Why President Trump’s Middle East Initiative Is Doomed To Fail No Matter What He Does - by Jonathan S. Tobin

As futile as their quest seems, Jared Kushner’s plan is also a breath of fresh air after decades of American efforts to accommodate Palestinians’ unwillingness to admit that they’ve lost their long war against Zionism.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
TheFederalist.com..
23 May '19..

For once, the foreign policy establishment and the veterans of past U.S. administrations are at least partly right about President Donald Trump. His Middle East peace initiative, the first part of which is due to be unveiled next month at an “economic workshop” in Bahrain, won’t succeed. The “ultimate deal” that will end the conflict between Israel and Palestine certainly won’t be struck at that meeting.

The Palestinian Authority has already made it clear that it won’t attend the Bahrain event or negotiate on the basis of Trump’s plan. Longtime State Department peace processor Aaron David Miller wasn’t wrong when he told The New York Times that if the United States could have “bought peace in the Middle East through economic development,” it would have done so long ago.

That means that it is almost certain the president will be denied the satisfaction of brokering a deal that eluded his predecessors. Under the current circumstances, Palestinian leadership and the political culture that sustains them simply won’t allow it. But that is not the only way to look at the Trump/Kushner plan.

A Template for Peace

For all of the abuse the administration is taking from the establishment for attempting the impossible, by sticking to a plan that puts economics first and refusing to prioritize pandering to Palestinian intransigence, as all his successors have done, Trump is creating a template for peace that makes sense. Even more to the point, it is being welcomed by most of the Arab world.

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