Donald Trump win could give Israel freer hand with Palestinians
Donald Trump‘s presidential victory has dimmed hopes for reviving Israeli-Palestinian peace process, and analysts say Israel may be given carte blanche from his administration. American presidents have long struck a delicate balance in the conflict, stressing the close U.S. friendship and lavishing the Jewish state with aid. But recent presidents also have tried to negotiate, and they have called out Israel for actions seen as undermining peace efforts, such as expanding settlements in the occupied West Bank. Trump’s role can’t be easily predicted. A foreign policy novice, the billionaire businessman takes pride in his deal-making skills and says he’d love the challenge of negotiating a Mideast agreement. He told The New York Times on Monday that it “would be such a great achievement.” He said his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, an observant Jew and a close adviser, may help make that happen. Last December, Trump told The Associated Press that he wanted to be “very neutral” and try to get both sides together. But his tone became decidedly more pro-Israel as the campaign progressed. He has spoken disparagingly of Palestinians, saying they have been “taken over” by or are condoning militant groups. Some of his top aides challenge the legitimacy of Palestinian demands for a state and have claimed that the Palestinians are a made-up people. That has cast doubt on whether he would ever question Israeli actions or even try to serve as a neutral broker. “Trump’s administration may take a totally hands-off approach,” said Yousef Munayyer, a political analyst and executive director of the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights. “Israel would have free reign to dominate the Palestinians forever and ever if there is no external involvement.” David Makovsky of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy said the volatility of the Middle East and of American political parties after a grueling campaign have made “the conclusion of a two-state solution very unlikely.” Some senior Israeli officials share that view. Cabinet Minister Naftali Bennett, head of the pro-settler Jewish Home party, said after Trump’s Nov. 8 election that “the era of a Palestinian state are over.” Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman suggested Israel could cut a deal with Trump that allowing expanded construction in major settlements while freezing building in isolated parts of the West Bank. That would be a sharp break from Obama administration policy. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been more cautious, congratulating Trump but giving no indication on whether he will now change his policies. Relations have been tense between President Barack Obama and Netanyahu. Trump has accused Obama of putting undue pressure on Israel. But Obama has hardly cast off Israel. In September, the U.S. signed its largest-ever security agreement, giving the Israeli military $38 billion over 10 years. While Obama pressured Israel into a partial settlement freeze in 2009 and 2010, settlements continue to expand. According to the anti-settlement watchdog group Peace Now, there were 3,915 housing starts during Obama’s term as of the end of 2015. By the time Obama leaves office, that number will almost certainly surpass the 4,191 units started during George W. Bush‘s presidency. Previous administrations have given varying amounts of leeway to Israel on the issue of settlements, but also have pushed for the two-state solution. President Bill Clinton helped broker the Oslo Accord, attempting to establish a framework to resolve the conflict. President George W. Bush launched a plan that endorsed an independent Palestinian state existing peacefully alongside Israel. Both approaches fizzled, and two rounds of peace talks during the Obama years quickly collapsed. Trump criticized Palestinians when he spoke in March at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference in Washington. He said “half of the population of Palestine has been taken over by the Palestinian ISIS and Hamas, and the other half refuses to confront the first half.” Hamas, an Islamic militant group, controls the Gaza Strip. ISIS, an acronym for the Islamic State group, is not a major force in the Palestinian territories. One of Trump’s top advisers on Israel, Jason Greenblatt, said in a recent interview that the president-elect doesn’t think West Bank settlements should be condemned or pose an “obstacle to peace.” Greenblatt, chief legal officer and executive vice president at the Trump Organization, was interviewed on Israel’s Army Radio. Trump has echoed the decades-old promise of past presidential candidates that he would move the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. That would signal U.S. recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, a move that would infuriate Palestinians, who claim the eastern sector of the city, captured by Israel in 1967, as their capital. Presidents have not followed through on the pledge. Some Trump advisers and supporters have been dismissive of the Palestinian cause. Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani told the Israeli American Council in September that the U.S. should “reject the whole notion of a two-state solution in Israel.” Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and casino mogul Sheldon Adelson both say the Palestinians are an invented people. John Bolton, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said in 2014 that a two-state solution “would inevitably lead to a terror state on the other side of the border with Israel.” Jeremy Ben Ami, founder of J-Street, a liberal pro-Israel group that advocates a two-state solution, said the future of the Arab-Israeli conflict lies in the pending Trump Cabinet appointments. He said if policy is driven by the “Israel-can-do-no-wrong” camp, “then some of those in the Israeli right-wing are going to be very happy.” Republished with permission of the Associated Press.
