With the barrage of untruths emanating from Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas and his underlings, it is always a welcome and refreshing phenomenon when world leaders recognize and speak the truth about Israel and the Jews.

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Pat Robertson, who passed away last week, was one such leader. He was a great friend of the State of Israel and will be sorely missed.

I am always grateful when leaders clearly state that the Jews are the rightful heirs to the Land of Israel, which was promised by the almighty to the Jewish people. I appreciate it when diplomats and dignitaries point out that the First and Second Temples stood on the Temple Mount.

It is not well known that Napoleon Bonaparte was one of these leaders. In 1799, he tried to conquer the Land of Israel from the Ottoman governor Ahmad Pasha al-Jazzar, also known as "The Butcher." On April 16, 1799, Napoleon defeated the Butcher's cavalry at the Battle of Tabor Mountain. When he reached Ramla, 25 miles from Jerusalem, he made a "Proclamation to the Jews."

"Israelites, unique nation, whom, in thousands of years, lust of conquest and tyranny have been able to be deprived of their ancestral lands, but not of name and national existence! Arise then, with gladness, ye exiled!"

"A war unexampled in the annals of history … avenges [France's] own shame and the shame of the remotest nations, long forgotten under the yoke of slavery, and also the almost 2,000-year-old ignominy put upon you," it went on. "While time and circumstances would seem to be least favorable to a restatement of your claims or even to their expression, and indeed to be compelling their complete abandonment, it offers to you at this very time, and contrary to all expectations, Israel's patrimony!"

"The young army with which Providence has sent me hither, let by justice and accompanied by victory, has made Jerusalem my headquarters and will, within a few days, transfer them to Damascus, a proximity which is no longer terrifying to David's city," Napoleon declared.

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Unfortunately, Napoleon then lost the battle of Acre to the Butcher, who was aided by two British Navy ships under Sir Sidney Smith, a maverick English commodore. On May 21, 1799, Napoleon retreated towards Egypt.

Despite his defeat, Napoleon had made Palestine a focus of the world and increased Jewish immigration to it. His statements about the Jews and Palestine have been emblazoned on history.

Benjamin Disraeli, the British statesman, writer, and prime minister who was born Jewish but baptized at age 12, made similar statements. In 1851, he said, "Restoring the Jews to their land, which could be bought from the Ottomans, was both just and feasible." When attacked for being a Jew, Disraeli also made the well-publicized statement, "Yes, I am a Jew, and when the ancestors of the Rt. Hon. Gentleman were living as savages in an unknown island, mine were priests in the Temple of Solomon."

It is scandalous that Mahmoud Abbas continues to deny the Jewish people's connection to the Temple Mount and the Land of Israel. Leaders the world over must follow in the footsteps of Napoleon, Disraeli and Robertson, who weren't afraid to speak up on behalf of Israel and the Jewish people.

 Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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Much has been written about the proliferation of illegal guns in America. Unfortunately, Israel faces a similar problem in its Arab sector.

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In America, illegal guns have fueled a crime wave the likes of which we have never seen before. In 2022, crime was up 22% in New York City. Illegal guns from Florida, Georgia, North and South Carolina, Virginia and Pennsylvania driven up Interstate 95 – the "Iron Pipeline" – have wreaked havoc on the citizens of the city.

In Israel, most of the illegal guns and terrorists hail from the towns of Jenin and Nablus. However, the source of illegal guns in Israel is somewhat more complicated.

The Jan. 27 Neve Yaakov massacre of seven Israelis on Shabbat at the Ateret Avraham Synagogue and the shooting by a 13-year-old of a father and son in Silwan the next day highlight the use of illegal guns by Arab terrorists. The Neve Yaakov murders were the worst since the Mercaz HaRav Massacre of eight students on March 6, 2008 and the Har Nof massacre at the Kehillat Bnei Torah Synagogue on Nov. 18, 2014.

The beginning of the illegal gun problem began in 1993 when the Oslo Accords gave guns to the Palestinian Arabs. Since the Oslo Accords, 300 Israelis were killed in terrorist incidents from 1993-2000. In the second intifada of 2000-2005, another 1,100 Israelis were murdered. In 2022, there were 300 shooting attacks by Arabs compared to 91 in 2021. Twenty-seven Israelis were killed while the IDF foiled 500 potential attacks.

