Times columnist David Brooks says what’s “disturbing” about an interview with President Trump is his confused train of thought: “Spasms about what Napoleon was doing, then we go off to some other issue and some other issue. I thought – and especially compared to the transcripts of Donald Trump 15 years ago, there’s a totally different conversational style, the explanation for which I do not have.”
The State Department’s terrorism report for 2016 says Palestinians “lack of hope” in achieving statehood has fostered terrorism, and pro-Israel groups have pushed back against the statement calling it “anti-Semitic” and “pro-Palestinian.”
Senator Lindsey Graham wonders if AIPAC should be a foreign agent: “They come up here in droves lobbying Congress to do things in their view good for the US Israel relationship. I know they have a lot of contacts in Israel. Should somebody like that be a foreign agent?” But no, the AIPAC model is a “good thing,” he concludes.
The investigation of Russia’s meddling in U.S. politics dominates the liberal press. Phil Weiss writes that he believes the suspicions about Donald Trump and the Russians, but what stands out to him is that conduct that is Watergate-worthy when it comes to Russia is hunky-dory when it comes to Israel. Just in the last week there have been two other expressions of Israel’s active interests in our politics that the liberal media have failed to say boo about.
Glenn Greenwald and Ryan Grim’s report at the Intercept on new legislation in the Congress that would criminalize support for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS). Yes, criminalize. The bill is such a crude example of overreach by the Israel lobby that it is sure to backfire on its supporters as Greenwald and Grim’s report ricochets around the Democratic Party
America has been at war for 15 years but few Americans notice, because overall it is rural communities that have suffered the highest casualty rates, Francis Shen and Douglas Kriner argue in an important new paper. And it was those communities, in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, that gave Donald Trump his victory over Hillary Clinton, who was seen as pro-war.
Recent days have dashed any thought that Donald Trump would be neutral or an honest broker. Negotiator Jason Greenblatt spent all his time echoing the Israeli message about the conflict, while envoy Jared Kushner reportedly angered Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas by carrying Netanyahu’s talking points to Ramallah.
The White House announced that Donald Trump will not move the embassy to Jerusalem at this time so as to advance peace talks. AIPAC and Netanyahu were disappointed by the news. Obama’s former ambassador Dan Shapiro calls for the embassy move later this year, so as to “shatter Pal myth” that Jews don’t have a connection to Jerusalem.
Phil Weiss shares a photo essay from when Donald Trump visited Jerusalem and the Old City. Israeli security wrapped sites he was visiting with white sheets ala Christo, to keep anyone from seeing him, or disrupting events. There were armed checkpoints for Jewish Israelis, and a surveillance balloon in the sky.
As Trump flies to the Middle East, he should consider: We’ve been at war there for 16 years. Israel may see that as a happy outcome, but we need to disentangle ourselves from Israel’s oppressive policies toward Palestinians if we seek a peaceful future.