Pompeo wine by Psagot Winery
Pompeo wine by Psagot WineryHezki Baruch
US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, visited the Golan Heights, which the US Administration recognized as being under Israeli sovereignity. "You can't stand here and deny what President Trump recognized, that this is a part of Israel,' Pompeo said..

The Jewish residents of Psagot, a town in Binyamin, once calculated that 120,000 bullets were fired at the village within the first year of the 2000-2006 Oslo War.
But there is a location Pompeo visited today which is even more significant and symbolic. Its name is Psagot.

The Jewish residents of Psagot, a town in Binyamin, once calculated that 120,000 bullets were fired at the village within the first year of the 2000-2006 Oslo War (aka the Second Intifada) alone. The windows were barricaded with sandbags and many families had to sleep on the floor. Between this tiny Jewish village, which Obama’s Administration called a “settlement”, and the closest Arab house, there are less than a hundred yards.

From Psagot you see the Mukata, where Yasser Arafat orchestrated the Oslo War.

At a checkpoint before Psagot, leading to an Arab area, a sign reads in Hebrew, English, and Arabic: “Entrance for Jews not allowed”.

Psagot has many reasons for its importance. Security, since it is in front of Ramallah. Geographic, since it halted the expansion of Ramallah southward toward Jerusalem. And religious, since we are in the land of the Bible.

I thought about Pompeo’s visit and what Israel can expect from the next US Democratic administration, if it comes to pass. Nothing good.

This is probably what we will have to expect: American aid to Israel will continue, as will any military and intelligence cooperation. But the United States will return to the old Obama paradigm: to achieve "peace", Israel must make sacrifices and the Palestinians are called to sit at the negotiating table without first having given up on wanting to destroy the Jewish state.

We will return to talk of "occupation". Important voices of the Democrat Left will accuse Israel of "apartheid". Maybe it will be a breeze, maybe Joe Biden will be able to silence it. But we do not know what effects that breeze will generate in the region where Israel is located.

These years under Donald Trump have been four spectacular years for Israel: A terrorism that has never disappeared but has been more taciturn than usual, alongwith the recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and the Golan, the end of the Iranian nuclear deal and a new peace with many Arab and African countries, most recently the recognition of the Golan.

It was four years in which one American officer after another was not ashamed not only to visit, but also to defend the right of Jews to Eretz Israel. We may have to forget all this in January.