Trump welcomed as not-Obama


May 23, 2017
Sarah Benton

Two articles from NY Times writers, 1) Peter Baker and Ian Fisher, 2) Isabel Kershner, followed by 3) Anshel Pfeffer who lists Trump’s advantages


President Trump at a welcoming ceremony in Tel Aviv on Monday. Photo Amir Cohen/Reuters

Trump Comes to Israel Citing a Palestinian Deal as Crucial

By Peter Baker and Ian Fisher, NY Times
May 22, 2017

JERUSALEM — President Trump began a two-day visit to Israel on Monday with a blunt assessment for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: If Israel really wants peace with its Arab neighbors, the cost will be resolving the generations-old standoff with the Palestinians.

For years, Mr. Netanyahu has sought to recalibrate relations with Sunni Arab nations in a mutual bid to counter the Shiite-led Iran, while subordinating the Palestinian dispute as a secondary issue. But as Mr. Trump arrived in Jerusalem after meetings in Saudi Arabia, the president indicated that he and those Arab states see an agreement with the Palestinians as integral to that new regional alignment.

“On those issues, there is a strong consensus among the nations of the world — including many in the Muslim world,” Mr. Trump said. “I was deeply encouraged by my conversations with Muslim world leaders in Saudi Arabia, including King Salman, who I spoke to at great length. King Salman feels very strongly and, I can tell you, would love to see peace with Israel and the Palestinians.”

Mr. Trump added that line to the remarks prepared for him, in effect tying the future of the anti-Iran coalition to the Palestinian issue despite Mr. Netanyahu’s longtime efforts to unlink the two. “There is a growing realization among your Arab neighbors that they have common cause with you in the threat posed by Iran, and it is indeed a threat, there’s no question about that,” Mr. Trump said.

The president’s arrival here opened a new chapter in Middle East peacemaking, one that will test whether a career of business deal-making can translate to success in the world of international diplomacy.

Mr. Trump sought to showcase his friendship with Mr. Netanyahu as the two shared dinner with their wives and called each other “Donald” and “Bibi,” the prime minister’s nickname.

But neither publicly cited any concrete steps in pursuing a peace agreement. Mr. Trump did not formally recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, as some Israeli officials hoped he would do since he had already shelved for now his promise to move the American Embassy here from Tel Aviv. Nor for that matter did he publicly press Israel to curb settlement construction in the West Bank as Palestinians hoped.

Mr. Netanyahu offered nothing more than a few modest gestures like extending the hours at the border crossing between the West Bank and Jordan, recycled from previous moments in the long-running dispute with the Palestinians. During his most extended comments, toward the end of the day, Mr. Netanyahu skipped right over the Palestinian question to focus on Iran.

He, too, saw the possibility of an accommodation with Arab neighbors but did not tie it to the Palestinian dispute. “For the first time in my lifetime, I see a real hope for change,” he told Mr. Trump. “The Arab leaders who you met yesterday could help change the atmosphere, and they could help create the conditions for a realistic peace.”

Even as they talked, the pressures that underscore the complexities of any negotiation were evident. More than 1,000 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank marched to the Qalandiya checkpoint from Ramallah, carrying posters of Palestinian inmates on hunger strike in Israeli prisons, and setting off clashes with Israel soldiers who fired tear-gas containers, rubber bullets and live ammunition.

In a separate incident, Israeli authorities reported that a Palestinian teenager who tried to stab police officers near a Palestinian town on the outskirts of Jerusalem was shot to death.

On the other side of the equation, Mr. Netanyahu came under continuing pressure from the right wing of his governing coalition not to make concessions. Naftali Bennett, a pro-settler cabinet minister, used the opportunity of meeting Mr. Trump in an airport receiving line to press him to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.


