Frontlines

The second GOP Debate will take place this Wednesday, September 27, at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum in Southern California. Although President Trump remains the number one choice of GOP voters, the debate does spotlight and highlight powerful figures in the Republican Party. It is an opportunity to witness politics in motion. It also has brought fresh new faces to the fore.

Former National Security Adviser General Michael Flynn made some outrageous comments about the Holocaust recently. He said that there were “thousands of them and not many guards,” implying that the Jews could have fought bare-handed against machine gun nests and survived.

With the expanding fireball of anti-Semitism glowing brighter each passing day, Israel’s purported peace partner, Mahmoud Abbas aka Abu Mazen, just added kerosene to the wayward flames. Abbas, who was Arafat’s second-in-command and the “brains” behind the PLO’s wave of terror from the 1960s and on, just came up with the most outrageous and most anti-Semitic statement ever made during this latest round of Jew-bashing and hatred. He said that six million Jews were murdered by the Nazis for their “social role,” not because they were Jewish. He said this at a Fatah Revolutionary Council meeting, but it was aired on Arab TV.

On September 1, the American political season begins in earnest. In 2016, the Republican Party had the largest number of candidates to vie for the nomination of either party ever – 17. President Trump was the eventual nominee.

I had the privilege of meeting with Madagascar’s Ambassador to the United Nations this past week. Madagascar is the fourth largest island in the world. It is a biodiversity haven and hotspot. Ninety percent of its wildlife is endemic. It has been in the news since an Israeli from Bnei Brak was imprisoned for trying to bring rare turtles back to Israel to delight his children. Both China and Russia have tried to gain a foothold in Madagascar since it is strategically situated in the Indian Ocean. It was annexed by France in 1897. It gained its independence in 1960.

I just got back from visiting Israel with Governor Mike Huckabee and about 30 Americans, most of whom had never been to Israel even once. Without exception, they all felt it was a life-changing experience. The group was diverse. We had a CEO from Utah whose grandmother escaped pogroms in Odesa, a former South Carolina Congresswoman who found her family listed at Yad Vashem as having been murdered by the Nazis, and we had the largest grower of watermelons in the United States who marveled at the agricultural accomplishments of Israel. All on the trip were true patriots. None of them winced at traveling to the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron or visiting Ateret Cohanim in the Old Jewish Quarter (the so-called Muslim Quarter). This is the new and at the same time old reality of Israel.