they like Hillary (Clinton) – I really don’t. Honestly? I think he likes Iran better than he likes Israel. I think Obama has made Iran powerful and rich, and weakened Israel that way. It’s dangerous.”
“Maybe it’s out of habit,” he opined.
Jason Greenblatt, Trump’s trusted adviser on Jewish affairs and chief legal officers of the Trump Organization, told the weekly publication that America sets the tone as to how Jews are being treated around the world. “We will create a different tone in Europe and around the world,” Greenblatt said, according to Mishpacha. “We should be creating a culture that strengthens Israel and by extension, individual Jews, Jewish communities. We can do that.”
Trump chimed in, “I believe that a U.S. president who makes it clear that we respect our friend, and that being aggressive with Israel is being aggressive us, sends a message with a ripple effect. Across the globe they will get the memo: You can’t get away with it.”
Trump’s comments were made two weeks ago – a day before the New York primary. A report published Wednesday, on the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day, showed that anti-Semitic incidents worldwide reached a 10-year low in 2015. The researchers said they had monitored 410 violent anti-Semitic incidents worldwide in 2015, a drop of 46 percent from the previous year’s 766.
Marking May as the annual Jewish American Heritage month, President Obama stated, “We cannot pay proper respect to the legacy of Jewish Americans without also reflecting on the rise of anti-Semitism in many parts of the world, and in remembering the lessons of the Holocaust, we recognize the imperative need to root out prejudice. Subjecting men, women, and children to persecution on the basis of their ancestry and faith, the scourge of anti-Semitism demands that we declare through action and solidarity that an attack on one faith is an attack on all faiths. That is why the United States is leading the international effort to combat anti-Semitism — we helped organize the first United Nations General Assembly meeting on anti-Semitism last year, and we are asking countries around the world to join us in giving this challenge the focus it demands.”
Trump became the presumptive Republican nominee on Wednesday as his two remaining rivals in the Republican primary dropped out of the race once it became clear Trump is on course to clinch the nomination in coming weeks.