SHOSHANA BRYEN: Trump’s Acceptance Speech Was A Breath Of Fresh Air For Israel

Israel didn’t take up a lot of room in former President Donald J. Trump’s nomination acceptance speech. It didn’t have to.

The entire convention was a pro-Israel rally, from speeches by Ronen and Orna Neutra, parents of American hostage in Gaza Omer Neutra, to the buoyant Republican Matthew Brooks and disillusioned Democrat Shabbos Kestenbaum, to chants and prayers.

The Republican Party platform is pro-Israel and so were the delegates. There was no sop to a “two-state solution” and “pro-Hamas radicals” are singled out in the platform to be “deported” in an effort to “make our college campuses safe and patriotic again.”

There is reassurance for Israel and for American Jews in the statement and the understanding.

What Trump did, in the course of his 90-minute speech, was to connect the international dots. Not chronologically, but logically, looking at China, Russia, and Iran. The broad awareness that America’s adversaries are interconnected — and that Israel is not fighting a battle in isolation from America’s broader security interests — has to be more reassuring for Israel than any single applause line.

“It began to unravel with the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, the worst humiliation in the history of our country… gave up Bagram, one of the biggest air bases anywhere in the world. The longest runways, most powerful, hardened, thickened runways.

“We gave it up. And I liked it not because of Afghanistan, I liked it because of China. It is one hour away from where China makes their nuclear weapons. And you know who has it now? China has it now.”