Israel's removal of checkpoints leads inevitably to the transfer of illegal guns from Gaza and Arab villages in Judea and Samaria. Checkpoints are the major deterrent to the proliferation of illegal guns. In America "stop and frisk" was a significant deterrent to the illegal gun trade. I imagine that New York will institute a form of checkpoints in the six main precincts where 27% of gun crime takes place.

In Israel, a large number of illegal guns have come from Iran. In 2002, Israel captured the ship Karine-A with 50 tons of Iranian weapons headed for Gaza. In 2009, Israel seized the Antigua-flagged vessel Francop with 300 tons of Iranian weapons intended for Hezbollah. In 2014, Israel intercepted the Klos-C, sailing under the Panama flag from Iran to Gaza with advanced missiles and other weapons. On Jan. 7, 2023, the U.S. Navy seized a vessel containing 2,100 Iranian assault rifles bound for the Houthis in Yemen.

This represents the tip of the iceberg. Iran is the main supplier of illegal guns and weapons in the Middle East. Only by finally putting an end to Iranian weapons exports will terrorism decrease in Israel.

Illegal guns remain an ongoing problem in both America and Israel. The problem can be dealt with if leaders address the root causes and sources. Law enforcement in America and the IDF in Israel have their work cut out for them.

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With the release of Brittney Griner after 10 months in Russian prison, President Joe Biden may have opened a channel to finally make peace between Russia and Ukraine.

As Michael Shear and Peter Baker put it, "The release of Ms. Griner, who turned 32 while in custody, was a rare bright spot in the confrontation between Mr. Biden and Vladimir V. Putin, the president of Russia, over Mr. Putin's invasion of Ukraine earlier this year."

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This is indeed one of those opportunities that don't come along that often, and opens the door to a deal that could end the fighting in Ukraine. As a harsh winter descends upon Europe, it is imperative for Biden to act as quickly as possible to bring Russia and Ukraine together and broker an agreement. This should be his number one priority. The prisoner exchange that freed Griner is a good starting point.

Putin might be playing his war games, but he might also be looking for an opening. He clearly miscalculated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the West. He thought the invasion of Ukraine would be a cakewalk. Now, he is openly admitting that the war "might be a long process."

There are indications that Putin may have lost 100,000 soldiers thus far. In the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, the Russians lost 60,000 troops (today, this would be many more). Ultimately, President Theodore Roosevelt brokered a peace agreement between Russia and Japan – the Treaty of Portsmouth. It was hashed out over 24 days in Kittery, Maine.

If peace is not achieved now, the prospects for a protracted war increase exponentially. Europe will suffer a worsening economic crisis. People will die from lack of heating oil and starvation. This will not only happen in Ukraine but throughout Europe. America will suffer collateral economic damage. Russia is clearly using this as a tactic to inflict maximum damage and gain diplomatic leverage.

In addition, the Hudson Institute reports that Russia may bring Belarus directly into the war to open a northern front. Fifteen Russian Tor-M2 low- to medium-altitude air defense systems have been deployed in Belarus. MIG-31 interceptor aircraft were placed in Belarus in October. These aircraft are capable of carrying Kinzhal missiles, which are ballistic missiles with dual-use conventional and nuclear delivery capability.

This may another example of the nuclear brinkmanship that Putin has used in the past. But Putin has moved quite a few troops into Belarus and is pressuring the country's military to join him in the war. If Putin indeed attacks from Belarus, the Ukrainians will be overstretched and Kyiv will be threatened.

All of this will only prolong the war and lead to further escalation. Biden has his hands full, but if he cannot hammer out an end to the war soon, the picture looks quite bleak.

 Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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King Solomon said, "A wise man's mind (tends) to his right; while a fool's mind (tends) to his left."

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The world is about to experience a seismic political shift from the left to the right. It all starts on Nov. 1 when Israel holds its fifth election in four years. Current polls give Benjamin Netanyahu the highest number of seats in the Knesset. However, it remains to be seen if he will be able to cobble together a governing coalition of 61 seats.

My feeling is that Netanyahu will manage it. But he will need the support of the religious parties, including the Religious Zionist Party led by Bezalel Smotrich.

