Trump Seeks to Resolve Israel-Palestinian Conflict: Isi Leibler, Candidly Speaking, Mar. 28, 2017— Throughout his election campaign and thereafter, even while fulsomely praising Israel and vowing to treat us as a true ally…
President Trump Wants a Peace Process Too: Prof. Efraim Inbar, BESA, Mar. 21, 2017— During the election campaign and after his inauguration, President Donald Trump said several times that he wants to close a deal between Israel and the Palestinians.
The West’s Refusal to Recognize the Religious Basis for the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Eric R. Mandel, Jerusalem Post, Mar. 29, 2017— Every few years, like clockwork an American administration comes along that thinks it can solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
Trump Administration Foreign Policy at a Crossroads: Joseph Klein, Frontpage, Mar. 21, 2017— Barack Obama subordinated America’s national interests to his notion of global citizenship under the umbrella of strengthened multilateral organizations and international norms.
Will Trump Turn Against Israel? (Audio): Daniel Pipes, Rebel Media, Mar. 27, 2017
Israel’s Silenced Majority: Caroline Glick, Jerusalem Post, Mar. 30, 2017
The Trump Administration Searches for a MidEast Policy: Thomas Parker, Middle East Forum, Mar. 16, 2017
It Was Dishonest to Blame Trump for Anti-Semitism: Jonathan S. Tobin, National Review, Mar. 24, 2017
TRUMP SEEKS TO RESOLVE ISRAEL-PALESTINIAN CONFLICT
Isi Leibler
Candidly Speaking, Mar. 28, 2017
Throughout his election campaign and thereafter, even while fulsomely praising Israel and vowing to treat us as a true ally, U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly stated that his former deal making experience would enable him to resolve the intractable Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Some Israelis became euphoric with the defeat of Hillary Clinton. They assumed that with Trump’s commitment to supporting Israel, his downplaying the settlement issue and even questioning the inevitability of a two-state solution, combined with his pro-Israeli advisers and family, they had a green light to act unilaterally. Naftali Bennett, head of Habayit Hayehudi, and radicals from Likud called for massive settlement expansion outside the settlement blocs and immediate annexations.
However, Trump unequivocally requested that Israel not initiate major settlement activity until joint guidelines were agreed upon. He spoke warmly to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, invited him to Washington and made clear that the U.S. intended to facilitate the peace process, reiterating, however, that differences must be determined in direct negotiations between the parties. This led to pathetic accusations that Trump was following the precedent of former presidents, abandoning his electoral undertakings concerning Israel, treating Abbas as a moderate and returning to a bottomless pit in which nothing will change.
Critics noted that Defense Secretary James Mattis had a long-standing record of opposition to settlement expansion and previously considered linkage to Israel as an obstacle to dealing with the Arab world. Mattis initially selected as his undersecretary for policy Anne Patterson, the Obama administration ambassador to Egypt who promoted ties with the Muslim Brotherhood and was an apologist for the Palestinians. He was subsequently compelled to withdraw her appointment. Michael Ratney, former U.S. consul general in Jerusalem, and Yael Lempert, who was senior director for Israel, Egypt and the Levant in Barack Obama’s National Security Council, both currently remain at the White House. Lempert accompanied Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, Jason Greenblatt, on his visit to Israel and the PA.
Sceptics also suggest that the failure to immediately move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem is a result of Arab pressure and the continued influence of the old anti-Israel elements and that Trump is distancing himself from his uninhibitedly pro-Israel profile. As of now, this pessimism about Trump is unjustified. It fails to factor that for the first time, despite the presence of a sprinkling of officers with records of anti-Israel hostility, the overwhelming majority of Trump’s administration and his intimate advisers share long track records of pro-Israeli activity. They include David Friedman, the new American ambassador to Israel and Jason Greenblatt, Trump’s Middle East envoy — both Orthodox Jews and long-standing supporters of Israel.
