Either the regime in Tehran will implode or President Trump will negotiate a ceasefire. Irrespective, the result must be the same. The Islamic Republic’s empire must fall.
Clearly, Trump IS "The Messiah." God works in mysterious ways, His wonders to perform. Who knew that a bloated, fascist, life-long shyster, adulterer, and liar could be so beloved of the Lord? After he helps Israel slaughter lots of people in Teheran, I'm sure the Swedes will be very impressed.
What an absurd title to this piece. Trump is a sadistic narcissist who rips children from their parents, something I, and I’m sure you too, grew up angry that the Nazis did this to us. He does nothing for anyone other than himself. Praising a man who is actively dismantling the greatest experiment in self-government the world has ever known, withdrawing aid to the most needy on the planet (thereby killing hundreds of thousands in Africa), and destroying American science, the engine of much advancement in medicine and technology for the entire world, suggests that you too do not care about anyone other than yourself. Us Jews are not helpless; we have agency. Our actions do have an effect on others and influences their attitudes and behavior towards us. Your praise of Trump will only cause more people, Jews and non-Jews alike, to distance themselves from Israel make Israel into a pariah state.
Less clear than I’d like. Trump has certainly not done nearly as much evil as the Ayatollahs, but he often sounds as if he would like to. Certainly he envies authoritarian leaders their ability to crush dissent.
It’s not either or. The Tall’s, like all religious fundamentalists, are dangerous and don’t care about your humanity if you’re not one of them. Similarly, Trump is devoid of empathy and has already overseen the death of hundreds of thousands.
I am not able to respond to an argument in which the U.S. president is compared to the head of the tyrannical regime. Sure Biden is responsible for many lost lives and overstepping his authority but I wouldn’t compare him to the Ayatollah.
quite silly of you to write as if the post ws about Biden. Perhaps you are not aware that: 1. Trump's purposeful ignoring of the early Covid pandemic (because at the time it was mostly in Blue States) resulted in hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths, and 2. Trump's withdrawal of basic food and medicine aid to Africa has, by careful a=estimates, already been responsible for many thousands of deaths. The number will grow over time.
I can not say I am a great fan of Trump .. he’s rather an impulsive character with schizo traits .. but when it comes to acting in the interests of Israel, he makes a lot of sense.
being nasty online or in person is one of the main causes of the ongoing damage to our culture and society. If you have something to say, make your argument. (I also suggest you don't impute thoughts and ideas to people you don't know.) No need to be nasty.
I’m American and he’s not acting in MY best interest, which is what he’s supposed to be doing. Also, we’ll see if in the end he really does help Israel. Keep in mind that he loves Putin, and Putin is on Iran’s side. That concerns me.
You made your argument cogently and clearly. Exactly why you feel this way is clear. You improved the tenor of conversation here and in our society. I have every reason to respect your comment and your opinion.
thank you for your fabulous post that explains my previous post by using a technique most of us abandoned in 6th grade. Maybe you should either be quiet or try harder to write meaningful posts.
It may only look like three letters to you, but it means the designee is so deranged with hatred of our president that nothing he says makes sense and it’s not worth spending time seriously responding to.
I know exactly what it means. Unfortunately, you do not seem to understand how adults behave. Your post is no more mature than your 4th grader (or yourself when you were in 4th grade) calling someone "retarded". Rather than engage in intelligent discourse you seem to prefer childish name calling. Truly you are not worthy of any more of my time so I'm blocking you.
With so much clarity, it beggars belief that there are those who don’t see the evil ways of Iran .. these include the BBC, world leaders such as Macron, Starmer and Carney, organisations like the UN included.
No wonder countries like France, UK and other liberal tolerant (read : stupid) democracies have gone to the dogs.
I am a proud sufferer from Trump Derangement Syndrome, although I have it fairly well controlled. :-} That said, if he can achieve the goals Mr. Oren describes, he will deserve my grudging approval for that specific achievement.
