Trump Sabotages His Own Mideast Peace Process
By Robin Wright
President Trump threw a diplomatic bomb into the Middle East peace process with his twin decisions to formally recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and to move the U.S. Embassy there from Tel Aviv. The decision broke with seven decades of U.S. policy by both Republican and Democratic Administrations. It defied every ally, save Israel, and disregarded a last-ditch global campaign that included key figures from the world’s three monotheistic religions—Pope Francis, the Organization of the Islamic Conference, and American Jewish groups. Trump’s decision fulfilled a campaign promise, but it threatened to unravel one of his top foreign-policy pledges: to broker peace between Israel and the Palestinians, who have already called for “three days of rage” in response.
Read on....
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/trump-sabotages-his-own-mideast-peace-process
By Robin Wright
President Trump threw a diplomatic bomb into the Middle East peace process with his twin decisions to formally recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and to move the U.S. Embassy there from Tel Aviv. The decision broke with seven decades of U.S. policy by both Republican and Democratic Administrations. It defied every ally, save Israel, and disregarded a last-ditch global campaign that included key figures from the world’s three monotheistic religions—Pope Francis, the Organization of the Islamic Conference, and American Jewish groups. Trump’s decision fulfilled a campaign promise, but it threatened to unravel one of his top foreign-policy pledges: to broker peace between Israel and the Palestinians, who have already called for “three days of rage” in response.
Read on....
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/trump-sabotages-his-own-mideast-peace-process
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For the record I agree with you that this move by Trump was unimaginably stupid. It does nothing for Israel and enrages the Palestinians. It's typical Trump: lots of blustering and no substance.
ReplyDeleteBUT, what I didn't like about your article is the absurdity of your sentiment expressed by the the quotes from Rami Hamdallah and Hanan Ashrawi. This announcement is destroying the peace process? Really? This is the cause for the instability in the region? Have you been asleep for the last 50 years? Iran, Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia... Trump moving the US embassy to Jerusalem is the problem in the region? And then Shikaki tells us about how the Islamic world is enraged.
The Islamic world has been enraged by Israel since 1947. And the peace process has no chance, as any rational objective observer would know after spending five minutes in Israel, because the Palestinians do not now, nor have they ever, genuinely wanted peace with Israel. They want to destroy Israel. They teach their kids that Jews eat Muslim babies on Passover and there's no greater fulfillment of the will of Allah than to kill Jews. It's kind of hard to make peace with people who are being raised that way. That's why the peace process doesn't have a chance.
Yes, what Trump did is idiotic because it's an excuse for the Imahms to whip their people up into a killing frenzy, and it doesn't help Israel in any way, but please, this move is not one one-hundredth of the issue. And saying that it is diverts attention from the real issue and the only thing that can actually possibly lead to peace one day, which is the Palestinians actually wanting to live in peace next to the Jews.