Trump’s productive Middle East failure, Israel Hayom, Jonathan S. Tobin, June 30, 2017
What the Palestinians fail to understand is that ending PA support for terror is itself a core issue that must be addressed now, and it is not a distraction from the real diplomatic agenda.
It’s hardly surprising that the Palestinians are having trouble adjusting to the administration’s mindset. Since neither the Americans nor the Europeans have been much interested in the Palestinians’ terror payments and incitement, they seem to view Trump’s focus on those issues as an indication that he is in Israel’s pocket. Former President Barack Obama was obsessed with the idea that pressure on Israel was the key to peace and was willing to give the Palestinians a pass on anything they did. But Trump rightly understands that as long as the Palestinians are funding terror — and doing so with money given them by the West — they can’t be considered serious about peace.
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It didn’t take long for the bubble to burst. The chance of U.S. President Donald Trump achieving a breakthrough in Middle East peace that had eluded all his predecessors was always slim. But reports about Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas yelling at presidential adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner during their meeting last week may signal that the Trump initiative is over even before it begins.
The president’s critics should acknowledge that even if the effort was bound to end in failure, it nevertheless points toward the only way peace can be achieved. By focusing on the Palestinians’ willingness to foment and subsidize terror, the U.S. has exposed a key problem that the Obama administration ignored. Rather than this obstructing peace, it is an important step without which genuine progress toward ending the conflict will be impossible.
The meeting between Kushner and Abbas went badly. The Palestinians were shocked that Kushner followed up on the key sticking point that had arisen between Trump and the Palestinian leader during their two meetings in May. Abbas claimed during their first encounter in the White House that the PA was not engaging in incitement to hatred against Israelis and that it did not pay salaries or pensions to terrorists and their families. By the time they met again, Trump had learned that Abbas had lied to him about both issues and reportedly pounded the table as he demanded that the Palestinian leader end these practices.
But when Kushner and chief U.S. peace negotiator Jason Greenblatt raised the issue again with Abbas, the Palestinians were angry. As far as Abbas was concerned, the Americans were merely relaying a list of demands from Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, when Abbas had been expecting to hear about American positions on “core issues of the conflict,” by which he meant strategies to stop Israel from building in the West Bank and push it back to the 1967 borders.
What the Palestinians fail to understand is that ending PA support for terror is itself a core issue that must be addressed now, and it is not a distraction from the real diplomatic agenda.
It’s hardly surprising that the Palestinians are having trouble adjusting to the administration’s mindset. Since neither the Americans nor the Europeans have been much interested in the Palestinians’ terror payments and incitement, they seem to view Trump’s focus on those issues as an indication that he is in Israel’s pocket. Former President Barack Obama was obsessed with the idea that pressure on Israel was the key to peace and was willing to give the Palestinians a pass on anything they did. But Trump rightly understands that as long as the Palestinians are funding terror — and doing so with money given them by the West — they can’t be considered serious about peace.
The administration denies reports that it is considering backing away from the push for negotiations. But the president may realize that his statement after his first meeting with Abbas, in which he claimed that Middle East peace “is not as difficult as most people thought,” was more than premature.
While few thought his willingness to prioritize the peace process was likely to be rewarded with success, his thinking that the time is ripe for a breakthrough was rational. With Sunni Arab states now looking at Israel as an ally against the threat from Iran, it was reasonable to suppose that this confluence of interests might result in an effort to pressure the Palestinians to settle their dispute with Israel.
However, the theory that the Palestinians can be either pushed or bribed by the Saudis into making peace is now being called into doubt.
As long as the Palestinians cling to the idea that their national identity is inextricably tied up with the century-long war on Zionism, peace will remain a pipe dream. Neither Trump’s threats nor the efforts of the Saudis are likely to persuade them to abandon a political culture in which incitement and pensions for terrorists — on which they have lavished more than $1.1 billion in just the last four years — are seen as laudable. Trump is asking Abbas for something he cannot do and still survive in power.
But with Congress looking to tie his hands by considering legislation that would end U.S. aid unless the Palestinians stop the terror payments, Trump may not be willing to let this issue drop. If so, his efforts won’t lead to the “ultimate deal” he longs to broker, but it will lay the foundation for more realism about the peace process. It will also put the Palestinians on notice about what they must do if they genuinely want a two-state solution.
Jonathan S. Tobin is the opinion editor of JNS.org and a contributing writer for National Review.
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