Way too simplistic! Everyone has opinions on a huge range of issues, many of which sometimes conflict. Life is far more complicated than all or nothing loyalties to elected politicians.
When President Trump accomplishes his goal, he will be the greatest president in American history. He will have solved and insoluble situation that has gone on for a very long time. No one else could do it. Every American who is not in favor of terrorism should be supporting him 100%. This will be a bigger World Improvement then Reagan bringing down the Soviet Union.
Iran may be on its last legs, but what are Israel and America going to do about Qatar? They continue to fund millions, if not billions of dollars to terrorist regimes, provide a safe haven for the Muslim Brotherhood, host the antisemitic Al Jazeera network, and fund directly or indirectly many US politicians, lobbyists, the media, educational institutions, and military, including our own president’s closest advisors.
Trump holds grudges, and the Iranians tried to kill him twice. Iran was a sitting duck and Israel is doing the dirty work.
That said, Trump is taking a much tougher, more fearless stance on Iran than past presidents. I’ll never vote for a guy threatening my basic human rights at home here in the states, but I’m happy to commend him for this foreign policy.
Damn, you made me snort coffee out my nose with that absurd headline.
Trump didn’t do any of these things. I seem to remember a consortium of nations enforcing an international plan to curb Iran’s nuclear weapons production and Trump sabotaged it emboldening Iran in its rogue activities. Trump’s pathetic negotiations were going nowhere which is why Netanyahu freaked out and unilaterally attacked. This is fully “Bibi’s Blunder”, not Trump’s.
Secondly,”peace” comes after the fighting through a long period of nation-building. The U.S. failed at this in Iraq and Afghanistan wasting huge amounts of blood and treasure in futility. Suppose the Iranian regime does fall, who is going to finance the rebuilding of the nation? Israel can’t simply break things and just walk away exclaiming “mission accomplished”.
As General Colin Powell warned in his “Pottery Barn” remark: “If you break it, you bought it.” Israel is now the proud owner of both Gaza and now all of Iran. I warn you, it’s going to take a lot of expensive Super Glue to repair this damage. Pass the popcorn, please…
Pretty well until Trump sabotaged it by pulling the U.S. out leaving the rest of the consortium hanging. Another casualty of America First shortsightedness…
No, they were encouraged to test the limits after Trump 1.0 sabotaged the joint operations. Trump pushed the rest of the world aside because he thought he alone could negotiate a better deal. Then Netanyahu pushed Trump aside with his own reckless attack.
During that agreement, Iran built a nuke project larger than the Manhattan Project. They had the smarts to not assemble and test a simple, 1945 tech weapon while working on much greater capacity than we had at the time. Their enrichment cascade can produce several bomb's worth of very high enrichment U per month, they also have plutonium production capability plus expertise. All of that was in place in some form during the agreement to pretend and protect Iran's weapons program.
The increase in nuke capabilites happened after Trump 1.0 abondoned the coalition and with Isreal attacked Iran.
"A year after President Trump’s withdrawal, Iran began to retaliate by incrementally breaching the terms of the deal. Tehran lifted the cap on its uranium stockpile, increased enrichment beyond the allowed 3.67% and resumed and expanded activity at prohibited nuclear facilities.
Many of Iran’s advances were taken in response to provocative actions from the U.S. and Israel. In early 2020, the Trump administration killed Iranian Major General Qassem Soleimani, leader of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and soon after Tehran announced that it would no longer abide by its enrichment commitments under the deal. But, even so, Tehran said it would return to compliance if the other parties did so and met their commitments on sanctions relief.
In late 2020, Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was assassinated near Tehran, reportedly by Israel. Soon after, Iran’s Guardian Council approved a law to speed up the nuclear program by enriching uranium to 20%, increasing the rate of production, installing new centrifuges, suspending implementation of expanded safeguards agreements, and reducing monitoring and verification cooperation with the IAEA. The Agency has been unable to adequately monitor Iran’s nuclear activities under the deal since early 2021."
