Are We Seeing The Shape Of Trump's Palestine Strategy?
It’s hard to step back from America’s disgrace, hosting a genocidal war criminal and shameless liar in our Capitol, desecrating a building that’s supposed to stand for the ideals of America’s founding. Instead, the majority—but not all—of our elected representatives gave round after round of applause to “a mass murderer at a level of evil we have not seen since Adolf Hitler in the 1930s,” in the words of Chas Freeman. OK, that’s not actually correct. We can bring up other genocides of the 20th and 21st centuries, mostly in Third World countries, that have been far worse in terms of the number of deaths. What we’re really talking about here, however, is the embrace by a major portion of our ruling political class of an undoubted mass murderer from a country that claims to share our “values”—which we ourselves disgraced with the seal-like clapping of our politicians.
Nevertheless, the shameless spectacle in our Capitol turned out to be less than the ringing endorsement for an American entry into Israel’s war to subjugate the entire Middle East. The two official representatives of of the US Senate (Kama Sutra as President Pro Tempore and Patty Murray as her replacement) were not present. Nor was Netanyahu provided a meeting in the Oval Office. 135 Representatives absented themselves. Further, President Trump, while agreeing to meet with Netanyahu, delivered what amounted to a rebuke of Netanyahu, by pointedly distancing himself (implicitly) from the Zionist project. I quote here from the penultimate post. Note that Trump kept Abbas’ letter to himself for over a week, releasing it, pointedly, on the day before meeting with Netanyahu:
Trump posts letter from Palestinian leader ahead of Netanyahu meeting
Driving the news: Abbas sent the letter to Trump on July 14, but it wasn't made public until Trump posted it on his Truth Social account.
Abbas said in the letter to Trump that he watched footage of the assassination attempt against the former president earlier this month and was gravely concerned.
"Acts of violence must not have a place in a world of law and order," Abbas wrote.
Trump sent Abbas the letter back with a handwritten message, saying: "Mahmoud, so nice. Thank you. Everything will be good, Best wishes. Donald Trump."
In the text of the post Trump wrote: "Looking forward to seeing Bibi Netanyahu on Friday, and even more forward to achieving Peace in the Middle East!"
Flashback: Abbas and Trump hadn't spoken to each other nor exchanged letters since December 2017. The Palestinian president spoke harshly against Trump for his decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital.
But in April 2021 Trump told me his conclusion from four years of working on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process was that Abbas wanted peace, while Netanyahu didn't.
What are we to make of this? I think it’s clear that another disastrous Middle East war does not have the kind of mandate that past wars have had. The level of support may be dismaying—especially because it is based on, in effect, gross bribery by The Israel Lobby—but the opposition is at a level that would, in my mind, be required for a legitimate war.
Beyond that, we may be seeing Trump formulating a strategy to reach out to anti-war voters who have previously been loyal Dems—mostly Black and Middle Eastern voters. In essence, what Trump appears to be doing is avoid condemnation of Israel (maintaining links to Jewish American donors) while embracing a peaceful solution in contrast to the war mongering of most of the GOP. This strategy could leave the Dems divided—Kama Sutra will find it difficult to distance herself from the Zhou war record. At the same time, Trump will be distancing himself from GOP stooges who have sold out America for AIPAC money, positioning himself to reach out to Dem anti-war voters. Those GOPers will be able to run on their records, but Trump will be free to run on a peace platform, maintaining a certain ambiguity and flexibility.
We’ll see how this develops. What’s clear is that Trump—a master politician—is wrestling with this issue, formulating a strategy that maintains massive fund raising from Jewish Americans while also maintaining freedom of action if elected.
Prediction: Trump is not going to go down the rabbit hole with Israel…thus why they are trying to pre-empt him. Israeli leadership has to play this card all the way to the end, they picked a path they cannot get off of. It will leave them with few choices if they want to exist as a state.
Very good description of what I hope is Trump's positioning. Whatever else one might say about him, Trump IS a master negotiator. Such positioning vis-a-vis the Republicans, the anti-war voters, and Israel is very delicate and yet necessary. Ultimately Trump's power and his success will come from adhering to moral rectitude and the best interests of the U.S. I think and hope he knows this and will hold the course he seems to have taken.