Fifteen months after he announced his candidacy for president, Donald Trump has yet to top his central idea: a long border wall between the United States and Mexico. While Trump has massaged his stance on illegal immigration since the end of the Republican primaries, he has never wavered on his promise to build a wall and make you-know-who pay for it. And in the face of outrage, criticism, and disbelief, Trump has often pointed to Israel as an example of a country that has used security walls to defend their safety.
On Sunday, Trump sat down with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for a 90-minute meeting at Trump Tower in Manhattan. While the press was barred from the meeting, the Trump campaign said that, among other topics, the two discussed “at length” Israel’s use of physical structures on their borders.
Of course, THE WALL was not the only issue at hand. Trump and Netanyahu also reportedly discusses “military assistance, security, and regional stability,” according to both the campaign and Israeli official spokespeople. Trump reiterated his vow to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and “acknowledged that Jerusalem has been the eternal capital of the Jewish People for over 3,000 years.”
On the subject of the embassy move, Trump is not the first would-be president to make such a promise. Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Mitt Romney, and Barack Obama all said they would sign the congressional mandate to relocate the diplomatic outpost; it hasn’t happened yet. We can only assume that there’s something – something perhaps only the president knows about – that makes the move less than feasible.
‘Trump recognized that Israel and its citizens have suffered far too long on the front lines of Islamic terrorism,” said the Trump campaign in a statement. “He agreed with Prime Minister Netanyahu that the Israeli people want a just and lasting peace with their neighbors, but that peace will only come when the Palestinians renounce hatred and violence and accept Israel as a Jewish State.”
Netanyahu also reportedly met with Hillary Clinton while in New York City; the Israeli leader has been careful to avoid partisanship in this election, hoping to develop a better relationship with the next president than he’s had with Barack Obama.
But when you strip away all the diplomacy, there’s not a single shred of doubt about which of these candidates is better for the future of our greatest Middle Eastern ally. Trump recognizes the importance – economically, culturally, and militarily – of our relationship with Israel in a way that Obama and Hillary do not. If Hillary gets elected and continues down the Obama path, Israel will be closer to Russia in four years than they are to us. That’s disaster for us, disaster for Israel.
When it comes to making America – and America’s allies – great again, THE WALL is only the tip of the iceberg. With Trump as president, Israel will once again have a friendship with America that is stronger than even the finest reinforced concrete.
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