The Trump administration is nearly finished drafting its Mideast peace proposal and will release it soon, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said Thursday.
.. Haley added that U.S. negotiators Jared Kushner and Jason D. Greenblatt are “still going back and forth,”
.. Haley added that U.S. negotiators Jared Kushner and Jason D. Greenblatt are “still going back and forth,”
.. Palestinian leaders have said the Jerusalem decision means the United States can no longer be an honest broker.
.. David Axelrod, a former senior adviser to President Barack Obama, pressed Haley on whether the United States would propose an independent Palestinian stat
.. “It’s for them to decide,” Haley said
.. Axelrod asked Haley about proposals to cut legal migration “by 40 percent,”
.. She advises Trump directly and is among the most hawkish voices on issues including Iran and Israel, sometimes putting her at odds with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.
.. Kissinger, she said, had advised her that negotiations go better when one tries to understand an adversary’s goals and motives. That applies in international affairs and in politics, she told the students.
“You don’t have to agree with them – most times you won’t. But you have to understand where they’re coming from,” Haley said.
“This is a skill that I am afraid is being lost in America today,” along with perspective on political differences, she said.
Israel to American Jews: You Just Don’t Matter
To the casual observer, Israel has never looked more secure and prosperous. Its Arab neighbors are in disarray. Iran’s nuclear program has been mothballed for a while. The Trump team could not be friendlier and the Palestinians could not be weaker. All’s quiet on the Tel Aviv front. …
Look again. In fact, the foundations of Israel’s long-term national security are cracking.
.. Israel is overstretching itself by simultaneously erasing the line between itself and the Palestinians — essentially absorbing 2.5 million Palestinians, which could turn Israel into a de facto Jewish-Arab binational state — and drawing a line between itself and the Jewish diaspora, particularly the U.S. Jewish community
.. Netanyahu is setting himself up to be a pivotal figure in Jewish history — the leader who burned the bridges to a two-state solution and to the Jewish diaspora at the same time.
.. I won’t waste much time on Bibi’s deft manipulation of President Trump to shift all the blame onto the Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas for the absence of progress in the peace process. Bibi masterfully distracted Trump with a shiny object — a video of extreme statements by Abbas (with no mention of extremist actions by Israeli settlers).
“Bibi, you win every debate, but meanwhile every day the separation of Israel from the Palestinians grows less likely, putting Israel on a ‘slippery slope toward apartheid,’ as former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak recently warned. Where is your map? What are you going to do with 420,000 Jewish settlers in the West Bank? Where is your imagination for how to reverse this trend that will inevitably lead to the end of Israel as a Jewish democratic state?”
.. About 75 percent of the 10 million diaspora Jews are non-Orthodox, mostly followers of the Reform and Conservative streams of Judaism.
.. Netanyahu bowed to the demands of the Orthodox parties and canceled a 2016 agreement to create a distinct egalitarian prayer space adjacent to the Western Wall of the ancient Jewish temple in Jerusalem — the holiest site of the Jewish faith — where men and women of the non-Orthodox movements could pray together. The Orthodox rabbis who control the Western Wall insist that men pray in one area and women in a separate, smaller area.
.. At the same time, Bibi caved and endorsed an Orthodox party bill in the Knesset that handed the ultra-Orthodox what amounts to a monopoly over conversions to Judaism in Israel “by pulling government recognition for private conversions” — basically those done by non-Orthodox rabbis
.. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency pointed out that Israel’s Orthodox parties and Chief Rabbinate essentially control “all Jewish marriage in Israel, and immigrants who wish to wed there must first prove they are Jewish according to Orthodox law. … The Chief Rabbinate’s antipathy to Reform and Conservative rabbis is well documented.”
.. Netanyahu “just gave the finger to a huge chunk of American Jews
.. After an outcry led by the American pro-Israel lobby Aipac, Bibi negotiated a six-month freeze on putting the conversion legislation in effect. But it is a time bomb.
.. “Does Israel view itself as the nation-state of Israelis or as the nation-state of the entire Jewish people — nearly 60 percent of whom live outside of Israel? Is the purpose of Israel to serve the continuing resilience, prosperity and existence of the Jewish people, as the founders of Zionism envisioned, or just its own well-being?
..Former Israeli ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren .. the machinations of Bibi and the Orthodox parties constituted an “abandonment of Zionism. The [Western Wall] belongs to the Jewish people as a whole.”
.. “For years the diaspora’s rabbis were not recognized by Israel’s government, but their political support was sought and their congregants’ money was requested. Israeli politicians who voted against the diaspora’s interests in the Israeli Parliament begged for the stage at the Aipac convention in Washington
.. Israelis have long taken for granted the fact that America — the world’s greatest superpower —
- is a steadfast supporter of Israel in the U.N.,
- looks the other way on settlements,
- secures Israel’s technological edge over its enemies through defense systems like the Iron Dome, and
- just promised Israel $38 billion in security aid over 10 years.