President Trump, centre, with PM Benjamin Netanyahu, right, and President Reuven Rivlin of Israel. Photo by Jim Hollander/European Pressphoto Agency

“He can be the one who goes into history,” Mr. Bennett told an Israeli radio station. Mr. Trump’s reported reply was noncommittal. “Trump said, ‘That’s an idea,’” Mr. Bennett recalled.

To some on the political left, the president’s message linking an anti-Iran coalition to peace with the Palestinians seemed a chance that Mr. Netanyahu should seize.

“The regional opportunity is ready and ripe,” Isaac Herzog, head of the opposition Labor Party, said in an interview after meeting Mr. Trump in the same receiving line. “I was very pleased as one who leads the Israeli opposition and the peace camp in Israel. We were very pleased that the president showed he is trying to break the impasse.”

Mr. Trump arrived on what was believed to be the first open, direct flight to Israel from Saudi Arabia, which do not have diplomatic relations, a sign of the possibility he sees for what he has called “the ultimate deal.”

After meeting with Reuven Rivlin, who holds the largely ceremonial position of president of Israel, the president toured the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, home of what is believed to be the tomb of Jesus Christ. He then became the first sitting president to visit the Western Wall, the holiest site for Jewish prayer, where he donned the traditional skullcap and left a note in a crevice.

On Tuesday, Mr. Trump is to travel the short distance to Bethlehem, in the West Bank, to meet with President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority. Mr. Trump is then scheduled to return to Jerusalem to lay a wreath at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust remembrance center, and to deliver a speech at the Israel Museum.

At the airport arrival ceremony, Mr. Netanyahu repeated his longstanding position that he “shares the commitment to peace” but with the same conditions as always. “Israel’s hand is extended in peace to all our neighbors, including the Palestinians,” he said. “The peace we seek is a genuine and durable one, in which the Israeli state is recognized, security remains in Israel’s hands, and the conflict ends once and for all.”

No previous American president has come to Israel this early in his tenure. Bill Clinton visited in his second year in office and Jimmy Carter in his third, while Richard M. Nixon, George W. Bush and Barack Obama all waited until their second terms to make the trip.

But a visit that was once anticipated as a powerful expression of solidarity between two like-minded leaders, Mr. Trump and Mr. Netanyahu, has become more complicated amid a series of logistical and political stress points.

Among other things, Mr. Trump last week disclosed to Russia’s foreign minister and ambassador some classified information that came from Israel about an Islamic State plot, potentially jeopardizing the Israeli intelligence source and deeply angering some Israeli security officials.

Determined not to spoil the visit, Mr. Netanyahu had resolved not to mention the intelligence breach publicly. When a reporter asked the two leaders about it on Monday, the prime minister brushed it off. “Intelligence cooperation is terrific,” he said. “It’s never been better.”

Mr. Trump, who said last week that he had every right to disclose the information, denied identifying Israel as the source. “I never mentioned the word or the name Israel,” he said. “Never mentioned during that conversation. They’re all saying I did, so you have another story wrong. Never mentioned the word Israel.”

The stories did not report that he had mentioned Israel by name. Instead, they quoted current and former intelligence officials as saying that he had mentioned enough details about the intelligence to potentially expose the source.

The $110 billion in arms sales that Mr. Trump announced in Saudi Arabia was also a source of concern in Israel. Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson sought to reassure the Israelis. “There has been nothing entered into with the arms sales agreements with the kingdom of Saudi Arabia or any of the other countries that do not fully allow us to fulfill our commitments to Israel and the longstanding security arrangements we have with Israel,” he told reporters on Air Force One.

Still, much as he was in Saudi Arabia, Mr. Trump was greeted by many in Israel as a welcome change from Mr. Obama, whose relationship with Mr. Netanyahu soured early on after Mr. Obama called for a settlement freeze, and only worsened when he struck an agreement with Iran intended to curb its nuclear program.

Mr. Trump repeated his criticism of the nuclear deal on Monday with Mr. Netanyahu standing by his side. He also credited Mr. Netanyahu with being serious about peace with the Palestinians, an assessment the prime minister’s critics do not share, and expressed optimism about reaching an agreement.

