{"id":8901,"date":"2017-04-05T08:07:15","date_gmt":"2017-04-05T13:07:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/?p=8901"},"modified":"2017-04-05T08:07:15","modified_gmt":"2017-04-05T13:07:15","slug":"the-trump-rollercoaster-ctd-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2017\/04\/05\/the-trump-rollercoaster-ctd-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The Trump Rollercoaster, Ctd"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s a continuing roller coaster<\/a> for Israel’s government. First, the joy of not having a President Clinton. Now the sudden realization there’s an ambitious new President in the United States – ambitious and contemptuous of norms in a way that may make Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu yearn for the years of President Obama. Ben Caspit opines <\/a>in AL Monitor<\/b><\/i>:<\/p>\n

Netanyahu had explained to the ministers that this was Trump\u2019s request, a request that ought to be fulfilled. According to an Israeli diplomatic source, wind of something Trump had said\u00a0had reached Israel. When Trump’s\u00a0associates asked him\u00a0what he would do if the Israelis and Palestinians failed to reach a peace deal, Trump said, according to\u00a0the source, \u201cThen I\u2019ll do what I understand should be done.\u201d Netanyahu doesn\u2019t really want to find out the hard way\u00a0what the president understands should be done.\u00a0This strange turn of events, in which Israel\u2019s most extreme right-wing government\u00a0offers to limit West Bank settlement construction, is the tip of a giant iceberg of important events taking place under the radar.<\/p>\n

The bottom line is that Netanyahu clearly knows how challenging the coming year will be. It might be even more difficult than the bad old days he spent dueling with President Barack Obama. He knows that Trump is determined to deliver<\/a> the \u201cultimate deal.\u201d While Netanyahu officially expressed his support for a two-state solution in his famous 2009 Bar Ilan speech<\/a>, he has no real faith in the process or any desire to carry out significant concessions to achieve that goal. Netanyahu would be willing to gamble all his pension money on zero chances for achieving an agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. Therefore, Netanyahu\u2019s game is to orchestrate the events of the coming year in such a way\u00a0that the blowing up of diplomatic contacts between Israel and the Palestinians, and the sooner-or-later diplomatic dead end, will be the obvious fault of the Palestinians, not Israel. That is the whole story in a nutshell. Netanyahu knows he has no other option, assuming he will still be in power when it happens.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But surely they must be aware of the possibility – even probability – that Trump will be impeached. I’m guessing the Prime Minister will continue to prevaricate and delay until – he hopes – President Pence can take over. Pence is also a fringe radical, but may have far more respect for the Middle East than Trump does.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s a continuing roller coaster for Israel’s government. First, the joy of not having a President Clinton. Now the sudden realization there’s an ambitious new President in the United States – ambitious and contemptuous of norms in a way that may make Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu yearn for the years \u2026 Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8901"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8901\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8908,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8901\/revisions\/8908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}