Saturday's terrorist attacks in Israel by Hamas militants represent the
worst crisis between Israelis and Palestinians in more than two decades.
But rather than offering constructive policy alternatives, Republican presidential candidates have settled on an intellectually bankrupt
strategy of blaming the Biden administration for everything.
The finger-pointing is particularly rich given the way that the Trump administration obliterated longstanding American policy in the region,
handed a series of pinless policy grenades to President Biden and then
took cover.
The inability to broker a final settlement between Israel and Palestine
is an American foreign policy failure that spans at least six
administrations stretching back to the 1980s. But it was the last two Republican presidents who departed dramatically from the international
"land for peace" consensus that was supposed to result in a Palestinian
state. Former President George W. Bush, despite occasional rhetoric
supporting Palestinian statehood, walked back America's commitment to
widely shared interpretations of UN Security Council Resolution 242 by
signing off on Israel retaining large settlement blocs in the West Bank, demanding that Palestinians usher in a functioning democracy before
peace was possible and then washing his hands of the matter when he
didn't like the election results. His world-historically disastrous war
of choice in Iraq did more to bolster Iranian authoritarians than any
other single event since the country's revolution in 1979.
But it was former President Donald Trump who did far more catastrophic
damage. Trump greenlit the needlessly provocative move of the U.S.
embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, part of which is located in
territory the United Nations considered unlawfully occupied by Israel
since the 1967 war. The move abandoned another longstanding American negotiating position—that Jerusalem would ultimately be a shared capital between two national people.
Warned that moving the embassy would result in blowback down the line,
the Trump administration and its allies mostly gloated about how clever
they were. When Palestine did not immediately erupt into chaos, they
concluded that the maneuver would have no repercussions. Not only that,
but Trump then recognized the permanent Israeli annexation of the
occupied Golan Heights and invalidated a 1978 State Department ruling
that Israeli settlements in the West Bank were unlawful.
Instead, the Trump administration gave the Israeli government carte
blanche not only to expand existing settlements but to grant even
isolated encampments anywhere in the West Bank legitimacy and
sovereignty. The Trump administration's subservience to Israeli Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his maximalist government was so
complete that polling suggested Israel would have given the former
president his largest margin over Biden if it were a U.S. state.
To make matters worse, the Trump team followed through on its promise to
torch the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, better known as the Iran
Deal. Not even the Trump officials responsible for this gratuitous act
of diplomatic sabotage could identify any reason for it, other than that
they wanted to. The move not only led predictably to the resumption of
Iranian nuclear activities but also to the election of an ultra-hardline government in Tehran that redoubled its destructive meddling in regional affairs, including providing cash, training and weapons to Hamas militants.
The Biden administration did little to reverse any of these Trump
disasters, even picking up the baton of helping Israel conclude separate
peace agreements with Arab states rather than encouraging a resumption
of talks with Palestinians. Biden has refused to follow through on
reopening the consulate in Jerusalem for Palestinians. And ultimately,
the administration's severe political risk aversion has insulated it
neither from disingenuous Republican attacks nor Palestinian frustration
with the status quo.
Nevertheless, claiming that the president is responsible for the
horrific Hamas attacks inside of Israel is preposterous, like poking a
hornet's nest, running away and then blaming the sucker who comes along
next and gets stung.
https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-partly-blame-situation-israel-opinion-1833933
Yep. Twump dun that too.
--
"And off they went, from here to there,
The bear, the bear, and the maiden fair"
-- Traditional
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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