What had been an international effort became a unilateral attempt by the U.S. and Israel to weaken the Iranian regime. Pushing them into a corner upped the ante for everyone and here we are today using violence rather than diplomacy.
That is one point of view, and as interpretations differ I can't argue that only mine is valid. I believe that they acted in accordance with a system of deeply held beliefs, and it was a matter of when rather than if they would expand their weapons program. It is of course hard to know exactly what would happen in an alternate timeline.
But we do have an example, one with a different ideology but one which is also anti-West. That's North Korea, which was able to play the West by understanding our factional differences and internal weakness better than we do. Now they have a significant aggressive capability, one which can be leaked if desired to facilitate deniable attacks. The leadership fears its own people, each other, and the outside world, and doesn't have the same character and restraining factors as the USSR. I think NK should have been prevented from acquiring nuclear capability.
We also know the Ayatollah's ideology, as they've told us. They believe that bringing about a final battle with the infidel will bring them to the highest level of Heaven and bring on the Last Day, in which all wrong (unbelief in Islam) will be expunged from the world. Their goal is to cause weakness and confusion within what they call the Great Satan (the USA), then strike at the most damaging time. That's good war planning, you have to admit.
Having done that, they are (in their belief) 1st class right with God. Being wiped out by a return strike from the USA isn't losing, it's glory.
I'm not the best at explaining this, you can get a better account of the Ayatollah's ideology from a better writer.
We all know the ideology of the Islamic Republic and can are they are not nice neighbors. The JPOCA was a coalition of leading world powers backed by the UN Security Council. The initial agreement bought the world time until Trump sabotaged the plan. Now, the only option is military force and so far Israel is on its own.
Another option would have been to encourage internal insurrection and new secular government for Iran. Expect a repeat of the chaos we witnessed in Iraq after Bush Jr.’s fiasco and fake WMD’s. The U.S. has no dog in this fight. Let Israel join forces with the Sunni Arabs to clean up this mess. “Not my circus, not my clowns.”
Disenguous to glide right past the Israel/Palestinian issue. Think Trump can work that out too? Or do you think the problem will just go away? Bibi has two heads, one to take on Iran (which happily for him eases the salience of a few annoying domestic pesky matters he is dealing with) and one for sticking in the sand re Gaza and the West Bank. Whenever someone is into hagiography about a political leader, especially Trump and/or Bibi, let the reader take a step back and think, at least a little. David.chintz.substack.com
What are your options? So far you only offer criticism, and that’s fair but not tremendously helpful. And no, American Jews can’t all move to Israel as you suggested in response to Dan Senor’s speech at the Y (where I worked, btw, years ago). And even if they do, it will not change the attitude of your neighbors, sad to say.
Read more carefully, I never said all American Jews need to move to Israel, just a decent number. I think it would change the attitude of our neighbors. And it would’ve changed this country the way every other wave of immigration has. And I suggested a staged approach to creating a viable path to Palestinian self rule in Gaza. At least I suggested something. Bibi has avoided articulating any vision for ״the day after” and kicked the can down the road for 20 years. The Iran situation may have worked out for him (though he doesn’t deserve all the credit) but it doesn’t make the Palestinian issue go away. He gets some of the credit, but he’s not Israel’s savior and may in the end be the cause of its demise. If you and half million of your closest friends lived and voted here he would have never been able to do the damage he’s done. That deserves the attention of the Michael Orens as well
Many of my family members live in Israel, and none are Americans. So that might not help 😀.
Kicking the can down the road was an official U.S. policy toward Palestinians across several administrations. Not defending Bibi in any way but to build a path for the day after, one needs a partner on the other side - who was his partner? Hamas? PLO? They are barbarians, wrapped up in violent hateful political culture that negates living next to the Jews. What kind of day after could be articulated?
Gradually, most Israelis had to admit that Oslo wasn’t working.