Trump is not beholden to any of the failed policies of his predecessors. His objective is to build a genuine U.S.-Israel alliance while exploring opportunities for renewing the peace process. This is in stark contrast to Obama, whose bias and hostility to Netanyahu and Israel encouraged him to diplomatically exonerate the Palestinians and undermine Israel. To date, the administration has honored its commitment to treat Israel as a special ally. The retention of foreign aid to Israel when other aid programs were drastically cut back and the aggressive U.S. response to the demonization of Israel by U.N. agencies is almost breathtaking for Israelis accustomed to U.S. indifference. Trump has created channels through which the U.S and Israel can, wherever possible, plan future strategies together.
But in his determination to test the water and seek to renew the peace process, he has stressed that Israel does not have a blank check for unlimited construction in the settlements. He has conveyed his views discretely to avoid assault from the media, so both parties may be able to make compromises without confronting domestic upheavals. Netanyahu has repeatedly warned the radicals in his government that taking unilateral steps without coordination with the Americans could have disastrous consequences as Trump would almost certainly feel betrayed and could become quite bellicose. Responsible Israeli leaders must now propose solutions that will enable separation from the Palestinians, elimination of incitement and terror, retention and hopefully annexation of the settlement blocs and ensuring security to guarantee that we do not find Iran or Hamas encroaching on our borders.
Trump is approaching the situation from the grass-roots level rather than starting with an end solution. He is also behaving in stark contrast to Obama, who sought to initiate talks based on acceptance of the indefensible 1949 armistice boundaries as borders and deeming Israel to be an occupier of all territories beyond the Green Line — something that no Israeli government could contemplate. While the Palestinians refused to come to the negotiating table, Obama allowed Israel to be condemned as the obstacle to peace negotiations. Meanwhile, the Palestinians were given carte blanche to intensify their incitement and sanctify terror.
The mission of Trump’s representative, Greenblatt, is to report on the views of both parties. He met leaders in Jerusalem, Ramallah and Amman, stressing to all Trump’s determination to achieve a genuine peace. He did not make any suggestions to Netanyahu beyond conveying the need to rein in unlimited settlement construction and the need for Israel to liaise with the administration and avoid unilateral initiatives that could create a crisis. For the first-time as a formal U.S. representative, Greenblatt also had an official meeting to ascertain the views of settler representatives. Israeli leaders from Right to Left who met with Greenblatt spoke positively about him.
He also called on the 82-year-old Abbas to halt the incitement and terminate payments to families of imprisoned terrorists. Abbas, as in the past, again pledged his commitment to achieve a peace settlement. If Israel plays its cards well, the Palestinians will damn themselves. In stark contrast to former Secretary of State John Kerry, who refused to confront the Palestinians and blamed Israel for the breakdown in peace negotiations, ultimately the Palestinians will be required to recognize Israel as a Jewish state and give up on their demand of a “right of return” of 5 to 6 million descendants of Palestinian refugees.
Unless the PA dramatically reverses its core objectives — which is almost inconceivable — for the first time, the United States will clearly expose the intransigency of the Palestinian leaders and demonstrate that their end goal is not a Palestinian state but the elimination of Israel. If Abbas acts true to form, the myth of moderation and Palestinian victimhood will be exposed and the Palestinian leaders will be condemned as terrorists. At this point, the genuine friendship and support of the United States will enable Israel to move forward and determine its borders. Israel will also be able to initiate further economic activity and cooperation to improve the Palestinian standard of living, which in the long term may lead to a peaceful compromise based on self-interest…
[To Read the Full Article Click the Following Link—Ed.]
PRESIDENT TRUMP WANTS A PEACE PROCESS TOO
Prof. Efraim Inbar
BESA, Mar. 21, 2017
During the election campaign and after his inauguration, President Donald Trump said several times that he wants to close a deal between Israel and the Palestinians. The longer the list of failed attempts, the more alluring this challenge apparently becomes. The prospects for enduring acclaim in the event of success seem particularly enticing for narcissistic politicians.