“I’ve heard it’s one of the toughest deals of all,” he said, “but I have a feeling we’re going to get there eventually. I hope.”

Mr. Trump and his wife, Melania, visiting the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem on Monday. Photo by Stephen Crowley/The New York Times


Preparations for Trump’s Visit Expose Political Rifts in Israel

By Isabel Kershner, NY Times
May 21, 2017

JERUSALEM — Unlike the royal pomp and ceremony with which President Trump was greeted over the weekend in Saudi Arabia, the plans for his arrival on Monday in Israel had devolved into an unseemly political ruckus before Air Force One touched down.

An infuriated Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had to order his ministers to attend the airport welcome ceremony, the Hebrew daily newspaper Haaretz reported, after he learned that most of them were planning to skip it because there was no time scheduled for Mr. Trump to shake their hands on the tarmac.

Mr. Netanyahu also had to wrestle much of Sunday in a closed cabinet meeting with right-wing ministers of his coalition to win approval of even modest gestures meant to encourage the Palestinian economy and ease conditions in the West Bank and elsewhere.

The confidence-building measures were aimed as much at convincing Mr. Trump of the Israelis’ commitment to seek an agreement as they were intended for the Palestinians. Mr. Trump has said that he wants to seal the “ultimate deal” to resolve the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict, an ambitious goal that has so far eluded two generations of American presidents and numerous international mediators.

Expectations are low for any major breakthrough during Mr. Trump’s nearly 36-hour visit to Israel and the West Bank, but neither Mr. Netanyahu nor President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority wants to risk angering the American president, or be portrayed as the reluctant party to resuming long-stalled peace talks.

Mr. Trump is scheduled to meet Mr. Abbas on Tuesday in Bethlehem, in the West Bank. The Palestinian areas are seething, with a mass hunger strike of prisoners in Israeli jails entering its sixth week and violent protests in support of the strike that have turned deadly.

On the Israeli side, Mr. Netanyahu said at the start of his cabinet meeting on Sunday that he would discuss with Mr. Trump ways to strengthen the Israeli-American alliance, and added in English: “Mr. President, we look forward to your visit. The citizens of Israel will receive you with open arms.”

But the preparations for the visit have been charged, both logistically, with major schedule changes that have left the Jerusalem police scrambling, and regarding some diplomatic and emotional issues of fundamental importance to the Israelis and Palestinians.

Some in the Israeli news media have already described the visit as “hysterical,” rather than “historical.” And squabbling within Mr. Netanyahu’s governing coalition has marred much of the festivity surrounding Mr. Trump’s visit: Right-wing politicians are disappointed that the Trump administration appears to be adhering to longstanding American policy regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and they are agitating for Mr. Netanyahu to take a tougher stance.

The Israeli government is in any case likely to be more focused on American help in containing Iran’s influence in the region, former Israeli officials said.

“For a long time, Israel’s priority has been the Iranian threat,” said Dore Gold, a former director general of Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and a longtime adviser to Mr. Netanyahu. “The shift that the Trump administration has made in wanting to block Iranian hegemonialism is significant for Israel.”

Still, many experts say any cooperation between Israel and an American-led coalition of Sunni Arab states to counter Iran would require progress on the Israeli-Palestinian front. In an interview published Sunday in Israel Hayom, a newspaper largely supportive of Mr. Netanyahu, Mr. Trump said, “I think we have a very, very good chance of making a deal.” The interview was conducted in Washington on Thursday, shortly before Mr. Trump left for the Middle East.

The measures the Israeli government approved for the Palestinians include the expansion of a West Bank industrial zone; the phased extension of operating hours at the Allenby Bridge between the West Bank and Jordan; and the authorization of Palestinian construction in the 60 percent of the West Bank that Israel fully controls, known as “Area C.” The authorization mostly pertains to buildings already constructed and slated for demolition on the edges of existing Palestinian towns.