So, they too reached the same conclusion that Ehud Barak did, yet Arafat said no. Israelis understood there is no partner for peace on the other side, but they didn’t want a binational state, so let’s partition the land anyway, and leave it to them to manage their side in whichever way they see fit, until they come to their senses and opt for peace. They didn’t. The rockets from Gaza didn’t stop, and no partner for peace emerged. Instead, Hamas won the elections and then slaughtered all the Fatah operatives that stayed in Gaza. That is because Hamas does not see Gaza as the Palestinian homeland. Israel itself is their idea of what they’re entitled to, and so when they say ‘occupation’ they generally don’t mean the military rule of the West Bank—they mean any sovereign Jewish presence in the Land of Israel. Adi Schwartz and Einat Wilf, both moderate leftists, explain this in their important book, The War of Return: How Western Indulgence of the Palestinian Dream Has Obstructed the Path to Peace. I know you accuse them too in your article, and I disagree with you.
...Also, as a writer and editor, I would recommend adding a question mark to your essay, since your hoped-for outcome has yet to happen: "Trump: Greatest Peacemaker of the Century?" This might engage more readers and stimulate more discussion.
If only half our country that suffers from TDS could get over their hatred and see this!
Clearly, Trump IS "The Messiah." God works in mysterious ways, His wonders to perform. Who knew that a bloated, fascist, life-long shyster, adulterer, and liar could be so beloved of the Lord? After he helps Israel slaughter lots of people in Teheran, I'm sure the Swedes will be very impressed.
Amen, if only. That means all my friends…it is very hard to be with them now.
Amen.
Free, Free the Iranians from the Mountains to the sea!!
Free. free humanity from the insanity of Iranian terrorcide!
Free, free Israel from the Iranian threat of genocide!
What an absurd title to this piece. Trump is a sadistic narcissist who rips children from their parents, something I, and I’m sure you too, grew up angry that the Nazis did this to us. He does nothing for anyone other than himself. Praising a man who is actively dismantling the greatest experiment in self-government the world has ever known, withdrawing aid to the most needy on the planet (thereby killing hundreds of thousands in Africa), and destroying American science, the engine of much advancement in medicine and technology for the entire world, suggests that you too do not care about anyone other than yourself. Us Jews are not helpless; we have agency. Our actions do have an effect on others and influences their attitudes and behavior towards us. Your praise of Trump will only cause more people, Jews and non-Jews alike, to distance themselves from Israel make Israel into a pariah state.
Hard to believe there are those who support a nuclear evil theology which funds terror and death.
I guess your light is ‘on’, but there is no one at home.
You might not know this, but it’s possible to dislike both Trump AND the Ayatollahs.
Yes, but one would hope there is a clear moral distinction.
Less clear than I’d like. Trump has certainly not done nearly as much evil as the Ayatollahs, but he often sounds as if he would like to. Certainly he envies authoritarian leaders their ability to crush dissent.
No comment
It’s not either or. The Tall’s, like all religious fundamentalists, are dangerous and don’t care about your humanity if you’re not one of them. Similarly, Trump is devoid of empathy and has already overseen the death of hundreds of thousands.
Both should be opposed
I am not able to respond to an argument in which the U.S. president is compared to the head of the tyrannical regime. Sure Biden is responsible for many lost lives and overstepping his authority but I wouldn’t compare him to the Ayatollah.
quite silly of you to write as if the post ws about Biden. Perhaps you are not aware that: 1. Trump's purposeful ignoring of the early Covid pandemic (because at the time it was mostly in Blue States) resulted in hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths, and 2. Trump's withdrawal of basic food and medicine aid to Africa has, by careful a=estimates, already been responsible for many thousands of deaths. The number will grow over time.
I know I can dislike both.