.. Most Israelis, said Grinstein, “are ignorant of the fact that this astonishing reality is the outcome of tireless work by hundreds of thousands of Jews — Democrats and Republicans, most of them non-Orthodox
.. Today, Israel’s very identity is at a crossroad:
- Runaway Jewish nationalism threatens to meld Israel with the Palestinians in the West Bank, while
- runaway Orthodox politics threatens to disconnect Israel from its most committed supporters.
Israelis cheered for Trump. But they may miss Obama more than they expected.
Policy vs. personality in Middle East politics.
Real policy differences over Israeli settlement expansion in the West Bank and the terms of the nuclear deal with Iran caused innumerable disagreements, many of them quite public. But during my time representing the United States here, I found that the caricature of universal Israeli hostility to Obama was overstated... the arrival of a president who “at last” would support Israel unconditionally and not pressure the country to limit settlement growth or make concessions to the Palestinians.Naftali Bennett, leader of the right-wing Jewish Home party, declared, “Trump’s victory is an opportunity for Israel to immediately retract the notion of a Palestinian state.”.. revive Israeli-Palestinian negotiations toward a two-state solution, with the support of key Arab states.. With Obama, Israelis may not always have gotten everything they wanted. But they always got consistency. Obama held as a firm principle the idea that the U.S. commitment to Israel’s security was unconditional... relationship mature enough and durable enough to withstand such differences — but they needed to know that the United States was a reliable ally when it mattered most. And he delivered.. they came to appreciate was Obama’s style of leadership: steady, thoughtful, knowledgeable... he had the maturity, the discipline and the judgment to reach well-informed decisions that benefited Israel’s security... The result was a period of unprecedented intimacy between our militaries and intelligence services... I was struck by the depth of appreciation that senior Israeli military officers and intelligence officials expressed for Obama’s contributions to Israel’s security, often drawing a contrast with sentiments expressed by their politicians or the public... Amos Gilad, a longtime senior defense official.. told me: “It’s easy to criticize Obama. But on the military front, the relationship was incredible.”.. His unpredictability .. was already a source of anxiety.. Israelis now have to ask which Trump will show up for work each day — the friend who pledges his loyalty or the adolescent who can lash out at allies such as Australia and Canada, and perhaps one day Israel?.. His lack of knowledge, compounded by his aversion to reading and short attention span.. His carelessness.. shaken the confidence of the Israeli intelligence services in the reliability of the United States as a partner.. indifferent to democratic values and institutions and enamored of authoritarian leaders is harming the United States’ standing globally, which is never good for Israel... off the record, officials are beginning to acknowledge that something has changed... erratic, unreliable leader?.. David Ben-Gurion, gave President John F. Kennedy.. The best way you can help Israel, Ben-Gurion told him, is “by being a great President of the United States.”
The Yasser Arafat of the Democratic Party
The late terrorist Yasser Arafat (1929-2004) was famous for saying one thing to American media and the opposite to Palestinian audiences.
.. To U.S. presidents and chief diplomatic correspondents he would profess his desire for peace and for a two-state solution, while to Arabs and Muslims he would impugn Jews, hint at Israel’s abolition, and incite and pay for anti-Semitic violence.
.. By the time of Arafat’s death, it was clear that any practical improvement in the Israeli-Palestinian relationship would have to bypass the Palestinian autocrat. He just couldn’t be trusted.
.. Schumer is so practiced at saying one thing to Democratic elites and another to the Democratic base that it is easy to fall for his charade.
.. a judge who was approved to the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals with Democratic support — including Schumer’s — and whose fans include President Obama’s former solicitor general and legal scholar Cass Sunstein is somehow a jurisprudential freak who should be prevented from joining the Supreme Court by extraordinary means.
.. But what is Schumer telling his caucus behind closed doors?
.. Especially if the Democrats are aware that McConnell probably has the votes to go nuclear, which would not only leave them with Gorsuch on the Court but also free Trump to nominate Bill Pryor or Mike Lee or Kid Rock the next time around? Having the nomination squeak through would allow Schumer to have it both ways: animating his base with a meaningless pose while preserving his leverage. There’s a reason he smirks so much.
.. This is the self-proclaimed “guardian of Israel” who said he opposed the Iran deal — but then did absolutely nothing to stop it.
.. leading the opposition to the Iran deal wasn’t in his self-interest. Taking a stand against President Obama would have sunk his chances for career advancement. Besides, he must have thought, the deal was going to happen anyway.
.. Ellison is on the far left of the Democratic party, has a history with the anti-Semitic Nation of Islam, and supports Bernie Sanders in his war against the Wall Street bankers that Schumer represents
What was Schumer doing? Here’s what he was doing: He knew Ellison had no chance, that the White House would oppose Ellison, that the opposition research would bring Ellison down, but he supported Ellison anyway just to shore up his left flank. He was telling the base he was with them, while telegraphing to the Democratic elites alarmed at Ellison’s rise that he was with them too.