On Monday, a major American Jewish leader published a call to arms against Israel in the New York Times.
In an op-ed under the headline, “Israel’s self-inflicted wounds,” World Jewish Congress President Ronald Lauder warned that Israel is driving itself to the brink of disaster.
The implicit message of Lauder’s article is that President Donald Trump is too good to Israel. He needs to adopt a far cooler policy towards the immoral, undeserving Jewish state.
Lauder is no run-of-the-mill American Jewish leader. He has been in the spotlight for 30 years.
Lauder was an intimate friend of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for twenty years. The two men had a very public falling out a decade ago after an Israeli television station partially owned by Lauder broadcast a venomously hostile string of stories against Netanyahu.
Today, Lauder has an even more powerful friend: Donald Trump.
As a New York socialite and heir to the Estee Lauder cosmetics empire, over the years Lauder developed a close relationship with real estate magnate Trump. That friendship extended into the presidential race. And for the past 14 months, Lauder has had closer ties to the President than any other American Jewish leader.
When a man of Lauder’s stature writes Israel is “endangering the future of the country,” most people take his warning seriously. READ MORE
