The following is a transcript of what former and future president Donald Trump ought to have said to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at Mar-A-Lago.

It’s a real pleasure to meet you again, Bibi. The last time we worked together it was a much different world, a much safer world for ordinary peaceful people, from Tel Aviv to Kiev to Kabul, and for Americans too.

Leadership matters, and when the leader of the possibly most powerful force for good on earth is either weak or delusional … the bad guys out there get emboldened. I don’t think for one minute that the U.S. under my leadership would have seen a Russia that dared to invade Ukraine. Nor do I think that Hamas would have attempted the massacres of Oct. 7 aimed at your people. Certainly, the Taliban allied to China would not be sitting on $90 billion of U.S. military hardware.

You know I believe in nations, in borders, and in being tough. I certainly understand and support Israel’s effort to crush Hamas’s forces. As someone with a Jewish child and grandchildren, I find it sickening, just sickening to see the open Jew-hatred exploding around the world, including at schools I attended long ago, in much happier times.

I think you know that under a second Trump administration, the U.S. would have Israel’s back in a much more productive and thoughtful way than at any point in U.S. history. We have the same enemies. We share the same core values. We can talk to each other honestly.

But you know I’m also a realist. I believe that making deals is an art—I wrote a little book about that, I’ll make sure you get a copy before you leave. I don’t want to make the perfect the enemy of the pretty good. That’s why I’ve had to make compromises, give ground, even piss off some of the core people in my own political base who want to go too far, too fast, and end up shooting themselves in the foot.

This means I need to tell you some things that you might not enjoy hearing. But I’m saying them for your  good and for the good of the beautiful people you represent and serve in that amazing country they created. I am a Zionist. By that I mean, I want there to be an Israel, like I want there to be a Finland, an Armenia, and an Albania. Israel exists and has every right to protect itself. It deserves the support of the world.

But it won’t be able to defend itself forever if it loses all that support. I’m shocked at how quickly and powerfully that support has drained away in many Western countries. Radical parties aligned with the crazy left have come to power in France and Britain. And the left here in America is getting wilder and more reckless every day. As you saw on your visit, mobs in our nation’s capital attacked the American flags outside Union Station and replaced them with Palestinian flags. The likely Democratic nominee, Kamala Harris, refused to do her job as vice president by presiding over your speech to Congress. None of these signs are good. If I were an Israeli, they’d make me very nervous.

America benefits greatly from having a democratic ally in the Middle East. Compared to any other country in the world, our history demonstrates our friendliness toward the Jewish people. That’s why so many Jews came here, and they have enriched us in so many ways. But even more, I must say, Israel needs America. It’s not going to find in Russia or China trustworthy friends. It doesn’t want to face Iran and ISIS and Hamas out on an ice floe by itself. God forbid.

For the best interests of both our countries and the peace of your region, I need your help in keeping American support for Israel solid and strong. I’m not going to pander, not one little bit, to the anti-Western hatred and radicalism we’re seeing at our colleges. But you could make life easier for me, and for religious Christians in my party who want to support Israel for biblical reasons. You could make life a lot easier, Bibi.

I keep seeing reports, including from supporters of mine who are 100 percent in favor of a secure and peaceful Israel, of truly bad behavior by rogue elements of your military — behavior that targets, of all people, the most helpless and harmless people in the region: Christians in Gaza. These people’s families and churches have been there for 2,000 years. They’re mostly of Jewish origin originally, descended from the disciples who walked with Jesus. And some of the IDF’s raw recruits are treating them terribly.  

First, in the northern part of Gaza where they live, the army has cut off all food. There’s one Christian aid group, the Vulnerable People Project, which provides armed guards for synagogues in Nigeria. It tried to bring food to one of those ancient churches, got approval from your government. But by the time its trucks drew near, soldiers had bombed the place to rubble. I saw a video testimony of a Christian girl whose church had been bombed and her home destroyed, family members killed and wounded, by soldiers who then paraded in her underwear and wrote obscenities on her walls.  

I actually have a list here of civilian Christian sites, not Hamas hiding holes, that have been destroyed since Israel began its response to the Oct. 7 massacre. Sorry, but I have to take this opportunity to let you know these things, which I’m sure nobody else brings to your attention. Let me just read you this:

• On Oct. 17, the Anglican Al-Ahli Hospital was blown apart by Israeli missile fire, killing hundreds of civilians.
• Two days later, an Israeli airstrike hit St. Porphyrius Church, killing 18 Christians and wounding dozens more.
• On Dec. 16, Israeli forces targeted the compound of Holy Family Parish; a sniper killed two women after they walked outside and wounded several men who tried helping them. That same day, Mother Teresa’s order, the Missionaries of Charity, saw its convent struck three times by Israeli artillery shells, leaving it uninhabitable.
• Ten days later, Gaza’s only Baptist church was destroyed by Israeli tank shells.
• A Byzantine Church in Jabalia (northern Gaza) was destroyed by the IDF.
• The Green Shrine in Deir Al-Balah, the first Christian monastery built in Palestine during the Byzantine era, was partially damaged.
• Rev. Mitri Raheb, who founded Dar al-Kalima University in Bethlehem, says that all Christian institutions in Gaza have been severely damaged or destroyed.     

I know your government doesn’t have a policy of doing such harm, any more than ours did when undisciplined soldiers attacked civilians in Viet Nam or in Iraq. But we paid a big, bad price for those mistakes, and Israel will pay a price too if American Christians — your biggest supporters, bar none! — start hearing from unfriendly media all about these unfortunate incidents.

The horrors of Oct. 7 are being forgotten given all the civilian destruction that subsequently taken place. Israel can’t afford for that to happen. At this point we need a ceasefire. Once I’m back in office, I’ll help you make a beautiful deal, as we did with the Gulf States. We’ll put a stop to this madness and give your citizens some peace.

In the meantime, can we work together on fixing these issues, removing the landmines left behind by history and planting instead olive trees that will offer peace and shelter for our children and grandchildren?