Middle East Peace and Trump’s New Art of the Deal by Larry Johnson

Well, it looks like there is going to be an early Thanksgiving feast in Washington, DC, but instead of gobbling down Turkey as the featured protein, the main serving will be Crow. And there is a lot of Crow for Washington insiders and other Deep-Staters to wolf down in the aftermath of Trump’s stunning brokering of a Middle East Peace Deal that appears to put the threat of war between Jews and Arabs on the back burner.

Count me as one who might have to nibble at a Crow drumstick. I was skeptical two years ago that Trump’s May of 2018 move to put the US Embassy in Jerusalem and officially recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital was smart strategically. I thought it was foolish, misguided and laden with hubris. But I did credit Trump for delivering on a promise that his predecessors–both Republican and Democrat–were loathe to fulfill.

Most of the global reaction was harsh and pessimistic. The UN General Assembly went ballistic with a torrent of condemnatory words:

The UN General Assembly held a rare emergency special session at the request of Arab and Muslim states, after Trump’s shock decision heightened tensions in the Middle East.

The resolution effectively called on the US to withdraw its recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and was backed by the overwhelming majority of members.

A total of 128 countries voted for the resolution on December 21, 2017.

Just nine voted no: the US and Israel, plus Guatemala, Honduras, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau and Togo.

Thirty-five nations abstained, including Canada, Mexico and Australia, and 21 countries didn’t turn up for the vote.

Most of our allies were seized with similar bouts of angst and anger:

Theresa May reiterated the UK’s support for continued negotiation, saying that she wants the two countries to have the city as a “shared capital”.

She said: “We continue to support a two-state solution. We recognise the importance of Jerusalem.”

France’s Emmanuel Macron called on the White House to step back from the announcement, while Pope Francis defended the “status quo” of the city as he prayed that “wisdom and prudence prevail”.

Key allies in the region also chimed in with their displeasure:

Trump’s announcement drew criticism from international leaders at the time, with Jordan’s King Abdullah II warning that moving the U.S. Embassy “will undermine the efforts of the American administration to resume the peace process and fuel the feelings of Muslims and Christians,” the New York Times reported.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan also expressed dismay at Trump’s decision, threatening to sever diplomatic ties with Israel should the U.S. recognize Jerusalem as the capital,

The biggest crow eater in the United States has to be Obama’s Secretary of State, John Kerry. As a prophet, he sucks:

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who will leave office in two weeks’ time, warned on Friday of “an absolute explosion” in the Middle East should President-elect Donald Trump decide to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem. . . .

Such a move could lead to violence flaring up in Israel, the West Bank and across the Middle East, and have a negative impact on relations between Israel, Egypt and Jordan, he said on Friday.

“You’d have an explosion,” he said in an interview with CBS. “You’d have an explosion – an absolute explosion in the region, not just in the West Bank and perhaps even in Israel itself, but throughout the region. The Arab world has enormous interest in the Haram al-Sharif, as it is called, the Temple Mount, the Dome [of the Rock], and it is a holy site for the Arab world.”

“And if all of a sudden Jerusalem is declared to be the location of our embassy, that has issues of sovereignty, issues of law that it would deem to be affected by that move and by the United States acquiescing in that move, and that would have profound impact on the readiness of Jordan and Egypt to be able to be as supportive and engaged with Israel as they are today,” he said.

I hope you’re sitting down. I have a shocking alert. John Kerry was wrong. Very wrong. One of Kerry’s acolytes, Ilan Goldberg, echoed his boss’s jeremiad but correctly identified Trump’s strategy:

The Trump administration seems to be counting on Arab states, especially Saudi Arabia, to force the Palestinians to accept its plan. The theory is that the Arab states have moved on from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and are more interested in fighting Iran.

So far, three Arab states have signed on to the Trump peace plan and it appears others are waiting in the wings. If that turns out to be the case and this maneuver succeeds in ultimately bringing about a two state solution for Israel and the Palestinians, it is a fair bet that Trump will have a well-deserved Nobel Peace Prize in hand. And this from a guy the Democrats dismiss as a buffoon and incompetent. If this is foolishness and fecklessness, I am ready for some more.