The Religious Zionist Party has come of age. Its participation in government will not be the apocalypse that Yossi Klein Halevi predicted in an article entitled, "The War on Israeli Modernity."

Netanyahu has been very adept at juggling the parties to his right. Over 15 years as prime minister of Israel, he became a master at it. He has led Israel admirably into the modern era and stood the test of time.

The past year-and-a-half since he was ousted has been relatively chaotic. I wish it weren't so. But we have a very objective eye over here in America. It certainly seems as if Israel was much better off with Netanyahu at the helm.

Seven days after the Israeli election, America has a chance to right the ship. I believe it will.

I had a chance to talk to Dr. Mehmet Oz before his debate with challenger John Fetterman. Dr. Oz sounded very upbeat. I told him the Jewish people are behind him. He did very well in the debate and his poll numbers are on the rise.

It appears that Republican candidates across America are peaking just as voting begins in earnest. Senator Chuck Schumer's statement to President Joe Biden that "we're going downhill," which was caught on a "hot mic," seems to be prophetic.

Midterm elections tend to be problematic in general for the party in the White House. I remember well the midterm elections of 2014 when former President Barack Obama occupied the West Wing. The Republicans won Congress with 247 seats. That hadn't happened since 1928. They also took over the Senate by flipping seven seats. We could see a similar "red wave" in 2022.

If this indeed happens, and all indications are that it could, the reconfiguration of the political landscape around the globe will have been dramatic and telling. The rise of crime and a failing economy will have done it in America. The rise of terrorism and lack of leadership will have done it in Israel. The American citizen and the Israeli voter will both follow the wisest of all men, King Solomon, and the world will be a better place.

 Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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As the world was amazed by the superhuman achievements of the proud Jewish swimmer Mark Spitz at the Munich Olympics in 1972, Muslim terrorists aligned with the Black September organization shocked Western civilization and threw it into chaos and turmoil by murdering 11 Israeli athletes. The Olympics, which were supposed to bring all nations together, had been hijacked by evil incarnate.

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At the time, I thought the Munich Olympics should have been canceled. Munich was not far from the Dachau concentration camp. Memories of the Holocaust were still fresh in everyone's minds. It was only 36 years after Hitler tried to use the Berlin Olympics to fool the world about his intentions.

Spitz was the highlight of the Munich Games. I was certain at the time that Black September, aligned with Yasser Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization, which had been forcibly expelled from Jordan by King Hussein in 1970-1971, targeted the Munich Olympics precisely because of Spitz. After the Games resumed, Spitz had to be heavily guarded. The Black September terrorists had joined with the German neo-Nazi Baader–Meinhof Group, a.k.a. the Red Army Faction, to carry out their barbaric and nefarious deeds.

After 50 years, Germany has finally apologized for its actions. Its mistakes were numerous: Failure to protect the Olympic Village and specifically the Israelis, as well as a bungled rescue attempt. They were made even more galling because Germany had been responsible for the worst genocide ever perpetrated by man against the Jewish people.

Germany should have insisted on canceling the Games. The International Olympic Committee should have stopped them then and there.

The IOC had a responsibility to at least commemorate and memorialize the 11 Israelis and one German who had been killed. But it took them 44 years before they did so in 2016 and held a moment of silence before the 2020 games. These were steps in the right direction, but not nearly enough. I propose that just as the names of the victims of 9/11 are read every year in a very public display, so should the names of the 12 killed in 1972 be read before and during the Games. Kaddish should be recited by a family member. The memorialization has to be sincere, so that the terrorists never feel as though they won.

In his movie "Munich," Steven Spielberg tried to capture the range of emotions and actions that the massacre and its aftermath caused. Unfortunately, the movie went too far towards a moral equivalency that I do not think was helpful.

The world has never fully recovered from the Munich massacre. Track runner Frank Shorter, who won the Olympic marathon in 1972 and inspired me to become a marathon runner, was quoted recently saying, "After they killed the athletes, we thought we were going home. The marathon got delayed a day. I told [runner] Kenny Moore, who ended up coming in fourth, that I was not going to think about terrorists as I ran because, if I did that, then they win."

I would have liked Frank Shorter to have said that he won the marathon to honor his murdered fellow athletes. Perhaps that is what he meant when he said "then they win." He did not want to give the terrorists any kind of victory.

