My how four years changed things. In Obama-Romney in 2012 Israel was a big and serious issue. It came up in the debates. Romney traveled to Israel. Netanyahu was accused of choosing sides.

Four years later, tonight in the Clinton-Trump showdown, Bibi merited a tiny mention in the closing moments of the debate when Trump said he had met with the Prime Minister the day before “and he’s not a happy camper.” He said it in relation to President Obama’s Iran Nuclear Agreement, which legitimized the Mullahs as a nuclear power and will give them $150 billion by which to sew terror mayhem throughout the world.

Hillary Clinton brags about being the original architect of the deal and she strongly defended it in the debate.

Aside from that, Israel was not mentioned at all.

Which is not to say that the Middle East did not come up. It came up plenty. It is to say that, believe it or not, Israel is seen, I assume, by both political candidates as an island of stability in an otherwise horrible region. So why even talk about it? I remember a saying attributed to Golda Meir which said something to the effect that good times would come to Israel when it appears in the media as much as Switzerland.

Well, good times, here we are!! Anyone hear Trump or Hilary talk about skiing in the Alps? Overall, Hillary Clinton won the debate tonight. She was poised, in control, effectively on the attack without appearing rabid, and kept Trump on the defensive. Trump, by contrast, started very strong in arguing how unequal trade deals and towering debt were bankrupting America. He spoke forceful about jobs lost in New Hampshire and Appalachia.

But after that, he allowed himself to be baited by Clinton on everything from charges of racism and sexism to not paying taxes and calling women vulgar names.

But on the Middle East Trump won the argument.

He effectively made the case that President Obama, along with Hillary as Secretary of State, had pulled America out of Iraq way too early, giving an opening to the emergence of ISIS. He pounded away at how horrible the Iran deal was, and how it would allow the Ayatollah’s to have a legal nuclear weapon in a decade. He spoke of planeloads of cash being delivered to the Iranian government as ransom for American hostages. You can continue reading this article on JPost.com

My wife and I stood out among the throngs massing into the new National Museum of African-American History and Culture on its very first day. We are white. Nearly everyone surrounding us was black.

As we walked through the displays discussing the Dred Scott decision of 1857 that essentially declared black slaves to be non-citizens with no rights, an elderly African-American woman with a  walker called out to me. “I want to speak to you.” With everyone turning around to glimpse the commotion, I stopped as she slowly walked over to me.

“I mean no disrespect,” she said. “But what would bring a couple like you, white, and obviously Jewish, and orthodox, to a museum like this on its first day.”

I could have told her that I have had a lifelong relationship with the African-American community. That from the time my mother was in a deteriorating marriage when I was a small boy in Los Angeles, her close friend was a black woman who worked with her as a teller in a bank and offered her emotional and moral support.

I could have told her that at Oxford University I appointed the first ever African-American non-Jewish president of a major Jewish organization when Cory Booker, now a Senator from New Jersey, became our student leader.

I could have told her that I was the first white morning radio host on America’s legacy black radio station, WWRL 1600 AM in NYC, where I commandeered the air waves with my co-host and soul-friend Peter Noel.

I could have told her that I had taken the Rev. Al Sharpton to Israel on a solidarity trip right after 9/11, or that I had had the privilege of speaking at the Martin Luther King Chapel at Morehouse College in the presence of Coretta Scott King, or that I had been terminated from a prominent radio position in Utah after I stuck up for African-American evacuees of Hurricane Katrina who were ridiculously given a curfew on an army base to where they were moved after their homes were destroyed by flooding. You can continue reading this article on The Observer.com.

President Obama must not sponsor a UN resolution unilaterally mandating a Palestinian state and threatening Israel’s survival.

Reportedly, Obama seeks a forced timetable for Palestinian statehood in Judea and Samaria – the Biblical  cradle

of ancient Israel and land vital to the security of the Jewish state.

While backing Israel financially and militarily, President Obama has also blamed Israel’s policies for the failure of peace while ignoring Palestinian incitement, terrorism, and intransigence and the refusal of Mahmoud Abbas to recognize Israel as a Jewish state.

Obama’s UN strategy would allow the Palestinians to circumvent negotiations and would reward  Islamist terror.

This policy is deadly for Israel as Hamas would almost certainly seize control of the West Bank, as they  did  in Gaza, and subject Jerusalem, Ben-Gurion Airport, and Tel Aviv to the unending hell of murderous rocket fire and blood-thirsty terrorists popping out of tunnels.

Abbas has turned to the UN, with its long history of anti-Semitism, in the hope of  winning  statehood. Worse, he wants the UN to impose indefensible borders on Israel and force Israelis to commit demographic suicide by admitting millions of Palestinian “refugees.”

The two-state solution envisioned by Abbas is two Palestinian states. One in the West Bank and Gaza. The other in what used to be Israel.

While well-intentioned, President Obama’s Middle East policy has left the region on fire, with ISIS emerging to fill the vacuum of American withdrawal, a near genocide of innocent Arabs in Syria, and millions of refugees fleeing the inferno of civil war and sectarian strife.

Obama’s catastrophic deal with Iran has legitimized the Mullahs as a nuclear power and provided these killers with tens of billions of dollars – including planeloads of cash – to finance terror, all while promising Israel’s annihilation.

Proposing a one-sided UN resolution, or labeling Israeli communities in Judea, Samaria, and even Jerusalem illegal, would constitute internationally sanctioned ethnic cleansing and would open the door to illegal economic sanctions against the Jewish state.

President Obama, as you leave office keep your friendship with Israel intact. Live by your own pledge: “There is no short cut to the end of a conflict that has endured for decades. Peace is hard work. Peace will not come through statements and resolutions at the United Nations.”

Don’t Destroy it With a UN-Mandated Palestinian Terror State in Judea and Samaria

This ad was organized, produced and paid for by The World Values Network,

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, Executive Director 

LAUNCH RECEPTION for Rabbi Shmuley’s new book:

The Israel Warrior: Fighting Back for the Jewish State From Campus to Street Corner. Thursday, Oct. 6, 2016, 7PM, NYC

R.S.V.P to info@shmuley.com 212-634-7777.  www.thisworld.us