Trump also is right to assert that he has accomplished more in the Middle East for good in less than four years than Barack Obama and George Bush did in their combined 16 year reign of bumbling. Trump is like the fat kid who claimed he could play basketball and was derided by all the cool athletes. Yet, once he got on the court and had the ball in hand, he’s been sinking three pointers and making it look easy. Time will tell if this is real talent or a mere fluke. Meanwhile, honest men and women, regardless of political affiliation, should admit, Trump was right. What condiment makes Crow taste good?

Comments

[Jimmy_W]

Babak,
There are some kinds of precedent for an "International City". For example, the Vatican is an ostensibly neutral and supposedly-politically-independent entity. Singapore is another "international city", though probably not "politically-independent".

Switzerland, though not a city, kind of shows the way for several different ethnicities and cultures to come together in a new political entity. (Though it emerged from independent cantons.)

So yes, Jerusalem can be an International City. Israel may have to give it up, however.

[turcopolier]

Jimmy W

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corpus_separatum_(Jerusalem)

[BABAK MAKKINEJAD]

Jimmy_W

Per your examples, you are suggesting the creation of a sovereign city-state.

Members of which religion would call the shots in that city?

I do not believe either Muslims, or Jews, or Protestant Christians would accept such a thing; even conceptually.

The Orthodox and Catholic Christians may accept it.

[turcopolier]

Babak

the Muslims seized the city from the Byzantines by force of arms. the Crusaders seized it back after 400 years and held it for a hundred years plus two ten year later tenancy by hudna. The British seized it from the Turks in 1918. The Israelis seized it in 1967. Salah al-Din? dream on.

[turcopolier]

babak

Are you the real Babak? Surely you know that the UN Partition Resolution of 1947 made the Holy City a corpus separatum to be run by the UN. you said you are enamored of the UN. you don't sound like it.

[BABAK MAKKINEJAD]

Col. Lang:

The world changes and the dream lives on.

I am stating the way things are...that only war will free Al Quds.

[turcopolier]

babak

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_city

I thought you loved the UN.

[BABAK MAKKINEJAD]

Col. Lang

I do not love the UN, nor do I hate it.

I just do not believe that the core religious issues of war over Al Quds can be settled in any other way.

In any case, none of the antagonists will settle for an International City; a rational approach. But if people were rational, we would not have been in this state in Palestine in any case.

Hudna is the most practical way forward - but WASPS and Jews will not accept it; in my opinion.

[different clue]

Babak Makkinejad,

If an ISIS 2.0 arises and takes Al Quds by war and rules it according to its own belief in ISISlam, would that make Al Quds a free city?

[Offtrail]

Larry, the "Arab Street" is not involved in this. The UAE and Bahrain have hardly any Arabs. Of their combined population of 10.4 million, only two million are citizens. The others are guest workers.

It's doubtful that this represents a sea change in how the Arab public views Israel.

We'll see if MBS follows suit in Saudi Arabia. If he does he's probably not long for the throne.

[turcopolier]

offtrail

Having held a residency in Dubai, I can assure you that the expat worker population of the UAE and Bahrein is completely inert politically and only there for the money. It's the locals who matter.

[BABAK MAKKINEJAD]

different clue

Such an event would widely be welcomed by Ummah; Al Quds having been freed from the clutches of infidels.

There would be jubilation across the Muslim World and it will make ISIS a potent political & religious force.

It will weaken Iran - marginally - and Turkey & Ikhwan materially - and thoroughly route the post-colonial regimes among Arabs.

It is debatable if Jordan, Sudan, and Egypt would survive as their populations would flock to the banner of the modern-day Salah Al Din (during the Great Patriotic War, the memory of Marshall Kutozov was on the minds of many a Russian.)

It would make Salafi Islam the dominant form of Islam for decades, if not centuries.

But that is now all academic; just like Saddam Hussein who lacked the vision of conquering Saudi Arabia and was hoping to be left alone with Kuwait; ISIS lacked the vision to take its war to Israel - rather than the Shia and their affiliates. Her paymasters did not wish it to harm Israel, but Iran and the Shia.

[different clue]

Babak Makkinejad,

So an ISIS 2.0 treating people the same way as ISIS 1.0 treated/treats people would be a welcome liberator in the eyes of the Muslim peoples? Interesting . . .