I can not say I am a great fan of Trump .. he’s rather an impulsive character with schizo traits .. but when it comes to acting in the interests of Israel, he makes a lot of sense.
being nasty online or in person is one of the main causes of the ongoing damage to our culture and society. If you have something to say, make your argument. (I also suggest you don't impute thoughts and ideas to people you don't know.) No need to be nasty.
Hear, hear.
I’m American and he’s not acting in MY best interest, which is what he’s supposed to be doing. Also, we’ll see if in the end he really does help Israel. Keep in mind that he loves Putin, and Putin is on Iran’s side. That concerns me.
You are deranged and almost everything you said isn’t true. You should be treated for your disease. Your TDS is out of control.
this is a very helpful reply.
You made your argument cogently and clearly. Exactly why you feel this way is clear. You improved the tenor of conversation here and in our society. I have every reason to respect your comment and your opinion.
TDS
thank you for your fabulous post that explains my previous post by using a technique most of us abandoned in 6th grade. Maybe you should either be quiet or try harder to write meaningful posts.
It may only look like three letters to you, but it means the designee is so deranged with hatred of our president that nothing he says makes sense and it’s not worth spending time seriously responding to.
I know exactly what it means. Unfortunately, you do not seem to understand how adults behave. Your post is no more mature than your 4th grader (or yourself when you were in 4th grade) calling someone "retarded". Rather than engage in intelligent discourse you seem to prefer childish name calling. Truly you are not worthy of any more of my time so I'm blocking you.
You speak truth.
Michael Oren, formidable summary.
With so much clarity, it beggars belief that there are those who don’t see the evil ways of Iran .. these include the BBC, world leaders such as Macron, Starmer and Carney, organisations like the UN included.
No wonder countries like France, UK and other liberal tolerant (read : stupid) democracies have gone to the dogs.
I’m Canadian, and learning how to bark.
I am a proud sufferer from Trump Derangement Syndrome, although I have it fairly well controlled. :-} That said, if he can achieve the goals Mr. Oren describes, he will deserve my grudging approval for that specific achievement.
If you really feel this way then you don't have TDS. Those with TDS will side with Iran rather than see Trump have a success.
Way too simplistic! Everyone has opinions on a huge range of issues, many of which sometimes conflict. Life is far more complicated than all or nothing loyalties to elected politicians.
Trump is incapable of being the greatest of anything besides grifter, crook and bully. Don't hold your breath looking for help from him.
TDS
When President Trump accomplishes his goal, he will be the greatest president in American history. He will have solved and insoluble situation that has gone on for a very long time. No one else could do it. Every American who is not in favor of terrorism should be supporting him 100%. This will be a bigger World Improvement then Reagan bringing down the Soviet Union.
Come out of your TDS BS cave and check out the real world.
Iran may be on its last legs, but what are Israel and America going to do about Qatar? They continue to fund millions, if not billions of dollars to terrorist regimes, provide a safe haven for the Muslim Brotherhood, host the antisemitic Al Jazeera network, and fund directly or indirectly many US politicians, lobbyists, the media, educational institutions, and military, including our own president’s closest advisors.
Trump holds grudges, and the Iranians tried to kill him twice. Iran was a sitting duck and Israel is doing the dirty work.
That said, Trump is taking a much tougher, more fearless stance on Iran than past presidents. I’ll never vote for a guy threatening my basic human rights at home here in the states, but I’m happy to commend him for this foreign policy.
Strength is the only language Iran understands.
Damn, you made me snort coffee out my nose with that absurd headline.
Trump didn’t do any of these things. I seem to remember a consortium of nations enforcing an international plan to curb Iran’s nuclear weapons production and Trump sabotaged it emboldening Iran in its rogue activities. Trump’s pathetic negotiations were going nowhere which is why Netanyahu freaked out and unilaterally attacked. This is fully “Bibi’s Blunder”, not Trump’s.
Secondly,”peace” comes after the fighting through a long period of nation-building. The U.S. failed at this in Iraq and Afghanistan wasting huge amounts of blood and treasure in futility. Suppose the Iranian regime does fall, who is going to finance the rebuilding of the nation? Israel can’t simply break things and just walk away exclaiming “mission accomplished”.