In March 2017, only two months after the inauguration and before all the positions in the defense and foreign policy establishment had been filled, Jason Greenblatt, President Trump's Special Representative for International Negotiations, was sent to Jerusalem and Ramallah to test the waters. The mission signals unwarranted eagerness. While the new American administration seems genuinely interested in getting results, its determination to pursue a comprehensive deal is not clear. Will Trump emulate the “messianic” approach of former US Secretary of State John Kerry? Will the US settle, after an undetermined period, for a “process” only, once it realizes there is no deal in the cards? Will the US finally concur with the Israeli consensus that there is no peace partner in Ramallah and/or in Gaza?
In the absence of a Palestinian peace partner, there is some merit to engaging in a “process” that lowers tensions in the region and removes a sticky, if increasingly marginal, issue from the diplomatic table. This would allow the US to pursue its relationships with important states such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Israel, with little background noise. In contrast, a lack of American involvement and consequent absence of a peace process might create the conditions for the emergence of a new paradigm to replace the defunct “two-state solution.” Evidently, the American administration did not allow time to study the issue, opting instead for impatient activism.
Whatever its object, the peace mission of Mr. Greenblatt started off on the wrong foot. He stressed how important it was to President Trump to stimulate the Palestinian economy and improve the quality of life for Palestinians. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu assured Greenblatt that he is fully committed to broadening prosperity for the Palestinians and sees it as a means of bolstering the prospects for peace. According to the press release, the two discussed concrete measures that could support and advance Palestinian economic development.
It is odd to offer carrots to the Palestinians before they have committed to returning to the negotiations table they left in March 2014. The impulse to give out carrots displays the conventional wisdom of the international community (including Jerusalem): that the Palestinians must be well fed to prevent their erupting into violence. This attitude has led to continuous financial support to the PA despite the growing awareness that a large proportion of that aid is channeled to terrorists and their families. Short-term calculations of this kind only prolong the conflict. Indeed, the campaign of terror that started in September 2000, dubbed the Second Intifada, took place after several years of economic progress during which the Palestinian standard of living was the highest in history. The many carrots provided did not overcome the Palestinians’ appetite for political achievements; nor did it channel their energies from terror to the negotiating table.
The art of negotiation requires a carefully calibrated mix of carrots and sticks. The cumulative failures since 1993 suggest that the right balance between carrot and stick has not yet been reached. Considering the huge amounts of money the PA has received over time and the Palestinians’ persistent refusal to recognize that a deal is in their interest, it is reasonable to conclude that the approach adopted to bring them around has lacked sufficient sticks. The carrots awarded the Palestinians indicate that their intransigence and unwillingness to compromise have no correlation to the level of support they receive. The PA was subjected to hardly any sticks at all after the terrorist campaign was eventually put down. The Palestinians’ choices will never change if their poor decisions never exact a cost.
This month, the US and Israel missed an opportunity to try to change Palestinian behavior by emphasizing the sticks in the equation. The Palestinians are still committed to unrealistic goals like Jerusalem and the “right of return.” Yet without tacit and/or manifest threats that Palestinian lives could become much more miserable, there is little chance that their behavior will improve. Pain and suffering are important in ridding a nation of unrealistic dreams.
THE WEST’S REFUSAL TO RECOGNIZE THE RELIGIOUS
BASIS FOR THE ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN CONFLICT
Eric R. Mandel
Jerusalem Post, Mar. 29, 2017
Every few years, like clockwork an American administration comes along that thinks it can solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, while politicians and pundits annually march through the halls of the AIPAC national meeting talking about a two-state solution with security for Israel. Their motivations are genuine, but they can’t seem to learn the lessons of previous failures. This is especially important now, as US President Donald Trump seems bent on solving this heretofore- intractable conflict.
