Luke Ford

New York Times: JERUSALEM — Donald J. Trump has been called a lot of things by a lot of people around the world. In Israel, where his comments about remaining “neutral” in peace negotiations raised hackles but his condemnation of “radical Islam” wins plaudits, the word that keeps coming up is “dugri.”

A slang Hebrew term derived from the Arabic for “straight ahead,” dugri describes someone who is frank and blunt no matter the consequences. This is how many outsiders view Israelis, often with considerable discomfort. But here in Israel, a society that views pretension with suspicion and disdain, it is almost universally a compliment.

“Israelis tend to talk more frankly and openly about subjects that, in America, could be somewhat taboo,” said Zev Chafets, a co-host of a weekly radio program in Tel Aviv that focuses on the United States’ election. “Trump does that. People find that refreshing.”

…More recently, Mr. Trump has generated headlines in Israel by declaring that the United States should emulate some of Israel’s security practices. He has said a version of the security barrier Israel built along and through the occupied West Bank should be erected along the border with Mexico, and he asserted that the United States should follow what he called Israel’s “profiling” of Muslims at security checkpoints.

His compliments were not universally welcomed. A columnist for the left-leaning newspaper Haaretz, Chemi Shalev, worried that Mr. Trump’s admiration of Israel could weaken Democratic support in the United States for Israel’s security policies. “His compliments damn Israel with loud praise,” Mr. Shalev wrote.

Pressed by reporters after Mr. Trump’s “profiling” comment, a senior Israeli minister refused to discuss American politics but defended profiling as effective in limited circumstances, according to Reuters. “Sometimes, when there is a specific form of terrorism, you can seek out Islamic terrorism only among Muslims,” said the minister, Yisrael Katz.

Mr. Trump’s praise of Israeli policies alone is not likely to lift his appeal to Israelis, said Shmuel Sandler of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University. “We always enjoy the fact that the West is coming to learn from us,” Mr. Sandler said. “More than this, I don’t think it will make a difference.”

COMMENTS AT STEVE SAILER:

* Speaking of Israel, it is a good example of what to expect when your country becomes 20.7% Muslim.

Lots more suicide bombings, random stabbings, seedy neighborhoods and “no-go” areas for law-abiding whites. Public institutions exploited and trashed by people who did not build them and never have and never will pay substantial taxes for their upkeep.

That is Angela Merkel’s Europe and Hillary’s USA!

Now some might say Israel has it worse became they “stole” the land. That’s not true, but that is really the wrong way to look at it. There is always going to be a pretext for Muslims to trash and destroying neighboring peoples.

You’ll notice, also, that land is “stolen” all the time in recent history without the “victims” engaging in endless bloody terrorist campaigns. American Indians? Sudetan and Prussian Germans? North Cypriot Greeks? All accepted honorable military defeat on fair terms and moved on. But Muslims will always have grievances against non-Muslims that they believe justify jihad.

Is it OK for me to envy the anti-establishment right in England over ours? Trump is to be commended, but really, it is a night-and-day difference. Leave ran a modern, extremely well run campaign. Trump … is not.

Leave figured out they needed to make the election about Diversity damaging the old middle class welfare state, and most of all a referendum on Muslim migration. Trump has this part figured out, but the whole “well oiled turnout machine” he is not even trying.

He very quickly needs to make his peace with the GOP establishment so he can raise money, and pivot left on middle-class economic issues, and not look bad doing it.