Trump for Israel?

Donald Trump–a non-politician and multi-billionaire real estate magnate–became president-elect of the USA last Tuesday. It is turning the USA upside down. Almost all of the dozens of professional pollsters were wrong. They had the Democratic nominee–former First Lady and Secretary of State Hilary Clinton–ahead by an average of 5% of the popular vote. Actually, she did barely win the popular vote but still lost because the USA has a unique Electoral College that decides the victor.

What is Donald Trump’s relation with Jews? Well, his son-in-law is Jared Kushner, an Orthodox Jew who was a significant staff person on Donald Trump’s political campaign. Jared is married to Ivanka, who converted to her husband’s religion, and they had an Jewish Orthodox wedding. The Donald speaks with much respect for his son-in-law.

How will Trump as the U.S. president relate to Israel? Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is most happy with Mr. Trump winning the U.S. presidency. Hilary Clinton had been on record while First Lady, even without public support of her husband President Clinton at the time, that the Palestinians were deserving of their own independent state and thereby supported the two-state solution. She has never changed this position since. As for Donald Trump, he said during his political campaign that he would be “fair” in treating the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Not much more is known beyond that.

The relationship between the U.S. and Israel has been rock solid for decades. That is despite the fact that the U.S. during all this time has been Israel’s #1 ally in the world and has financially aided and militarily armed Israel while also demanding, without consequences, that it stop the increase of Jewish settlements in the West Bank. For that has been a deal breaker for the Israeli-Palestinians peace process, which really no longer has existed in recent years.

Moshe Dayan–Israel’s celebrated Army General during the 1960s and 1970s who distinguished himself by wearing a patch over one eye–once said regarding U.S. aid to Israel, “Our American friends offer us money, arms and advice. We take the money, we take the arms, and we decline the advice.”

In fact, the U.S. and Israel just signed a $38 billion, 10-year deal in which the U.S. will continue to financially aid and militarily arm Israel. Yet Donald Trump said during his political campaign that NATO members need to pay their fair share or else the U.S. may exit NATO, which now frightens some European politicians. And Trump said South Korea needs to have its own nuclear weapons to oppose those of North Korea, thus signaling that he as president would no longer favor the U.S. militarily protecting South Korea against a North Korean attack. It is all part of President-elect Trump’s program for the U.S. to move into a protectionist, isolationist mode in which it is no longer “the world’s policeman.”

Will Mr. Trump do the same with Israel? That’s highly unlikely. He said during the campaign that if president, he would move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. That is a hot potato that will irk Middle East Arabs who support Palestinians.

A recent poll says a whopping 81 percent of Evangelicals who voted in this election voted for Donald Trump. Evangelicals are now a huge voting block and thus very influential in American politics. No group in the U.S. is more favorable to Israel to the dismay of Palestinians than are Evangelicals, a view I strongly oppose. They will have a strong voice in influencing Mr. Trump to favor Israel at the expense of the Palestinians.

But not only is the Israeli-Palestinian peace process dead; the two-state solution is even more dead. After Trump’s won the election, Israel’s education minister Naftali Bennett said it meant that “the era of a Palestinian state is over.”

But everyone thinks of only one two-state solution–the one that gives the Palestinians most or all of the West Bank to be joined to the Gaza Strip with a corridor as a future Palestinian state. I have been saying for over thirty years, “it ain’t goin’ to happen,” or if it does, it won’t work and they will have to try something else. But no one thinks of an alternative two-state solution, such as the one I post about on this blog all the time that is in my book, Palestine Is Coming: The Revival of Ancient Philistia.