Ruthie Blum - Israel Hayom
During Thursday night's
CNN-hosted Republican debate in Houston, Texas, candidate Marco Rubio
finally took on leading contender Donald Trump, face-to-face, about
Israel. Referring to Trump's statements that he would be a "neutral
broker" between Israel and the Palestinians, Rubio argued, "The
Palestinians are not a real estate deal, Donald."
"A deal is a deal," Trump replied.
"A deal is not a deal when you're dealing with terrorists," Rubio said.
This is what Rubio
knows in a nutshell -- something the Obama administration has ignored
for the past seven years, and not only in relation to the Palestinian
Authority. It is a key reason, though by no means an exclusive one, for
getting the Democrats out of the White House and State Department.
Rubio has been consistent about his grasp of why Israel and America are both the globe's good guys and natural allies.
At a rally on Wednesday
night, in the lead-up to the final debate before Super Tuesday on March
1, Rubio was inspired and inspiring on this point.
"We're going to have a
policy of moral clarity," he said. "I'll give you a perfect example --
Israel. Israel is the only pro-American free-enterprise democracy in the
entire Middle East. I'll put it to you this way: If there were more
Israels in the Middle East -- more pro-American, free-enterprise
democracies -- the world would be so much safer."
He also attacked the UN
for being "obsessed" with the Jewish state. "Every week, they've got
new resolutions condemning Israel," he said, using this to illustrate
the "new face of anti-Semitism in the world."
As for the Palestinians, Rubio said, "They teach little kids -- five-year-olds -- that it's a glorious thing to kill Jews."
Indeed, he emphasized,
"The Palestinians don't want a deal, [and] they've already said, 'We
want to destroy Israel.' So what are you going to negotiate? The rate of
the destruction? The date of the destruction? We will not be an
impartial advocate when it comes to the issue of Israel. When I'm
president, we're going to take sides. We are going to be on Israel's
side."
Even before Rubio
announced he would be running for America's highest office, however, he
made impassioned speeches on Israel's behalf.
Two days after Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was re-elected in March 2015 -- nearly a
year ago -- Rubio delivered a 15-minute tribute to Israel on the floor
of the Senate. Netanyahu had won by a surprise landslide, after polls
predicted a very different outcome. Yet he was still under attack at
home and abroad for asserting there would be no two-state solution on
his watch.
"[Netanyahu's] right,"
Rubio stated unapologetically. "The conditions don't exist. But first,
let's go through the history. In 2000 at Camp David, Israel offered the
Palestinian Authority nearly all of the West Bank, eastern Jerusalem and
Gaza. And the Palestinians said no. In 2000, Israel withdrew from
southern Lebanon. You know what that is today? A place [from] where they
launch rockets against Israel. In 2005, Israel withdrew from Gaza. You
know what that is today? A place that they launch rockets against Israel
from. In 2008, Israel offered the PA, again, nearly all of the West
Bank -- Judea and Samaria -- and all of eastern Jerusalem. The PA said
no. What about the Palestinian record? ... About 6% of the Palestinian
budget is diverted to pay the salaries of ... terrorists, of people who
have blown up centers and killed civilians, including Americans. And
they are being paid salaries and benefits, including with money from
donors, such as the U.S., Great Britain, Norway and Denmark."
He then listed ways in
which the PA envisions and educates its people to hope for a world
without Israel, quoting blatant anti-Semitic and pro-terrorist passages
from a Palestinian school book and the PA-run press.
"And these are the
people that we're pressuring [Israel] to cut a peace deal with," he
said, referring to people who say "that there is no such thing as the
Jewish people; that any method of destroying them is valid."
Rubio concluded: "No
people on earth want peace more than Israel. No people have suffered
more at the hands of terrorism than the people of Israel. ... If America
doesn't stand with Israel, who would we stand with?"
Hearing Trump -- whose
consistently soaring popularity is due to Americans being rightly fed up
with the totalitarianism of the left-wing "political correctness" that
has been corroding American power, exceptionalism and free-market
economics -- assert even-handedness solely in relation to Israel is
cause for serious concern.
If the conflict between
Israel and the Palestinians were a real-estate problem, even the
Democrats would have been able to solve it. In fact, if it were an issue
of dividing up plots of land, the Arabs of Palestine would have had a
state starting in 1947. Indeed, if killing or kicking the Jews out had
not been the true bone of contention all along, the Palestinians today
could and would be leading the kind of normal lives that Israelis take
for granted.
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