In any case, the Munich massacre will always be on the minds of every Israeli athlete who competes in the Olympics. Many lessons have been learned after 50 years and many more will be learned. "Never again" is the goal.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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With the passing of former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev at age 91, in the midst of the Russian war on Ukraine, the stark contrast between the Gorbachev and Putin eras is taking shape.

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Gorbachev ended the Cold War, lifted the Iron Curtain, and freed the Jews from bondage in the Soviet Union. He was a healer. Current Russian President Vladimir Putin's avoidance of Gorbachev's funeral was a disgrace.

Gorbachev was a man who saw the beauty, the power, and the opportunity that freedom could bring. He had an able, willing and great partner and cheerleader in US President Ronald Reagan. When Reagan spoke in Berlin on June 12, 1987 and said, "Tear down this wall!" it did not fall on deaf ears. Gorbachev listened and granted Reagan's request. One of the greatest moments in world history took place on November 9, 1989 when the wall came down. Gorbachev made it happen. It was pure ecstasy.

The Cold War, for anyone who lived through it, was a nightmare; a throwback to the Middle Ages. During that era, Russia produced two things: steroid-dependent athletes and high-tech weapons. By 1975, the latter included 20,000 nuclear bombs. That number had almost doubled by the time Gorbachev took over. The Cuban missile crisis was fueled by the USSR and the Vietnam War was due in large part to Russian aggression.

Besides that, Russia during the Cold War was all about the KGB, intimidation, tyranny and repression. For the Jews, it was a nightmare. Communism had no room for religion, so Judaism was banned. The Jews of the Soviet Union were prevented from enjoying a Jewish education for 70 years.

The USSR made every attempt to try to destroy the State of Israel. They teamed up with Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt to take on Israel in 1967. They assisted Anwar Sadat in the Yom Kippur War of 1973 and inflicted terrible wounds on the Israeli people, with 2,656 Israeli soldiers killed. I lost many friends in the Yom Kippur War thanks to Russian armaments and advisors.

Mikhail Gorbachev put an end to this madness.

His glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring) established a new world order. Although it took special requests from President Reagan, Gorbachev released the dissident Andrei Sakharov and many Jewish refuseniks. Without the struggle for Soviet Jewry, Gorbachev might never have acted. This was a testimony to the crucial role activism plays in making the world a better place. One of the chief activists who convinced Gorbachev to release Jewish refusenik Anatoly (Natan) Sharansky, who spent nine years in Soviet prisons, was Joe Mermelstein of blessed memory.

Gorbachev established a freedom of conscience law guaranteeing the right of people to "satisfy their spiritual needs." Because of Gorbachev, a million Jews were allowed to emigrate from the Soviet Union. Because of Gorbachev, freedom reigned in Ukraine, the Baltics, Poland, Hungary, Romania and Czechoslovakia.

Vladimir Putin has reversed course. His absence at Gorbachev's funeral speaks volumes. He has made a 180-degree turn. The hardliners in Russia simply could not come to grips with freedom. Indeed, Putin called the "collapse" of the Soviet Union the "greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century."

A friend of Gorbachev, Aleksei A. Venediktov, said that Gorbachev was "upset" about the Russian invasion of Ukraine and felt "his life's work" had been undermined.

Vladimir Putin is living in the past and the past will come back to bite him. Unlike Gorbachev, who was a healer, Vladimir Putin is a warmonger. Hopefully, Russia will find its next Gorbachev sooner rather than later.

 Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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Jews have prayed at the Western Wall for 2,000 years, but today's generation has to realize how hard it was to do so. Its recapture in the 1967 Six-Day War is a great miracle that should never be taken for granted.

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The Kotel is 1,600 feet long. Only 160 feet of it are exposed, comprising the Western Wall Plaza. Most of it is underground.

The so-called "Small Kotel" (the "little Wall"), which is located in the so-called Muslim Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem, has also been dedicated to prayer over the centuries. Both have been desecrated by Arabs who simultaneously claim them as their own holy sites.

Since 1967, prayer at the Western Wall has been administered by Israel's Religious Services Ministry, which erected a partition in accordance with Halachah (Jewish law) to separate men and women, as is done in Orthodox synagogues.

This ministry was established in 1949 by David Ben-Gurion. It has always followed the principles and practices established by the Orthodox. Among these is the separation of men and women during prayer.

