Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu Rebukes Trump Over Israel Remark

Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu responded on Monday to U.S. President Donald Trump’s claim that Israel would not have survived without him, saying the Jewish people endured for 2,000 years without Trump and will continue to do so. He argued that Israel and the Jewish people have survived for centuries under far harsher conditions, despite being scattered among nations and repeatedly targeted for destruction.

Eliyahu cited key moments in Israeli history to make his point. He said that in the 1948 War of Independence, the United States did not support Israel or send weapons, yet Israel defeated all the Arab states. He added that before the Six Day War, France and the United States imposed an arms embargo, but Israel still defeated Egypt, Jordan and Syria in six days.

The rabbi also warned against what he described as dangerous political agreements, pointing to the Oslo Accords, which he said were signed under pressure from then President Bill Clinton and led to “thousands” of deaths, and to the 2005 Gaza disengagement, which he said brought only disaster and damage. He said, “We thank the U.S. for what you helped us with, but we are not grateful in the sense of being beholden.”

Eliyahu further said Israel’s war also protected the Western world, which he accused of standing by while “the Iranian cancer” threatened to conquer and impose radical Islam globally. He urged Trump not to sign “the Munich agreements of our era,” comparing that warning to Neville Chamberlain’s concessions to Adolf Hitler before World War II. Eliyahu concluded that history will soon judge Trump either as a leader who stood with Israel and brought light to the world, or as someone who thought he ran the world and left destruction behind.