Jerusalem – US President-elect Donald Trump donated $10,000 to Bet El in the West Bank in 2003, according to documents uncovered by The Jerusalem Post Sunday.
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A Trump Foundation tax form from 2003 shows Trump gave the sum to American Friends of Bet El. Other Jewish organizations to which the Trump Foundation donated that year are UJA-Federation, American Jewish Committee and American Jewish Historical Society.
A decade later, Trump’s choice for Ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, would become president of the organization, which is the settlement’s fundraising operation that brings in about $2 million annually. Friedman is also a columnist for Arutz Sheva who opposes a two-state solution.
Former MK Ya’acov “Ketzale” Katz, one of Bet El’s founders, told Ariel Kahane of Galei Israel Radio that Trump gave the donation years ago in Friedman’s honor.
Katz recounted that when “Friedman was our guest of honor years ago, then the president of the US, I’ll tell you a secret, sent us a donation [to the Bet El Yeshiva] of $10,000. But I didn’t know then that he would be president, otherwise I would have saved the check.”
Ha’aretz reported that Charles and Seryl Kusher, parents of Trump’s son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner and themselves billionaire real estate developers, donated $20,000 to Bet El in 2013.
Katz said Friedman is a lover of Israel and a Zionist, and that the two of them are “like brothers.”
“We’ve spent a lot of hours together, a lot of shabbats together, him by me and me by him. It’s a friendship of many years that began with his father,” Katz stated.
As for Trump, Katz was more cautious.
“We need a lot of prayers. We used to think [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu would be excellent, and he was the first to adopt Oslo,” the former MK stated.
Katz is a founding resident of Bet El, Managing Director of the Arutz 7/Bsheva media group and a major fundraiser for settlement projects. He served as an MK in 2009-2013 and was the head of the National Union.
The words “so what?” come to mind.