Israeli officials played down the gestures to the Palestinians after approving them. In deference to hard-liners in the cabinet, the government also announced the establishment of a committee to retroactively push for the legalization of settler outposts and homes in the West Bank built without government authorization.

Some of the incentives appeared to be recycled. At a meeting last September at the United Nations, Israeli officials presented incentives including an upgrade to the Allenby Bridge and master plans for authorizing building in Area C.

Mr. Trump is scheduled to visit the Western Wall in the Old City of Jerusalem, making him the first sitting American president to visit the holiest site where Jews can pray. But even that has caused a political disagreement. Mr. Netanyahu wanted to accompany Mr. Trump and his family to the wall, according to Israeli news reports, to emphasize Israeli ownership of the contested area, but American officials nixed that idea, saying it is a private visit.

The wall is in East Jerusalem, an area that Israel conquered from Jordan in the 1967 Arab-Israeli War and then annexed in a move that has never been internationally recognized. The Palestinians also claim the Old City, with its Jewish, Muslim and Christian sacred sites, as part of the future capital of a Palestinian state. On Sunday, Israel kicked off its celebrations marking 50 years since the reunification of the contested city.

Bezalel Smotrich, a legislator from the Jewish Home party, suggested that members of the Knesset, or Israeli Parliament, use their parliamentary immunity to pass through the police lines at the wall during Mr. Trump’s visit as a way of asserting Israeli sovereignty.

Mr. Trump told Israel Hayom that he had not ruled out the possibility of Mr. Netanyahu accompanying him. “Going with the rabbi is more traditional,” he said, presumably referring to the rabbi of the Western Wall, Shmuel Rabinowitz. “But that could change.”

In another twist, the Americans requested Sunday that a dinner to be hosted by Israel’s defense minister, Avigdor Lieberman, on Monday for senior members of the American delegation be canceled. The guests were to include Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson; Mr. Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump; and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner. No reason was given for the cancellation.

Israelis have also been upset by Mr. Trump’s plan for a 15-minute visit to Yad Vashem, the official Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem.

“He is taking the opportunity to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust and to identify with the memory, which is meaningful,” said Simmy Allen, a spokesman for Yad Vashem. But Mr. Allen said he could not imagine the program there taking less than half an hour.


Analysis Trump’s Plan for Middle East Peace Is to Do the Opposite of Everything Obama Did

Crazy as it may sound, Trump’s haphazard approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict may succeed where Obama’s by-the-book route failed. Nine ways in which their tactics and strategies differ

By Anshel Pfeffer, Haaretz
May 20, 2017

Here’s one thing Barack Obama and Donald Trump have in common. Both of them believed early in their presidency that they would be the U.S. president to bring peace to Middle East. In his United Nations General Assembly address in September 2010, Obama felt confident enough to say that “when we come back here next year, we can have an agreement that will lead to a new member of the United Nations – an independent, sovereign state of Palestine, living in peace with Israel.”

We all know how that ended. But Trump of course is not deterred. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal on the day after his election victory, he called Israel-Palestinian peace “the ultimate deal,” and said that “as a deal maker, I’d like to do … the deal that can’t be made. And do it for humanity’s sake.”

But here’s where all similarities end. The two presidents may have shared the same goal, but so far, Trump is going about achieving it in exactly the opposite way that Obama did. And as crazy as it may sound, on this issue at least, Trump’s haphazard approach may actually have more chance of success than Obama’s. After decades of fruitless engagement, all the American by-the-book diplomacy in the region has failed to yield results. Trump’s unique style of diplomacy will at least make a change.