Unlike in the United States, where the Conservative and Reform movements comprise 80% of Jewry, in Israel, Orthodox and traditional Jews make up more than 50%; 42% consider themselves secular; and the remaining 8% are Conservative and Reform.

The Religious Services Ministry and the Chief Rabbinate have been in control of Jewish dietary laws, conversions, marriage and divorce, synagogues and burials since the founding of the State of Israel, and it should remain that way.

As in America, the "woke" and "cancel culture" groups have set their sights on prayer at the Western Wall. They are trying desperately to overturn and undo the status quo. Their efforts have already resulted in riots and violence.

There is no reason to change the status quo, however, which has worked reasonably well for 54 years. The Israeli government, led by Prime Minister Naftali Bennett recently "shelved" the creation of a pluralistic prayer section at the Western Wall. If the plan were to be implemented, riots would certainly ensue, and the ruling coalition would be greeted by a no-confidence vote.

The history of the Western Wall is in order. In 361 CE, Jews were allowed to settle in Jerusalem. By 614, there were enough Jews there to be able to stage a revolt against the Byzantines.

Unfortunately, all were either massacred or fled. In 638, Jews returned to Jerusalem after it was conquered by Arabs. The Western Wall once again became a sought-after place of worship by religious Jews.

In 1099, the Crusaders besieged Jerusalem and slaughtered most of its Jewish inhabitants. In 1141, Yehudah Halevi visited the Western Wall.

In 1165, Maimonides visited the Western Wall and the Temple Mount. In 1173, Benjamin of Tudela visited it and wrote, "In front of this place is the Western Wall, which is one of the walls of the Holy of Holies."

On Oct. 2, 1187, Saladin conquered Jerusalem. Jews once again began to settle there. In 1267, Nachmanides visited Jerusalem. He did not find many Jewish families there at that time.

On Jan. 14, 1546, a destructive earthquake occurred in Jerusalem. According to Prof. Dan Bahat, the earthquake actually determined the location where generations of Jews have been praying ever since, until the plaza was expanded in 1967.

The earthquake tore down a row of structures built and propped up by the Western Wall. The clearing of ruins expanded the small area previously used for prayers.

Although the Arabs today claim the Western Wall as theirs and part of the Al-Aqsa Mosque complex, it's clear historically that they've never held it in high regard. As a matter of fact, Arabs have desecrated it for two millennia, because they fully understood its significance to the Jewish people.

In 1996, PLO chief Yasser Arafat caused a riot in which 25 Israeli soldiers were killed, after a new passageway out of the Western Wall tunnel was opened. He claimed that both were part of Al-Aqsa. This is a blatant falsehood.

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In 1929, the issue of prayer at the Western Wall came to a head, with Arab riots that year resulting in the murder of 67 Jews in Hebron and 45 in Jerusalem. That year, Joseph Klausner established the "Pro-Wailing Wall Committee," to formalize the right to Jewish worship at the Kotel. The desire to create a mechitzah, a partition separating men and women, was part of its efforts.

It's a miracle that, after 2,000 years, Jews can pray at the Western Wall unimpeded. The status quo must be maintained at the site, and Jewish law must always be the basis for prayer there.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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Jews have always been at the forefront of progressive ideas. This has made for creative and dynamic people. Unfortunately, it has also led to increasing rates of assimilation and intermarriage.

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According to the Pew Research Study of 2020, only 34% of US Jews said that it was very important to them that their grandchildren be Jewish. With "cancel culture" leading the way and "wokism" as the new religion, the rate of assimilation and intermarriage in the United States is on its way up.

According to the Pew study, among American Jews who wed between 2010 and 2020, 61% intermarried. Among the non-Orthodox and non-affiliated, it was 72%. Some 98% of Orthodox Jews said that they were married to Jews.

About 60% of European Jewry has been lost to assimilation since WW II. In Poland, the figure stands at 70%. In the former Soviet Union, it reaches 90%. These are shocking statistics.

Israel is also far from immune, with a 38% jump in intermarriage from 2011 to 2018. Recent work by Dr. Netanel Fisher showed that there are 85,000 intermarried couples in Israel. The majority are Jewish men married to non-Jewish women from the former Soviet Union. A total of 7% of marriages in Israel are mixed.

