During the course of the presidential campaign, Candidate Trump went to great lengths to present himself as a thoroughgoing supporter of Israel. No, not of the bogus J Street variety who would substitute his own judgments for those of Israel’s government. And not of the Obama variety who would provide handsomely for Israel’s military defense but also undermine its political future by largely adopting an Arab Middle East narrative.
A Trump administration would lean toward maximum leeway for settlement growth. It would do whatever had to be done to thwart UN gang-ups against Israel. It would relocate the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. It would undertake to persuade the Arabs that pursuit of a negotiated settlement would not include pressure on Israel to give up the leverage it earned in soundly defeating Arab armies bent on its destruction.
On the economic front, Israel’s natural growth would not be subject to boycott, divestment and sanction efforts. Israel’s incomparable technological capacity would be allowed to take Israel, unfettered, anywhere it led. And Israel’s remarkable achievements in agricultural innovation would be used to combat hunger across the globe.
To be sure, two months into the new Trump administration, the embassy is still in Tel Aviv and President Trump told Prime Minister Netanyahu to hold back on settlements “for a bit” to help with negotiations. But there was a somewhat artificial sense of urgency surrounding those issues spawned, ironically, by Mr. Trump’s campaign rhetoric suggesting he would move on those issues promptly upon assuming office. Realistically, though, they are plainly not the stuff of rush jobs.
On the other hand, could even the most optimistic among us have imagined the swift and complete turnabout in America’s posture at the UN, where Ambassador Nikki Haley has taken up the cudgels for the U.S. and Israel forcefully and routinely?
So while the process of overhauling U.S. Middle East policy seems to be on track, albeit still in its initial stages, we do have some questions.
Mr. Trump seemed to underscore his commitment to a complete departure from Obama Mideast policy with several very telling high-level appointments. He chose a longtime senior employee, Jason Greenblatt, as his adviser on international relations; tabbed Jared Kushner as a special envoy tasked with nothing less than bringing peace to the Middle East; and picked his former bankruptcy lawyer, David Friedman, as U.S. ambassador to Israel.
Each of these gentlemen has had a long and very close relationship with Israel and none has shied away from supporting the settlement community. Indeed, it always seemed to us that Mr. Trump was going out of his way with these appointments – perhaps most significantly that of his son-in-law Mr. Kushner – to signal the seriousness of his commitment to Israel.
We are not sure, however, what to make of the president’s designation of Mr. Kushner this week to head the new Office of American Innovation. Mr. Kushner reportedly will be working with corporate giants on the level of Apple’s Tim Cook and Microsoft’s Bill Gates to make government bureaucracy and decision-making more tech savvy and data reliant.
Clearly, Middle East peacemaking is a full-time job. Foreign policy professionals of the caliber of Dennis Ross have spent years working around the clock in that endeavor. How Mr. Kushner, who has no foreign policy experience, will be able to deal with the complexities of Mideast diplomacy and deal making while accommodating his schedule to the demands of his new wide-ranging Innovation assignment is difficult to understand.
Additionally, recent discussions with Israeli and Palestinian leaders were led by Mr. Greenblatt, not Mr. Kushner. Of course, Ambassador Friedman – who can be expected to be a player – was just confirmed and has yet to take office. But the emergence of Mr. Greenblatt and the new job title for Mr. Kushner, while certainly not troublesome in themselves, suggest some indecision.