I had always considered ISIS to have hidden engineers rather than paymasters. I had considered, and still suspect, ISIS to be largely a visible containment dome hiding a core
of still-disgruntled Baathists and ex-Baathists . . . including the whole Baathist intelligence and secret police apparatus.

If ISIS in fact had paymasters, who were those paymasters?

[Serge]

different clue,

In Iraq, some sunni arab populations lived better lives under ISIS than they lived under Maliki's government, and others clearly derived direct benefit from ISIS policies. And there was nothing antithetical or unislamic about the ISIS way of life to these people, ISIS laws are the exact same social policies that you would find in a gulf country or any other conservative islamic society. In 2014-2015 sunni Iraqis were flocking back to ISIS territory from government areas. The populations that formed the core of ISIS rule in Syria were always anti government smugglers who were themselves the core of certain cadres of the ISIS predecessor,the Islamic State of Iraq, in the 2000s. Baathist officers did form an important core of ISI and then ISIS, but their importance is often overstated. The core of ISIS are simply sunni veterans of the 2000s iraq war, of all stripes, not necessarily baathists. Saddam did however pave the way for all this with his Faith Campaign in the 90s.
Regarding the paymasters comment, I have always stated this since 2014: ISIS is arguably the only independent faction in the whole iraq/syrian conflict. No state actor ever directly supported them, although there were many influential private citizens(from the gulf) that did, to reap the benefits of supporting jihad in the afterlife. Just like ISI in the 2000s or afghanistan before that. Some sides like the Turks abetted them when faced with the reality of kurdish supremacy, a case of the near/far enemy. But no direct support, although they certainly diverted/siphoned millions of obama's indirect support to the rebels over periods of years.

[Babak makkinejad]

Serge

When asked "Why are you not fighting Israel?", the captured jihadists in Syria often replied: "We were not ordered to do so."

I surmised that Shia were worse than Jew.

One member of a captured ISIS team on a mission to Iran, said, during interrogation, "Why is Iran interfering with us getting ourselves slave girls?"

[English Outsider]

Looks like some nonsense cobbled together to keep the Evangelicals/Christian Zionist voters in hand for the next Presidential election. In the meantime a license for more slow motion ethnic cleansing one olive grove at a time.

That it can be discussed as a serious proposition is disturbing.

[Serge]

Babak,
It is not difficult to see why salafis would rather see the Jews in control of al Quds, than to see twelver self-flagellation rituals in the streets of the city and husseinyahs in the public squares(as you see them today in Damascus and Baghdad-cities considered bastions of sunnism from the salafi-nationalistic point of view that ISIS and other groups subscribe to).
I would give short shrift to most televised interrogations of captured ISIS members. There are some good ones in the mix . But 95% are staged propaganda productions.

[turcopolier]

Babak

I will match your fantasy with another. We will raise an international army of crusaders to fight you OR the Jews for Jerusalem.

[BABAK MAKKINEJAD]

Col. Lang:

Israelis invaded Lebanon in 1982 and conquered that country.

In 2020 they find themselves in a M.A.D. situation with Lebanon.

And whom do you mean by "We"?

Not the Catholic Church - no such Declaration of Crusade if forthcoming.

The United States? She already owns that bear - she has conquered Palestine through her proxy forces, a.k.a. IDF.

[turcopolier]

babak

You seem to have lost your sense of humor. I said it was a fantasy.

[wtofd]

Babak, UN sovereignty over the Old City. If Israel insists on control of the Jewish Quarter, so be it. Yes, I know this is a pipedream.

[Babak makkinejad]

Col. Lang

Yes. You could be right.

[J]

I have wonder how this and any other 'peace deal' will play when Israel's government decides to re-build the Temple of Solomon. That will really create a firestorm.

Could that be the match that strikes the fire that 1st Thessalonians 5 is referring to peace and then sudden destruction in the Day of the Lord?

Can you imagine the level of blood up the bridle of a horse spilled for 180 miles (the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs) spoken in Revelations 14:20.

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation+14%3A20&version=KJV

[J]

Third Arab nation to reach peace agreement with Israel in next 2 days: US envoy

https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/third-arab-nation-to-reach-peace-agreement-with-israel-in-next-2-days-us-envoy/