It’s been leaked that in a conversation between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and French President Emmanuel Macron, Netanyahu admitted to Macron that he is "skeptical" of Donald Trump's efforts to bring peace to Israel and Palestine.
Hmmmm, you think Bibi?
Donald Trump’s efforts to bring peace to the region have so far consisted of him tasking his son-in-law Jared Kushner, a 36-year-old former real estate investor born into wealth with no foreign policy experience of any kind, with brokering a deal between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
One of Kushner’s first moves was to appoint David Friedman to be the US ambassador to Israel -- a guy who wants to unilaterally move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. If you understand the politics of the region, you know why that would be a major impediment to the peace process. Even just appointing Friedman was inflammatory and surely hurt the already low chances of the situation improving whatsoever.
The notion of Jared Kushner jumping in and miraculously bringing about peace in the Middle East would be laughable if the stakes were not so high for so many people. In fact, Trump’s peace “efforts” are really an insult not only to the Israelis and Palestinians who are directly affected, but to the work of prior administrations who at least made a somewhat sincere and honest effort to help.
The best that Donald Trump could muster up was to dispatch his ordinary, completely useless son-in-law to go make a mockery of the entire institution of internal relations.
Trump says all the time that Kushner is brilliant, and many people on TV repeat it mindlessly and gloat over him like he’s some sort of genius. He’s not. He’s a schmuck who has no business representing the United States of America, in any capacity, under any circumstances, for any reason at all.
So yea Bibi, put me down as “skeptical” as well. And while you’re at, listen to what Macron told you about settlements in the same meeting, and you might increase the chances. That is, “'You’re making it more complicated by building in the settlements.”
Good for Macron for having the guts to say that. The continued building of settlements has to stop. They’re an impediment to any meaningful peace and there’s no reasonable argument for allowing them to continue.
Netanyahu is obviously right to skeptical of Trump’s Middle East peace efforts, but everybody should be skeptical of Benjamin Netanyahu’s efforts to find peace with Palestine.
Palestinians will have to make concessions, no doubt, in order to get the process going. But that is never going to happen with Netanyahu in power, aligned with the extreme right wing religious elements of Israel, and also benefiting from not having peace.
What a sad, bleak, pathetic state of affairs.