That’s not to say, of course, that there’s anywhere near a good chance of an Israel-Palestine peace treaty being reached. The issues on the ground remain as intractable as ever and ultimately it will be the two sides who have to bridge their wide differences – no outsider, not even the president of the United States can do it for them. And besides, Trump is very likely to be totally sucked in soon by the political turmoil at home and have no time for any foreign policy whatsoever. But in the meantime, before yet another president calls time on the peace process, it’s worthwhile to consider how this new and unorthodox approach may actually be better.

Trump sees it as a glittering prize

Obama wanted an Israeli-Palestinian agreement for the best reasons in the world, he wanted an end to hatred and bloodshed and to bring peace, prosperity and justice to all sides in the region. He dealt with the process rationally, reaching the conclusion toward the end of his administration that the U.S. couldn’t want a deal more than the Israelis and the Palestinians. He allowed John Kerry to continue his quixotic quest, but didn’t invest much effort in it any further.

Trump’s approach to the conflict, like to many other thorny issues that he is only now beginning to grasp, is visceral. He hasn’t weighed the pros and cons and won’t think through his chances of success. He wants the glittering prize, to prove that the master deal maker can deliver the “ultimate deal” that has eluded everyone else. It will probably blow up in his face – but he could also be the one to go the extra mile.

Trump is visiting Israel early

Many of Obama’s foreign policy team admit today that it was a mistake to wait for the fifth year of his presidency to visit Israel. Especially since his landmark trip abroad, early in his first term, was an overture to the Arab world, in Cairo. It may have been little more than a gesture that would have made no change in the administration’s policies and Obama’s rocky relationship with Benjamin Netanyahu – but the belated arrival reinforced the false impression that Obama was somehow anti-Israel. Putting Jerusalem on the itinerary of his first foreign trip will give Trump major credit with Israelis, including those who are still rather suspicious of his true intentions.

Trump courts the Sunnis

Obama had a detailed plan of re-ordering the balance of power in the region. It relied on the Shia Islamic Republic of Iran transforming itself into a more moderate player, even a partner. Obama’s policy yielded the deal limiting Iran’s nuclear program, but it trashed his administration’s credibility throughout the region. The Sunni nations’ leaders saw Obama as the man who abandoned Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, and their people saw him as the man who stood by while the Assad regime, together with its Iranian helpers, butchered hundreds of thousands of Syrian civilians.

There was no way they were going to trust a man busy making deals with Iran and back a controversial peace process with Israel. Let alone with Netanyahu. Trump, on the other hand, has packed his administration with anti-Iran hawks and is going out of his way to court the Sunnis: The first stop on his tour next week, before Israel, is Saudi Arabia. A Trump deal, if it ever transpires, will have wide regional backing.

Trump sends relatives, lawyers and generals

Obama allowed his Secretaries of State Hillary Clinton and John Kerry, seasoned political veterans, to take the lead in the diplomatic process, together with their teams of professional experienced diplomats. And just like all the many other professionals who spent countless years shuttling between Jerusalem, Ramallah and the Arab capitals, they came up empty.

Instead, Trump appointed his son-in-law Jared Kushner and one of his long-time personal lawyers, Jason Greenblatt, as his special plenipotentiaries to the region. Another of his lawyers, David Friedman, is the new U.S. ambassador to Israel. Meanwhile, the most senior administration officials to visit Israel so far and prepare the way for Trump have been two Marine generals: Defence Secretary James Mattis and Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff Joseph Dunford. So far Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and his depleted diplomatic corps haven’t had a chance to look in.

President Obama with Prime Minister Netanyahu at Ben-Gurion airport on March 20, 2013. The visit yielded no memorable sound bites. Moshe Milner / GPO

But who needs professional diplomats in the Middle East? Trump hasn’t even visited yet and he’s already gone native. This is the way it’s done here – Netanyahu sends his personal attorney Isaac Molho on delicate diplomatic missions. The Saudi king just appointed his son as their country’s new ambassador to Washington. And of course we all love a tough old general. That’s the way to talk to us in the orient.

Trump won’t play by the rules


Diplomacy forced PM Netanyahu to disrobe after Pres Obama had taken off his jacket.

