President Trump will arrive today in Israel with much anticipation and a very warm welcome. President Trump is viewed by many Israelis as a great relief after the eight years out in the unforgiven lands of wastelands and destitution being treated as a leper amongst the nations. In Israel, we were ready for such a challenge, as we have been receiving that treatment from much of the world. That is how life is when you are the Jewish amongst nations. Just because Presidents have changed and there is hope for a brighter future, very few here are expecting much from this trip. This is going to have been a “Hello, how are you?” shake your hands kind of trip filled with photo opportunities and lots of glad-handing. The real work will begin in earnest a few weeks after this trip has completed and everybody back in Washington D.C. have had their comments and predictions as to what to do next, even unfortunately including the State Department. Where the Secretary of State may be more inclined to have an open mind about the Palestinian-Israel situation, the State Department has had an anti-Israel bias which has only intensified with time and any change does not appear to be in the cards for the near term future. The trouble comes when the advisory notices from the State Department start to pile up and the negative feed of anti-Israel bias seeps into policy once again. We have watched this play out before and we hold onto the slim possibility that President Trump truly is something completely new and capable of holding his own thoughts as valid and resisting pressures from outside influences no matter who they are. President Trump has to have a decent feel for people or he would have been a disaster in business and never have had near the success he has including winning the Presidency when everyone stood against him in both established parties. That alone gives us hope that he will see more clearly than any have previously. Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush both gave efforts to do as little harm as possible. President Clinton got Yasser Arafat to set the terms for peace and got Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak to agree which panicked Arafat into fleeing the conference and setting in motion the Second Intifada killing over a thousand Israelis just to prove he really would never accept any peace no matter how much Israel was willing to give up. That position has not changed despite the change to Mahmoud Abbas as the leader of the Palestinian Authority (PA).
Camp David Talks on a Break as President Bill Clinton, Yasser Arafat and Prime Minister Ehud Barak Stroll the Grounds of the Complex Located Ten Miles North of Frederick, Maryland
The problem is not just with the PA as the Arab League met after the Six Day War and drafted what has become known as the Khartoum Resolution with its infamous Three No’s; “No peace with Israel, No recognition of Israel, No negotiations with Israel.” Many politicians from every corner of the globe, NGO members and administrators from United Nations agencies have pointed to the so-called negotiations which have been held between the PA and Israel as proof that the PA are different and are really working towards a peaceful resolution to the conflict. These same sources all make the same claim time after time that if only Israel would give the Arabs a little more, then peace would be at hand. Israel has given that little more at almost every turn for almost twenty-five years such that we have passed that little more ages ago and still the demands have not changed. All one need do is peruse the PA and UNRWA textbooks and look at the maps within and the truth will simply jump off the page and bite you. There is no Israel between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, just Palestine (see below). Even Hamastan in Gaza is represented as part of Palestine and this is so acceptable that even in Gaza Hamas has approved and uses these books. The difference between the schools in Gaza and in the PA schools is whether Hamas or the PA will rule Palestine. While Hamas and the PA may disagree on who will rule over Palestine, they share the vision of a world without Israel and with the Jews living in Israel cleansed from the land.
There is an understanding the Arabs living in the PA administered areas have that when their leaders speak to the West or even in general using English, then what they say very well could be lies stated to placate the West and gain advantage over Israel; but when they speak in Arabic, then their words are true and they mean what they say. There is a sort of ungentlemen’s agreement between the Arabs, especially from Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the PA, that words they speak in Arabic are of such a language barrier that they cannot be translated and reported in the mainstream media. There is an exception for those willing to spend the time wrangling through the flood of information available where their newspapers, broadcasts and media is translated into English. There are three services which do this as a service for those truly interested in the truth. These NGO’s are listed below with their identifying graphics. Taking a stroll or simply searching a subject which you are particularly interested in the actual views and policies of the various Middle East nations and terror organizations such as Hezballah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, PLO, Muslim Brotherhood, Islamic State and others or the various leaders of the various nations such as Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the others throughout the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) nations one can get an eye-full in a single afternoon. If we may quote the Christian Bible for a change, let us quote John 8:32 which states, “And you will know the truth, and the truth will set free you.”
The Middle East Media Research Institute
Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America
Back to President Trump, his trip and the ramifications. The trip will be a success for all sides. There will be those who support the President who will remark at the difference between President Obama on his first visit to Saudi Arabia and the deep bow almost as if kissing the King’s ring and Trump acting as an equal while the anti-Trump side will be showing Trump leaning over to allow a medallion being bestowed upon him to be placed over his head and screaming, “See, Trump bowed down to the Saudis too!” The media will probably claim that the trip was simply a series of missed opportunities as President Trump was not stopping at these places in order to make any grand gestures or earth-shaking policy statements, he was making what many Presidents have done, taking three or four overseas jaunts hitting three or four spots in one week simply to shake hands and smile as a meet and greet. Then, upon their return with a better feel for the people and the attitudes, the real work can begin. As far as solving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict or the greater Arab-Israeli conflict, we have our doubts that President Trump will waste much more effort than to set up a meet between Abbas and Netanyahu and announce that if the two leaders are serious and care to meet and get the major work done between themselves, then President Trump will be helpful in closing the deal and getting past the last points of contention but that he does not plan on holding their hands and pressing them forward, they need to manage their relations on their own without any outside pressures. He is likely to claim that the only path to true and lasting peace is through honest negotiations between the two leaders and that anything he could do to facilitate, but not to mediate, their reaching an agreement he will be glad to assist. But President Trump will likely make clear that he will not be making trips back and forth and his Secretary of State will not be on a plane every other week running to put out the latest flare-up or dousing fires of contention, the leaders themselves need to act like men and either settle their differences or make clear that they are not interested in meeting to forge an agreement. President Trump might have told Abbas and Netanyahu in private while meeting them that it will not be any skin off of his back if the Arabs and Israelis refuse to find some middle ground but do not ask the United States to come and rescue either of them from the actions of the other as whatever comes will likely be exactly what both sides deserve. If when there is a flare-up and President Trump then repeats this mantra reminding the two sides of his warnings and telling the world of this position, then maybe some truth will finally emerge about which side desires peace and which side loves death, even the death of their own as theirs is a rush to go to Heaven and leave the earthly tragedies behind. Such a position may prove to be the wisest of all regarding the Middle East as the worst problems facing the world are numerous and only one serious problem derives from the Middle East, and it does not concern the Palestinians and Israelis and their little difficulties.