As General Colin Powell warned in his “Pottery Barn” remark: “If you break it, you bought it.” Israel is now the proud owner of both Gaza and now all of Iran. I warn you, it’s going to take a lot of expensive Super Glue to repair this damage. Pass the popcorn, please…
"I seem to remember a consortium of nations enforcing an international plan to curb Iran’s nuclear weapons production"
And how did that work out?
Pretty well until Trump sabotaged it by pulling the U.S. out leaving the rest of the consortium hanging. Another casualty of America First shortsightedness…
Did They Stop? (hint: No they didn't).
No, they were encouraged to test the limits after Trump 1.0 sabotaged the joint operations. Trump pushed the rest of the world aside because he thought he alone could negotiate a better deal. Then Netanyahu pushed Trump aside with his own reckless attack.
During that agreement, Iran built a nuke project larger than the Manhattan Project. They had the smarts to not assemble and test a simple, 1945 tech weapon while working on much greater capacity than we had at the time. Their enrichment cascade can produce several bomb's worth of very high enrichment U per month, they also have plutonium production capability plus expertise. All of that was in place in some form during the agreement to pretend and protect Iran's weapons program.
The increase in nuke capabilites happened after Trump 1.0 abondoned the coalition and with Isreal attacked Iran.
"A year after President Trump’s withdrawal, Iran began to retaliate by incrementally breaching the terms of the deal. Tehran lifted the cap on its uranium stockpile, increased enrichment beyond the allowed 3.67% and resumed and expanded activity at prohibited nuclear facilities.
Many of Iran’s advances were taken in response to provocative actions from the U.S. and Israel. In early 2020, the Trump administration killed Iranian Major General Qassem Soleimani, leader of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and soon after Tehran announced that it would no longer abide by its enrichment commitments under the deal. But, even so, Tehran said it would return to compliance if the other parties did so and met their commitments on sanctions relief.
In late 2020, Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was assassinated near Tehran, reportedly by Israel. Soon after, Iran’s Guardian Council approved a law to speed up the nuclear program by enriching uranium to 20%, increasing the rate of production, installing new centrifuges, suspending implementation of expanded safeguards agreements, and reducing monitoring and verification cooperation with the IAEA. The Agency has been unable to adequately monitor Iran’s nuclear activities under the deal since early 2021."
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/iran-nuclear-deal/
What had been an international effort became a unilateral attempt by the U.S. and Israel to weaken the Iranian regime. Pushing them into a corner upped the ante for everyone and here we are today using violence rather than diplomacy.
That is one point of view, and as interpretations differ I can't argue that only mine is valid. I believe that they acted in accordance with a system of deeply held beliefs, and it was a matter of when rather than if they would expand their weapons program. It is of course hard to know exactly what would happen in an alternate timeline.
But we do have an example, one with a different ideology but one which is also anti-West. That's North Korea, which was able to play the West by understanding our factional differences and internal weakness better than we do. Now they have a significant aggressive capability, one which can be leaked if desired to facilitate deniable attacks. The leadership fears its own people, each other, and the outside world, and doesn't have the same character and restraining factors as the USSR. I think NK should have been prevented from acquiring nuclear capability.
We also know the Ayatollah's ideology, as they've told us. They believe that bringing about a final battle with the infidel will bring them to the highest level of Heaven and bring on the Last Day, in which all wrong (unbelief in Islam) will be expunged from the world. Their goal is to cause weakness and confusion within what they call the Great Satan (the USA), then strike at the most damaging time. That's good war planning, you have to admit.
Having done that, they are (in their belief) 1st class right with God. Being wiped out by a return strike from the USA isn't losing, it's glory.
I'm not the best at explaining this, you can get a better account of the Ayatollah's ideology from a better writer.
