Trump and Haley, Israel and Palestine
"Netanyahu is Turning Against Biden," And There's a Reason Why. Israelis, Palestinians, And All Others Beware.
To our mind, Thomas Friedman has been one of the most balanced experts when it comes to the current Israel-Gaza War. If you have not read his opinion pieces in The New York Times about it, we highly recommend that you do. If Israel had listened to him, we might have had a different conflict entirely (i.e., he has been a consistent critic of the entire strategy behind Israel’s ground incursion and intense aerial bombardment of Gaza).
In one of his most recent columns, entitled “Netanyahu is Turning Against Biden,” he correctly observes that President Biden is really running against two opponents this year: Trump and Netanyahu. As Mr. Friedman put it, “[m]aybe Trump could name Netanyahu as his running mate, and we could save a lot of time.”
Netanyahu, by no means content with waging the current war, now wishes to start another one. And this second war, believe it or not, is much more dangerous to Palestinians (and, frankly, Israelis) than the first. Why? Because Netanyahu has effectively declared war against the two-state solution. Over the objections of President Biden and Secretary of State Blinken, he has positioned himself as the person to stop any further steps towards Palestinian self-determination, Israeli safety and security, and lasting peace in Israel or Palestine.
To be clear, we are only seeing the latest in Netanyahu’s quest to undermine any hope of a two-state solution. He has been at this for decades. He started his political career with the blood of Yitzhak Rabin on his hands, and he has done no better since. He has from the beginning worked to limit the scope of the Oslo Accords, intended to provide a path to a lasting deal. He has encouraged expanded Israeli settlements into the West Bank without abandon, and he has shown no signs of bringing that madness to an end.
Could such a dangerous plan ever guarantee the Israelis and Palestinians the right to sit “under their own vine and fig tree?” Could such a dangerous plan mean anything but disaster for Israelis and Palestinians alike? We say it now, and we will say it again: there is a reason why Hamas targeted kibbutzim. Because they were exactly the types of places that would have housed Israel’s most tireless advocates for peace and a 2-state solution. Netanyahu is the answer to Hamas’s most fervent prayers.
And Trump or Haley would be the answer to Netanyahu’s most fervent prayers. Once again, all roads lead to November 2024. Either way, a Republican presidential win will suit Netanyahu’s purposes. After all, Trump and Haley have aided and abetted Netanyahu’s dangerous fantasies of complete West Bank control and mass Palestinian displacement.
In 2019, for instance, Trump’s Secretary of State Mike Pompeo reversed decades of American policy which correctly called out Israeli settlements there for what they were: violations of international law. Then, in 2020, Trump ended a decades-old ban that prohibited U.S. taxpayer funding for Israeli scientific research conducted in West Bank Jewish settlements.
We could go on and on. Whereas the Biden Administration has demonstrated little tolerance for these extremist settlers, the Trump Administration has egged them on. In other words, the Trump Administration has been Netanyahu’s most reliable partner in the “illegal [West Bank] settlement enterprise.” In fact, the Trump Administration ushered in an “aggressive Israeli settlement spree.” Apparently, to Trump and his disciples, “the dawn of a new Middle East” meant the end of any concern for Palestinians whatsoever.
Of course, let’s not forget Nikki “I’m Somehow a Moderate Republican Now” Haley’s role in Trump’s “new Middle East.” As Trump’s U.N. ambassador, she was “one of the people” who pushed Trump to take a more radical pro-Netanyahu pro-West Bank settlement position. For example, when a U.N. report on 206 companies with ties to Israeli settlements came out in early 2018, Haley denounced it as a “waste of time and resources” symptomatic of an alleged “anti-Israel obsession.”
No, Ambassador Haley, it was not an “anti-Israel obsession.” It was how we used to hold people accountable for what once were violations of international law (cough, cough). Yet why should you care about an insignificant thing like that?
Indeed, her most recent campaign trail remarks have made perfectly clear that she does not care in the least. When “asked” in December 2023 about what should happen to Gaza’s Palestinians, Haley suggested they go to “pro-Hamas countries.” “And if they [i.e., the ‘pro-Hamas countries’] won’t accept them,” she added, “it’s because they don’t know which refugees are ‘terrorists.’”
Like we have said before, all roads lead to 2024. And Netanyahu smells opportunity. He smells an opportunity for his long-awaited second war, this time against the very idea of Palestine itself. The battlefield will stretch from Gaza, to the West Bank, and to the very ends of the world stage. And the casualties of that second war will, as remarkable as it sounds, will completely overshadow the casualties of the first.
And so, we have a message for my fellow younger progressive voters out there, and for Muslim and Jewish voters across this country: please, do not give Netanyahu his day of triumph.
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