According to the Atlantic, Israeli rightwing politicians believe the three Trump Administration officials “most in tune” with the aspirations of the Habayit Hayehudi and the right flank of Likud are Vice President Mike Pence, US Ambassador David Friedman, and White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon.
The man at the top, President Donald Trump himself, certainly made a considerable effort to tell Israelis just how much he loved them, with a speech at the Israel Museum on Tuesday that had even some cabinet ministers fidgeting uncomfortably in their seats, wondering, with all this love, what should they expect next?
Here’s what came next: Trump broke his campaign promise and did not announce he was moving the American embassy to Jerusalem – but that was to be expected. He also said nothing about Jerusalem—east or west for that matter—belonged to Israel. His representatives, some more rudely than others, ruled out the possibility that Prime Minister Netanyahu even dream of joining the US President at the Kotel. But wait, there’s more: Trump clearly embraced the 2002 Saudi peace plan as one of the foundation documents for his new peace initiative – and that means 1967 borders all around, a Palestinian State, and an internationalized Jerusalem.
What about Ivanka? The president’s daughter is not about to contradict her father’s policies, and it’s not clear how she feels about his ambition to join the ranks of US presidents with a Nobel Peace Prize pinned to his breast, complete with the three-pronged iconic photos of himself with Netanyahu and Abbas on the White House Lawn. But here’s what we do know:
According to the Wall Street Journal, the World Bank last Sunday announced – during an event with Ivanka Trump, that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates had pledged $100 million to a fund to assist women entrepreneurs.
Just like Ivanka…
“As a female leader within the Trump administration, my focus is to help empower women in the United States and around the globe,” Trump’s daughter said.
UAE Ambassador to the US Yousef Al Otaiba said in a statement that his country’s donation reflects “our commitment to empowering women in our region and builds on the progress we have made in our country, where women play a role in every segment of society.”
A regular feminist.
With this much Arab money to advance her role as “female leader,” we can probably discard the possibility that Ivanka would be advocating for, say, the Jewish settlement enterprise, when visiting the Oval Office.
And Jared Kushner? The President’s son-in-law’s favorite political posture is silence, avoiding the media like the plague while he attends all the presidential meetings that count. He is in every picture, but his comments are notoriously either clipped or completely missing. Which is why it was interesting to note that he issued a signed press release last Sunday, identifying himself as the organizer of the President’s trip to the Middle East:
“The president asked us to plan a trip that would help unite the world against intolerance and terrorism and we have made great progress towards that goal in Saudi Arabia,” Kushner stated, noting at the end of the release that he is looking forward “to continue to accomplish the President’s ambitious objectives on this trip.”
In other words, Jared already imagines himself waiting backstage in Stockholm while his father-in-law collects that Nobel.
Kushner also reportedly told opposition leader MK Isaac Herzog (Zionist Camp): “We are planning to move fast in starting a diplomatic process in order to reach a deal.” Does that strike you as something a friend of the settlement enterprise would say?
Which brings us to Trump’s chief envoy to the peace talks, Donald Trump’s organization’s chief legal officer Jason Greenblatt, possibly the most dangerous player in this game. For one thing, as befits a negotiator with his eyes on the prize, Greenblatt has no problem changing his positions in order to facilitate the process.
Back in November 2016, Greenblatt told Israel’s Army Radio that then President-elect Trump did not object to Jewish construction to the right of the 1967 border in Judea, Samaria and eastern Jerusalem, and did not intend to force a peace deal between Israel and the PA. “Mr. Trump does not view the settlements as being an obstacle for peace,” Greenblatt said.
But in March 2017, According to a senior Israeli Foreign Ministry official, while not directly mentioning the term “two-state solution,” Greenblatt repeatedly implied when meeting with Israeli officials, Netanyahu included, a future Palestinian state – and even back then suggested a summit that would include Trump, Netanyahu and Abbas.
In the time that has passed since that visit, Greenblatt appears to have tightened the White House’s relationship with the PA in Ramallah—those folks were quite suspicious initially—while indicating time and again to the leaders of “America’s eternal ally” that it would be best if settlement construction be kept to a minimum.
And on Wednesday, following Trump’s visit and glowing embrace of all things Jewish-State, Israel’s Channel 10 TV reported that the Administration expects Netanyahu to fork over some Area C land—under full Israeli control, to his PA neighbors, by reclassifying them as Area B (Arab civilian control, IDF security).
And these days you can’t talk about Jason Greenblatt and the renewed “peace plan” without mentioning former Justice Minister, MK Tzipi Livni (Zionist Camp).
Some time in February or March, Tzipi Livni has attached herself to Greenblatt, in what could turn out to be her final attempt at attaining international fame. It was a move that wouldn’t shame Veep’s Selina Meyer (the amazingly gifted Julia Louis-Dreyfus). After PM Netanyahu torpedoed UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres’s offer to crown Livni his deputy secretary-general, the Israeli politician holding the record for jumping ship (5 jumps) somehow ended up being Middle East peace envoy Jason Greenblatt’s unofficial adviser on how to maneuver through both the Netanyahu and Abbas political quagmire.
@jdgreenblatt45 Thank you for a wonderful evening & an important discussion on future of peace process. @POTUS dedication makes me hopeful
— ציפי לבני (@Tzipi_Livni) March 26, 2017
Tzipi and Jason spent Shabbat together in March, and you can bet your grandmother’s silver kiddush cup the two conspirators stayed up late as Tzipi was feeding Jason everything she knows on how to break down Bibi’s resistance.
OK, now let’s be real…
The fact is that none of the above, starting with the headline, is based on much more than pure speculation. Unlike the rest of the Trump team, Greenblatt, Kushner, the President and Ivanka are holding their cards very close to their vests. As to our assertion that Israel’s true friends are Trump’s VP, Chief Strategist, and Ambassador – that, too, is based on sheer speculation, although the three have been on the record as extremely loyal to the Jewish State. Yes, including Bannon, who occasionally associates with folks who say very unkind things about Jews.
Ambassador Friedman was forced to tone down his anti-Palestinian statements to pass the Senate confirmation. He is aware of the limits on what he can and can’t say, now that he’s got the job. But in a political reality in which moving the US embassy to Jerusalem has become the litmus test of a politician’ love for Israel, there’s no doubt where Friedman stands.
As to Vice President Pence – we believe he is a true Christian believer, and that, were it up to him, the embassy would have moved on Trump’s inauguration day. We believe that when he promised the move, he was wholeheartedly behind it.
And Bannon – according to a recent story in the Atlantic, he keeps in his office a list of Trump’s campaign promises which have been abandoned, and the embassy move is right up there. We think he favors the move not only because it is good for Israel’s rightwing, but also because it is bad for the Muslims everywhere. Let’s face it, moving the embassy would mean an irreversible change of US policy towards the Arabs.
It would be almost as if Netanyahu were to allow Jews to pray on the Temple Mount…