ZOA head Morton Klein
ZOA head Morton KleinArutz Sheva

National President of the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) Morton Klein spoke to Arutz Sheva about his concerns regarding the comment made by Republican Presidential candidate hopeful Donald Trump last week to the Associated Press and to the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC). 

The ZOA put out a press release earlier in the week strongly criticizing Trump for making the absurd statement that Israel has not made concessions for peace. The reason why the ZOA came out so strongly against the comments is that they believe them to be "woefully misinformed."  

"Israel has not only given away all of Gaza and 42% of the Judea and Samaria, but they have also offered virtually all of the Judea and Samaria as well as large parts of Jerusalem for peace at two different instances," Klein explained.   

After Mr. Trump put this out in the Associated Press on Tuesday, he corrected himself two days later at the RJC saying that Israel has made unthinkable sacrifices. However, he then went on to antagonize the crowd by saying that he is not sure that Israel is committed to peace, and that he knows the voters there will not support him as he does not need their money.

Referencing the statement that Israel is not committed to peace, Klein said that the statement is "just astonishing and ridiculous."

He continued: "When two Prime Ministers of Israel have offered the Palestinians statehood, including large parts of Jerusalem, when Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has offered to sit down and negotiate with Palestinian Authority Leader Mahmoud Abbas but Abbas refuses to negotiate, how can someone say that Israel is not committed to peace. The Israeli government has even frozen building for ten months as a gesture of good faith but for Abbas that didn’t matter."

These statements the ZOA finds worrying due to the fact that they are so misinformed. "When Mr. Trump makes these statements, about Israel not being committed to peace, when they have made even dangerous concessions in the name of peace, it shows that Mr. Trump has very little knowledge of the ongoing Arab-Islamic war against Israel. Here is a man who speaks with absolute authority when he doesn’t have the facts." 

Another item that bothered Klein was the fact that Trump has, at this time, refused to accept Jerusalem as the unequivocal capital of Israel, saying that he will wait until after his meeting with Netanyahu to make a decision on the issue.

Trump’s line at the RJC about not needing Jewish money, didn’t bother Klein. "I’ve been listening to Trump’s speeches. I did not take it as anti-Semitic, or as an attack against Jews. As a matter of fact he has a lot of executives in his companies who are Orthodox Jews, and his daughter converted to Orthodox Judaism. This was likely just another one of his ill timed comments. It didn’t bother me. What bothered me were his inane comments about Israel showing that he does not have knowledge of the situation."