When Jared Kushner made his address at the inauguration of the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem, he said that this would take the peace process forward. Because now, he says, the issue of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel was off the table. The major fallacy here is that every nation has a right to choose its own capital, but it should be in its own territory. Jerusalem is not universally accepted as Israeli territory because West Jerusalem was annexed by Israel in 1947 and East Jerusalem was taken by Israel following the 1967 war. But none of this has been accepted by more than a few countries.
On the other hand, the killings on the Gaza which happened just as the embassy was being launched is not attracting as much sympathy around the world as it could, because there is a wide perception that it is largely an event staged by Hamas.
Trump has said that he wanted to bring the peace process forward in Israel and Palestine. What he has done is not taking the peace process forward but in fact, destroying it. Nobody can take the Jerusalem issue off the table except Israel and Palestine. The U.S should be an honest broker in the peace process, at best. And that is not possible now because it is seen as being solidly in the pocket of Netanyahu.
Netanyahu is destroying credibility in large parts of the Jewish population of America. Mainstream Jews and conservative Jews no longer support him. Mainstream Americans support him even less, so it’s just Evangelicals and far-right Jews that now still support the Israeli Prime Minister. Netanyahu could speak in front of the US Senate but he could not speak in an American campus. Not unless he brings the National Guard with him, according to Pulitzer Prize winner Tom Friedman.
Tom Friedman has long been an advocate of the two country solution which he says, “is the only way peace can be achieved, because the trouble in Palestine is that everybody has a point to make and everybody could make a point, but peace can only be achieved when everybody agrees to compromise.”
According to Tom Friedman, as an American Jew, when in Israel, he feels three things. One is that Israel is a very impressive state and has created science, technology, agriculture of world class. But the other thing is that there is wide perception that the Israel state does bad things inside its borders. And the third thing is that Israel is living in a very bad neighborhood. So, the factions who harp on the excellence of the Israel state, also have to realize what bad stuff Israel is doing in aggression and occupancy. The other thought is that how can you do anything if you don’t do anything about living in the neighborhood.
This is the dilemma of the peace process. When Trump said he was the master of the art of the deal, what he is doing now is the art of the giveaway. Because he gave away the one asset America has, which is some kind of control over the status of
Jerusalem. Now he has given away the status of Jerusalem to the Israel government. There’s nothing left to give away. Instead, he may have actually given away the embassy in Jerusalem while asking for a freeze of Israel settlements in the left West Bank. That would be a deal, the only path to peace.
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