The problem is what can be done to tame Iran, bring some collective end to the devastation ongoing in Syria, reconstitute Lebanon into a productive nation once again and prevent the Iranians from becoming a nuclear armed nation with ICBM’s and nuclear warheads set atop them threatening the entire world with a devastating war resembling Armageddon. Another pressing issue is how to prevent allowing Iran to forge their desired Shiite crescent from the Indian Ocean on the Iranian east coast across Iran, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon to the Mediterranean Sea on their western coasts. This will be dependent upon forging a Sunni controlled southeastern Syria along their border with Iraq and their Shiites in the southern half of the nation from Baghdad south which could be accomplished by forging the Kurdish homelands which the British had promised them but instead struck an oil deal cheating the Kurds from the reestablishment of their homeland similar to what the Peel Commission attempted to do to the Jews and Israel. Fortunately, the Peel Commission and the follow-up Woodhead Commission had all of their solution completely rejected outright by the Arab representatives who demanded that all the land be given to the creation of Palestine and they would take care of any needs the Jewish residents would have and they would be cared for and permitted rights under Arab rule. This solution met with Jewish opposition. Supporting a Kurdistan and recommending that Turkey allow its Kurds to relocate to Kurdistan leaving Turkey and thus no longer posing any problem for President Erdoğan and removing what Turkey has claimed to be a disruptive minority from within their borders. Such a solution would also allow for the Yazidis to have a place, which would accept them as they are related to the Kurds rather closely. The Sunnis in central Iraq could be offered to also reside within Kurdistan if they so choose which would likely be seen as preferable to living under the Shiite governance of Iraq and this would solidify the Kurdish territories giving them some regional depth and defendable borders. Bashir al-Assad and his Russian backers could then be allowed the western regions where the Alawite tribe resides and the Druze could choose under whom they would prefer to live or might even be permitted their own lands if this would be preferred and a solution worked out with Assad and Putin. One would have to wonder if Trump would be permitted to speak with Putin concerning Syria or would that be considered further collusion?
The real problematic front facing the Trump team is the Pacific Rim and in particular North Korea and China. North Korea is making threats and causing unrest probably for two reasons. The first is as a test of the mettle of the new American President and the second is probably an attempt to garner a large cash infusion to get him to settle down. What President Trump should do regarding Kim Jong Un is a difficult proposition. The North Korean dictator is the least rational member of his family yet to have taken over the nation and his actions resemble those of an unstable mind filled with paranoia and delusions of grandeur as well as suspicions of a world fearful enough for him to have his way with the rest of the world. He appears to be just sufficiently outside rational that it may even be a difficult task for the Chinese to control him without possibly taking drastic actions such as completely terminating all relations and trade leaving Kim Jong Un without a friend in the world. Such a move would require it come in the near future before Kim Jong Un and Grand Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, the Iranian Supreme Leader and an equally unstable mind which is filled with ideas of Iran returning to the glory of Persia and being the leaders of the Islamic world causing massive defections from the Sunnis to Shiites as Iran proves to be the strong horse after crippling Saudi Arabia and taking the black triangle of oil fields which spans Kuwait, southern Iraq and northeastern Saudi Arabia. Such an expansion by Iran would require the Shiite crescent discussed above to be complete otherwise Iran would not have the bases required in the Mediterranean Sea. The Iranians are already controlling the Straight of Hormuz, which ties up the Saudi Arabian and Kuwaiti oil lanes, and the Bab-el-Mandeb, which is a straight that controls the exit at the south end of the Red Sea thus controlling the Suez Canal and world shipping channels. What we have reported on previously, Iran and North Korea have been cooperating working to advance their mutual scientific workings on missile technology and nuclear weapons designs. This has been an alignment that the world has been ignoring to its own peril. This is where President Trump will find his greatest challenges and where he should be placing his attentions as soon as he returns to Washington D.C. Should President Trump find a path with assistance from the Chinese on North Korea and Russians on Iran and defuse their combined powder keg, then he will have accomplished much and saved the world from a crisis which could easily mushroom into the next world war and make it a very short but devastating war with the use of nuclear weapons as EMP devices and also using them to destroy major metropolitan centers such as London, New York, Los Angeles and numerous other metropolises. The Iran-North Korean Axis could be even more devastating than the German-Italian-Japanese Axis during World War II. Let us hope that a World War III can be avoided and that President Trump can show the necessary leadership to prevent such a devastating conflagration from striking our world. Any nuclear strike from North Korea and/or Iran would necessitate a nuclear response before they could use further such weapons and devastate even more targets throughout Europe, the United States and the developed world. This is President Trump’s challenge number one.
Beyond the Cusp
Beyond the Cusp 