It is hard to think of anything less wise than Donald Trump’s decision to have the US recognize Jerusalem as the capital of the Israeli state and thus relocate the American embassy there.
In amidst the fury and despair this move has caused, there needs to be a quieter and more dispassionate accounting of what has been lost and what has been gained. The obvious loss is the peace process. The status of Jerusalem was one of the key negotiating points. But the Netanyahu government in no way takes the peace process seriously, any more than any predecessor Israeli government since the signing of the Oslo Accords of 1993 and 1995. Therefore, the peace process has effectively been on life support. Hidden in plain sight was the Israeli determination to ignore both the letter and the spirit of the Oslo agreements. Settlement activity boomed in the Occupied Territories. Not the least of this has been in Jerusalem where the Israeli government sponsored the effective surrounding of the Holy City with fortress-like high-rise developments that have now cut it off from the rest of the West Bank.
The US sought, as the key player of the Middle East Quartet with the European Union, Russia and the United Nations, to play the part of honest broker. It was accepted in that role because, despite Washington’s almost slavish post-war support for Israel, that very support provided leverage. It was fondly imagined that continued US financial and military largesse would be made conditional on a just and realistic settlement for the Palestinians. The last two decades have proven just how illusory such expectations always were.
Trump’s move on Jerusalem would appear to be the surrender of a key bargaining chip for no apparent return whatsoever. Liberal US commentators, their pathologically anti-Trump barbs bent and blunted by their strong Zionists credentials, are dismissing the president’s move as a typical Trump blunder - acting first and dealing with the consequences later. Yet there will be those who suspect that what has happened is not simply the result of pressure by the president’s ultra-Zionist son-in-law Jared Kushner. Is there not perhaps a deal here to win US Zionist support to call off the investigative hellhounds that are dogging the Trump presidency, not least over the Russian connection? If Trump has sacrificed the legitimate Palestinian aspirations for Jerusalem for the sake of his own political survival, then history will revile the 45th president of the United States.
And Trump has also sacrificed considerable US influence in the Arab world. He has played into the hands of the terrorists and those, like Iran, who characterize America as the Great Satan. There is no discernible geopolitical gain for what he has done.
Indeed, his action has served to undermine moderate regional opinion that still seeks for a negotiated peace. Trump has cocked the trigger for more violence, more bloodshed, more misery and more disaster. Does he really have the faintest clue of what he has done? Did he ever take the idea of a negotiated Palestinian settlement the least bit seriously? The evidence today is that he did not. No one genuinely intent on the negotiating table would take a chainsaw to one of its legs.