To many Americans, Jews and Arabs are simply fighting over territory, so the logical answer is to simply divide the land. This has been the strategy for over 100 years. But this approach ignores the fact that this dispute, like so many others in the Middle East, is primarily a war of Islamic religious supremacy. The path to peace is not one a cartographer can delineate. We need to understand the ideological reasons why simply dividing the land has received consistently negative Palestinian responses despite offers of 100% of the territory, with land swaps. Until that understanding takes hold in the Western diplomatic mind, negotiations will continue to fail, promises will continue to be broken and violence will continue to follow.
As Anshel Pfeffer wrote in The Guardian a few years back, “Accepting that the Israel-Palestine conflict is also a bitter religious war runs counter to the international community’s preferred solutions… which is a central reason that none of these solutions have worked.” America for decades has refused to recognize the obvious: in the Muslim and Arab world decisions are not based on Western democratic standards. There are no secular Arab states. In the Arab world there is no separation of church and state. The last secular Muslim state, Turkey, has become Islamized over the past 14 years.
A future Palestinian state will have Islam as the dominant aspect of its governing system, despite Western wishful thinking to the contrary. Hamas is an Islamist regime that bases its desire to destroy Israel on Islamic texts and the Muslim Brotherhood interpretation of a worldwide caliphate. But is today’s Palestinian Authority really so secular compared to Hamas, as the UN, EU and the US State Department claim? If you examine statements by PA political and religious leaders, and from its state-sponsored television, the reality is quite different. To counter Hamas’ popularity, the PA has Islamized the conflict over the past 20 years. Secular PA President Mahmoud Abbas speaks of jihad and Jews overtaking al-Aksa Mosque, with the aim of motivating and enrage Palestinians, deflecting attention from the failings and corruption of the PA. In 1979 the Iranian revolution showed both Sunnis and Shi’ites that Islamism, not secular Muslim nationalism, is the winning formula. Over time, the corruption of the secular PLO /PA /Fatah and their failure to end the “occupation” of Muslim lands all combined to transform secular Palestinian society toward Islamist nationalism.
According to Palestinian Media Watch, the PA preaches “Ribat, an uncompromising Islamic obligation… to liberate land said to be Islamic. Israel is considered to be Islamic land that must be liberated for Allah… The tragic conclusion is that the Palestinian Authority has adopted and is teaching its people the messages of radical Islam.” President Abbas appointed Sheikh Muhammad Hussein as mufti, the most senior religious leader in the PA. Hussein said, “The land of Palestine is Wakf. It must not be relinquished nor must any part of it be sold… It is the duty of the leaders of the [Islamic] nation and its peoples to liberate Palestine and Jerusalem.” …
[To Read the Full Article Click the Following Link—Ed.]
TRUMP ADMINISTRATION FOREIGN POLICY AT A CROSSROADS
Joseph Klein
Frontpage, Mar. 21, 2017
Barack Obama subordinated America’s national interests to his notion of global citizenship under the umbrella of strengthened multilateral organizations and international norms. He also believed that American power needed to be contained. President Trump’s stated approach to virtually all issues relating to foreign policy is to put American national security and economic interests first. It explains his budget priorities, which would add billions of dollars for defense and border security, while cutting back on programs at the State Department undergirding so-called “soft diplomacy.” President Trump also views such global issues as trade, immigration, climate change and participation in multilateral institutions through the prism of “America first.” Thus, his budget blueprint would reduce U.S. funding contributions to the United Nations and multilateral development banks, while ceasing payments altogether to the United Nations’ climate change programs. It projects more reliance on America’s “hard power.”
However, aspirations are one thing. Implementation is another thing altogether. While it is far too early to grade the president’s performance in reaching his stated foreign policy goals, certain trends are emerging that raise concerns. As Lee Smith wrote in Tablet on March 15th, “Trump’s tough-as-nails ‘America first’ foreign policy is starting to look like Obama Lite—the exact same policies, implemented by the exact same people.” To be sure, President Trump has met roadblocks along the way, which have hindered his progress in fulfilling his “America first” campaign promises. Most notably, Senate Democrats have obstructed President Trump’s ability to fill key foreign policy positions in his administration, allowing Obama holdovers to continue exerting undue influence on U.S. foreign policy. However, some of the "Obama Lite" syndrome is self-inflicted.