Pew Research: Republicans, Democrats have starkly different foreign affairs priorities
A new comprehensive study on American views on foreign affairs finds to no surprise that Republicans are from Mars and Democrats from Venus, but also finds Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump‘s supporters more isolationist than anyone. The survey, released Thursday by the Pew Research Center, finds that Democrats consider the nation’s biggest global fears to be climate change, ISIS, cyberattacks and disease pandemics, and few lose much sleep over threats to the United States from Syrian refugees, China or Russia. Republicans, on the other hand, worry about just about every global menace except climate change, and their biggest concerns are ISIS, cyberattacks, Syrian refugees, and global economic instability. The same survey breaks out foreign affairs issues by candidate supporter, and finds Trump’s supporters far less likely than other candidates’ to want to see the United States intervene militarily or economically in other countries. Trump supporters are most likely to want to see the United States spend more on the war on terror and more on the U.S. military, while also saying America is already too involved overseas. Trump supporters mainly want to see America provide foreign aide. Overall, the survey found a relatively broad isolationist viewpoint. “The public views America’s role in the world with considerable apprehension and concern. In fact, most Americans say it would be better if the U.S. just dealt with its own problems and let other countries deal with their own problems as best they can,” Pew reports in its survey, “Public Uncertain, Divided Over America’s Place in the World,” posted Thursday. Among the lengthy report’s findings: Overall, 45 percent of Americans think military spending should stay about as it is, while 35 percent believe that it should be increased and 24 percent think it should be decreased. There is a dramatic split by party, however; 61 percent of Republicans think military spending needs to be increased, compared with 31 percent of independents and 20 percent of Democrats. Overall, 57 percent of Americans think the U.S. should deal with its own problems for now, and 37 percent believe that it should help other countries with their problems. Similarly, 41 percent of Americans think the country is doing too much to support other countries, 28 percent think the current programs are just about right, and 27 percent think they’re not enough. 65 percent of Trump supporters believe U.S. foreign aid is a bad thing, while 55 percent of Democrat Hillary Clinton supporters think it’s a good thing. Supporters of Democrat Bernie Sanders and now ex-candidates Republicans U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz and Ohio Gov. John Kasich are all pretty evenly split on the question. Overall, 54 percent of Americans think the United States is the world’s leading economic power; followed by 34 percent who believe it is China; 6 percent, Japan; and 2 percent the European Union. Overall, 72 percent of Americans think the United States is the world’s leading military power; followed by 12 percent who believe it is China, 10 percent, Russia; and 2 percent the European Union. 91 percent of Republicans think that ISIS and similar groups are a major threat to U.S. security, while 76 percent of both Democrats and independents think that. 77 percent of Democrats believe climate change is a major threat to U.S. security, compared with 52 percent of independents and 26 percent of Republicans. 77 percent of Trump supporters sympathize with Israel and 10 percent with Palestinians. For Clinton supporters the split is 47 to 27 percent; For Sanders supporters it’s 33 to 39 percent. Trump and Clinton supporters generally agree on the balance between homeland protection measures and civil liberties, while Sanders supporters disagree: 66 percent of Trump’s supporters think the country’s anti-terrorism policies have not gone far enough, and 20 percent think too far, threatening civil liberties. For Clinton’s supporters the split is 51 to 35 percent, while for Sanders’ its 33 to 51 percent. 54 percent of Trump’s supporters think the U.S. does too much to try to solve the world’s problems. For Clinton’s supporters, it’s 34 percent and for Sanders’, 42 percent. Overall, 41 percent of Americans think so. Overall, 49 percent of Americans think that U.S. involvement in the global economy is a bad thing, and 44 percent a good thing. The opposition was more pronounced among Republicans, older people and people with limited educations. People ages 18 to 29, college graduates and liberals were the only groups that mostly thought involvement in the global economy is a good thing. Landslide majorities of Trump’s supporters oppose the U.S. importing more goods, increasing investment in developing countries and increasing foreign aid. Strong majorities, sometimes over 60 percent, of both Clinton’s and Sanders supporters support those policies. 85 percent of Trump’s supporters think the Syrian/Iraqi refugee crisis is a significant threat to America, while only 40 percent of Clinton’s supporters think so, and only 34 percent of Sanders’. Strong majorities of every party and candidate constituency support the current U.S. military campaign against ISIS, ranging from 56 percent of Sanders’ supporters to 66 percent of Trump’s supporters. But almost no group majority believes that the anti-ISIS campaign is actually going well, except for Clinton’s supporters (57 percent.) The biggest difference by party is on the question of whether overwhelming use of military force against global terrorism is a good thing or bad thing. Republicans think it is the best way to defeat terrorism, by 70 percent to 24 percent. Democrats think it would only inspire more worldwide hatred of the U.S., leading to more terrorism, by 65 percent to 31 percent. Independents were pretty split, leaning slightly toward worrying about fostering worldwide hatred (49 percent to 45 percent.) Most of the analysis in the Pew report is based on telephone interviews conducted April 12-19 among a national sample of 2,008 adults, 18 years of age or older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia (505 respondents were interviewed on a landline telephone, and 1,503 were interviewed on a cellphone, including 914 who had no landline telephone). Some