The story becomes even more disturbing when analyzing the number of Israelis who emigrated to America and subsequently intermarried. There are one million Israelis living in the Diaspora. There are high assimilation rates among the second generation.

It is estimated that the rate of intermarriage among second-generation Israelis living in the United States is close to 75%. Professor Lilach Lev Ari, an expert on immigration and ethnic identity, explains: "Israeli immigrants find themselves in a pluralistic society, in which they must redefine their Jewish and Israeli identity. When these people lived in Israel, they resided in an area with permanent Jewish characteristics in their day-to-day life: the community, the Hebrew Language, the educational system, national holidays. That's not the case abroad. In the United States, you have to work hard to preserve your Jewishness. If you don't put an effort into it on a daily basis, including financial and mental resources, it will disappear."

This, of course, does not only apply to Israelis, but to the entire American-Jewish community.

This is where the Jewish Reform movement has failed miserably. It is up to the Orthodox to do a much better job of bringing back our own.

When the Israeli actress, Gal Gadot, goes out of her way to encourage intermarriage by co-producing a film on an Israeli-Palestinian love story, there must be a tremendous outcry. The movie was based on a book that was excluded from the Israeli high school curriculum in 2015 for threatening "Jewish identity."

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Assimilation and intermarriage is killing the Jewish people. Jewish leaders must unite to prevent the scourge from overtaking us.

Education, kiruv activities and outreach on all levels – much more of a united and concerted effort to fight the epidemic – is needed now.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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Ever since Nov. 4, 1979, when Iran took 52 American diplomats and citizens hostage, the regime in Tehran has used hostage-taking as a means of extracting huge sums of money and political capital from the United States.

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President Jimmy Carter lost the 1980 election to Ronald Reagan because of the hostage crisis, and due to Carter's failed attempt to free the captives – an attempt that cost the lives of eight servicemen were killed.It wasn't coincidental that the hostages were released on the day that Reagan was inaugurated.

Israel's daring capture of an Iranian general who worked closely with master terrorist General Qassem Soleimani in order to obtain information on Lt. Col. Ron Arad, missing in action and possibly held captive by Iran since 1986, raised the issue once again of Tehran's use of captives to extract a heavy price.

Despite the Obama administration's having agreed in 2015 to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)–one of the worst deals that the United States has ever made with a foreign power – not a single American citizen has been released. This elicited a major outcry in the US.

As a result of heavy criticism, Obama agreed to send $1.7 billion in cash to Iran for the release of four Americans (It was supposed to be five, but Iran hoodwinked America again) in January of 2016. The Obama administration said there was no quid pro quo, but it wasn't a coincidence that the day the four American hostages were released, a jumbo jet landed in Tehran carrying 400 million in dollars, euros and francs.

Soon after that, another $1.3 billion in cash was sent to Iran. The latter was supposedly interest on $400 million that the Shah of Iran had sent to acquire American weapons prior to the 1979 Islamic Revolution. This was on top of the $150 billion freed up from frozen bank assets after sanctions were lifted in 2015 as part of the JCPOA. Additionally, the $400 million sent to Iran to free four American hostages was money allocated for paying victims of Iran-backed terrorism, including Stephen Flatow's daughter, Alisa, in 1995.

The Iranians had absolutely no right to this money; it was pure extortion. Even The Washington Post, in March 2018, ran a piece headlined: "Was Obama's 1.7 Billion Cash Deal with Iran Prohibited by US Law?"
Congressman Ed Royce (R-Calif.), who at the time chaired the Foreign Affairs Committee, condemned the deal saying, "Sending the world's leading state sponsor of terror pallets of untraceable cash isn't just terrible policy. It's incredibly reckless, and it only puts bigger targets on the backs of Americans."

Even a former senior intelligence official in the Obama administration said that much of the $1.7 billion in cash was used explicitly to fund terrorism as an additional "screw you" from the leaders of Iran, including Soleimani, who ran Iran's terror operations.

Despite the exorbitant "ransom" that the Obama administration paid Iran, the main hostage, Robert Levinson, was not released.

Levinson was a former FBI official who was taken hostage in Iran in 2007. He is believed to have died in March 2020 in an Iranian prison. His daughter was quoted as saying, "We were never given the chance to say goodbye. To touch him one more time and tell him we love him. To bury him and properly grieve – to have real closure and finality. After all the Iranians did to us and to him, they owe that to us."