For example, even with respect to Israel, the Trump administration decided to keep one of Israel’s fiercest critics from the Obama administration, Yael Lempert. She had served on the National Security Council under Obama, and has been asked to stay on at least for the time being. Michael Ratney, a confidante of John Kerry and former U.S. consul to Jerusalem, will be leading the Israeli-Palestinian portfolio at the Trump State Department. He was reportedly involved, while serving as Jerusalem consul, in supporting the attempt to defeat Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel’s 2015 election.
The Trump administration is stepping up the fight against ISIS in Iraq and Syria, with more direct involvement of American troops. However, the strategic approach so far is on the same trajectory as the Obama administration’s strategy. Any victories in Iraq or Syria over ISIS are likely to be short-lived in terms of U.S. interests as along as the U.S. continues to rely on the help of Iranian backed Shia militia, which was the case during the Obama administration. According to Lee Smith, this Iranian tilt in the fight against ISIS could well continue because the Trump team has selected as its U.S. envoy for countering ISIS the same man who performed that function for the Obama administration, Brett McGurk. McGurk was “the point man” for Obama’s pro-Iran policy. He was President Obama's lead negotiator in the hostage for ransom swap with Iran, which Donald Trump denounced at the time.
Lee Smith also reported that former National Iranian American Council staffer Sahar Nowrouzzadeh, who served in the Obama administration as National Security Council director for Iran, is now on the Trump State Department’s policy-planning staff. She is in charge of the Iran portfolio. She was a strong advocate for the nuclear deal. Chris Backemeyer, currently the deputy assistant secretary for Iranian affairs under Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, is yet another Obama holdover who had lobbied hard for the nuclear deal with Iran. It is no wonder that, despite President Trump’s and his senior officials’ sharp rhetoric against the Iranian regime, nothing has materially changed with respect to Iran from the Obama days. Iran has continued to fire more ballistic missiles, fund terrorists and badger U.S. naval ships in international waters. Yet the nuclear deal that President Trump has called “disastrous” remains intact, with all of its financial goodies bestowed on Iran. Incredibly, the Trump administration is continuing the Obama administration’s green light for Boeing to sell potentially dual-use airplanes to Iran.
There are some bright spots. For example, President Trump’s choice to serve as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, put the UN on notice as soon as she arrived at UN headquarters for her first meeting with UN Secretary General António Guterres. “You’re going to see a change in the way we do business,” Ambassador Haley told reporters. She added that the U.S. would “have the backs of our allies and make sure our allies have our back as well. For those who don’t have our back, we’re taking names; we will make points to respond to that accordingly.”
[To Read the Full Article Click the Following Link—Ed.]
Will Trump Turn Against Israel? (Audio): Daniel Pipes, Rebel Media, Mar. 27, 2017 —Nikki Haley [recording]: Nowhere has the UN's failure been more consistent, and more outrageous, than its bias against our close ally, Israel. In the general assembly session just completed, the UN adopted 20 resolutions against Israel and only six targeting the rest of the world's countries combined.
Israel’s Silenced Majority: Caroline Glick, Jerusalem Post, Mar. 30, 2017—During Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s meeting with US President Donald Trump at the White House in February, the premier was reportedly taken by surprise when Trump gently prodded – ahead of their meeting – for Israel to “hold back on settlements for a little bit.”
The Trump Administration Searches for a MidEast Policy: Thomas Parker, Middle East Forum, Mar. 16, 2017—After the frustrating Obama years, the conservative Arab states and Israel look forward with cautious optimism to the Trump era. But can the new administration address the numerous problems left by its predecessor?
It Was Dishonest to Blame Trump for Anti-Semitism: Jonathan S. Tobin, National Review, Mar. 24, 2017—hose who were terrorized by the bomb threats against Jewish community centers around North America breathed a sigh of relief when the alleged perpetrator was arrested on Thursday.