We all know the ideology of the Islamic Republic and can are they are not nice neighbors. The JPOCA was a coalition of leading world powers backed by the UN Security Council. The initial agreement bought the world time until Trump sabotaged the plan. Now, the only option is military force and so far Israel is on its own.
Another option would have been to encourage internal insurrection and new secular government for Iran. Expect a repeat of the chaos we witnessed in Iraq after Bush Jr.’s fiasco and fake WMD’s. The U.S. has no dog in this fight. Let Israel join forces with the Sunni Arabs to clean up this mess. “Not my circus, not my clowns.”
Disenguous to glide right past the Israel/Palestinian issue. Think Trump can work that out too? Or do you think the problem will just go away? Bibi has two heads, one to take on Iran (which happily for him eases the salience of a few annoying domestic pesky matters he is dealing with) and one for sticking in the sand re Gaza and the West Bank. Whenever someone is into hagiography about a political leader, especially Trump and/or Bibi, let the reader take a step back and think, at least a little. David.chintz.substack.com
Do you prefer readers who are in hagiography business for Ayatollah?
Are those my only options? Sycophantic praise of leaders who think they are Churchilian is misguided, misleading and potentially dangerous.
What are your options? So far you only offer criticism, and that’s fair but not tremendously helpful. And no, American Jews can’t all move to Israel as you suggested in response to Dan Senor’s speech at the Y (where I worked, btw, years ago). And even if they do, it will not change the attitude of your neighbors, sad to say.
Read more carefully, I never said all American Jews need to move to Israel, just a decent number. I think it would change the attitude of our neighbors. And it would’ve changed this country the way every other wave of immigration has. And I suggested a staged approach to creating a viable path to Palestinian self rule in Gaza. At least I suggested something. Bibi has avoided articulating any vision for ״the day after” and kicked the can down the road for 20 years. The Iran situation may have worked out for him (though he doesn’t deserve all the credit) but it doesn’t make the Palestinian issue go away. He gets some of the credit, but he’s not Israel’s savior and may in the end be the cause of its demise. If you and half million of your closest friends lived and voted here he would have never been able to do the damage he’s done. That deserves the attention of the Michael Orens as well
Many of my family members live in Israel, and none are Americans. So that might not help 😀.
Kicking the can down the road was an official U.S. policy toward Palestinians across several administrations. Not defending Bibi in any way but to build a path for the day after, one needs a partner on the other side - who was his partner? Hamas? PLO? They are barbarians, wrapped up in violent hateful political culture that negates living next to the Jews. What kind of day after could be articulated?
Gradually, most Israelis had to admit that Oslo wasn’t working.
So, they too reached the same conclusion that Ehud Barak did, yet Arafat said no. Israelis understood there is no partner for peace on the other side, but they didn’t want a binational state, so let’s partition the land anyway, and leave it to them to manage their side in whichever way they see fit, until they come to their senses and opt for peace. They didn’t. The rockets from Gaza didn’t stop, and no partner for peace emerged. Instead, Hamas won the elections and then slaughtered all the Fatah operatives that stayed in Gaza. That is because Hamas does not see Gaza as the Palestinian homeland. Israel itself is their idea of what they’re entitled to, and so when they say ‘occupation’ they generally don’t mean the military rule of the West Bank—they mean any sovereign Jewish presence in the Land of Israel. Adi Schwartz and Einat Wilf, both moderate leftists, explain this in their important book, The War of Return: How Western Indulgence of the Palestinian Dream Has Obstructed the Path to Peace. I know you accuse them too in your article, and I disagree with you.
This important article should be distributed widely, particularly in the US where TDS infects the population.
May it all be so! From your lips to God's ears.
...Also, as a writer and editor, I would recommend adding a question mark to your essay, since your hoped-for outcome has yet to happen: "Trump: Greatest Peacemaker of the Century?" This might engage more readers and stimulate more discussion.
Michael you are absolutely on point.