In addition to Levinson, the Iranians have held American citizens father and son Baquer (aged 84, in need of immediate medical care) and Siamak Namazi (aged 50, held since 2015).

Two other Americans, Emad Shargi (56-year-old businessman) and Morad Tahbaz (co-founder of the Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation, held since 2018), have been jailed. The daughters of Emad Shargi insist that their father was taken hostage to gain leverage over the Biden administration.

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Iran has used hostage-taking as a means of extorting the United States. It is clear that Iran will be asking a very high price for the release of its American citizens held in its jails on trumped-up charges.

America must stay strong. President Reagan showed the way. "Peace through Strength" was his motto. As I mentioned above, it was not a coincidence that Iran released the 52 American hostages on the day that he was inaugurated. This is the America I remember. We should all take note.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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Whether it is advanced will depend largely on whether the current administration is given a second term.

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After the Sept. 15 signing of the agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates at the White House, even New York Times anti-Trumpers Bret Stephens and Thomas Friedman toned down their hostile rhetoric.

In his column titled "A Rare Middle East Triumph," Stephens concluded, "… [I]t behooves those of us who are frequently hostile to [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu and [U.S. President Donald] Trump to maintain the capacity to be pleasantly surprised – that is, to be honest what happened between Israel and two former enemies is an honest triumph in a region, and a year, that's known precious few."

Kudos to Stephens for setting aside his hostility to the president to acknowledge his "triumph." It would be a shame if he didn't come around to seeing Trump differently.

Friedman, too, had something positive to say about the treaty.

In a column titled "The Love Triangle That Spawned Trump's Mideast Peace Deal," Friedman wrote: "Having covered Arab-Israel diplomacy for more than 40 years, I have to say that the normalization agreements signed … between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Israel and Bahrain came about in a most unusual – but incredibly revealing – fashion."

He also stated, "I can't predict how it will all play out, but when the most technologically advanced and globalized Arab State, the UAE, decides to collaborate with the most technologically advanced and globalized non-Arab State in the region, Israel, I suspect new energies will get unlocked and new partnerships forged that should be good for both Arab-Israeli and Jewish-Muslim human-to-human relations."

In my 35 years working on behalf of the Jewish people, I have never seen eye to eye with Friedman. And though I still disagree with most of his points, I was happy to see him give credit where it's due to the Trump administration.

This is a first for Friedman.

Roger Cohen, on the other hand, seems unable to unshackle his own liberal chains for even a fleeting moment. A few days after his colleagues, Stephens and Friedman, praised the accords, Cohen felt compelled to set the record straight and blast the president.

In his piece, called "Trump's Middle Eastern Mirage," Cohen wrote with disdain, "Still, there's something rotten in the peace choreography of Trump, Jared Kushner, Ambassador David Friedman et al."

He later stated, "For all the pious sentiment in the agreement about resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the reality is that Trump, Kushner, Friedman et al. have treated the Palestinian National cause with contempt."

Unlike Stephens and Friedman, Cohen cannot bring himself even grudgingly to admit that the Trump administration, in the words of Stephens, "has done more for regional peace than most of its predecessors, including an Obama administration that tried hard and failed badly.

Stephens also pointed out "just how wrong a half-century's worth of conventional wisdom has been. At the heart of that conventional wisdom is the view, succinctly put by UN Secretary-General António Guterres in February, that 'resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict remains key to sustainable peace in the Middle East.'"

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Cohen still holds this warped view.

He would do well to learn a lesson or two from Stephens, who wrote: "The rise and fall of ISIS, civil war in Syria and anarchy in Libya, Turkey's aggression against Kurds, proxy battles and hunger in Yemen, political turmoil and repression in Egypt and Iran, the bankruptcy of the Lebanese state, the plight of Middle Eastern refugees – if any of these catastrophes have something in common, it's that they have next to nothing to do with the Jewish state or its policies. One may still hope for a Palestinian state, but it won't save the region from itself."

The Abraham Accords illustrate that Trump gets things done. I believe that if he's given the chance, he will make much more progress in the region, including where Netanyahu's sovereignty plan is concerned.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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