Despite all his frustration with Netanyahu, Obama never broke the unwritten rules of the U.S.-Israel relationship. He didn’t threaten Israel that it would lose America’s financial, diplomatic or military support, and signed the largest aid deal ever with Jerusalem just before he left office. Just like every president in the last three-and-a-half decades. He also vetoed every UN Security Council resolution criticizing Israel, except the last one of his administration. Previous presidents did so much earlier in their term.

Trump has no rule book. He may still move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, he may abandon the two-state solution, and – in a fit of anger over Israeli intransigence – he may just threaten to withhold aid. The last president who seriously pressured Israel to make concessions was Jimmy Carter, who, for all his many faults, delivered the peace deal with Egypt. Maybe Trump will break the rules again?

Trump will have the support of nearly all the Congress

Whatever Obama was going to do with respect to the diplomatic process in the region, it was guaranteed that there would be major opposition in Congress, with the entire Republican Party opposing and a fair number of Democrats as well. The prospect of a congressional insurrection has always deterred presidents from being more daring. The Democrats may hate Trump but he can rely on their overwhelming support to pressure Israel to make concessions and a large number of Republicans will as well. If his notoriously short attention span ever allows him to reach a major junction on the road to peace, at least he can rely on the support of Congress.

Trump talks to everyone

“We don’t expect the Americans to agree with us, but we’ve tried for years to get a meeting with Kerry or his people and they simply ignore us,” a senior Israeli settler leader lamented last year. The Obama administration’s refusal to engage with the settlers was so complete that during his 2013 visit, to make a speech before 2,000 Israeli students, the only university whose students weren’t invited was Ariel, located in the West Bank.

Trump has no such problem. His ambassador, Friedman, is practically a settler himself, with a building in Beit El dedicated to him. Will engaging with settlers, one of the main obstacles to an Israel-Palestinian agreement, help bring peace? It can’t do any harm and it certainly would do some good for foreign politicians and diplomats to widen their range of Israeli interlocutors – from Breaking the Silence to the Yesha Council. And to do so on the Palestinian side as well of course.

Trump is happy to consider anything

For two decades, there has been only one game in town: the classic two-state solution – some form of what was defined in 2000 in the Clinton Parameters. The occupant of the Oval Office has changed three times and it’s still diplomatic orthodoxy. Obama never challenged it, instead his Secretary of State Kerry constantly spoke of the urgency of fulfilling the two-state-solution vision before it’s too late. Obama and Kerry are both now writing their memoirs and the international community still sticks to the 2SS. Everyone except Trump, who memorably said at his February meeting with Netanyahu: “I’m looking at two states and one state. I’m happy with the one they like the best.” Who knows? After toying with other ideas, Trump may settle with the old, tried and so-far-at-least failed formula, but at least he’s open-minded.

Trump loves grand spectacles

The only thing anyone remembers from Obama’s 2013 visit to Israel is how he removed his jacket, forcing Netanyahu to do the same, as they strolled across the tarmac at Ben-Gurion International Airport. The moment he was supposed to engage with the Israeli public was his speech to students at Jerusalem’s international congress centre. But the optics and sound-effects were all wrong: The dark stage seemed to swallow him up and no matter how inspirational his message of peace and hope may have looked on the teleprompter – it failed to deliver any memorable sound bites.

Trump will be here for only 24 hours but he’s going all out to create a lasting impression. There will be the first visit of a serving U.S. president to the Western Wall, which is certain to create a thousand headlines and tweets on “Trump’s Wall.” And then, of course, there’s the backdrop he chose for his signature speech: From the cliffs of Masada it really doesn’t matter what he’ll say. We won’t forget it. At the end of the day, once Air Force One takes off into the sunset, it will probably change nothing for us remaining behind, but this is a region where grand gestures sometimes work better than quiet and patient behind-the-scenes diplomacy.

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