OPINION:
Former Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton said President Donald Trump may have the best of intentions, but his attempts to forge peace between Israel and the Palestinians with a two-state deal would most certainly fail.
On that, Bolton’s quite right. There comes a time when the definition of crazy has to be considered. Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result has certainly been the benchmark of two-state resolution talks for years.
“There has been a 70-plus year effort for the two-state solution,” which has always failed, Bolton said, The Hill reported. “You can’t put it back together.”
Trump still sees such a peace plan as viable.
He said in the midst of his overseas sweep, during a stop at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, that he was “personally committed to helping Israelis and Palestinians achieve a peace agreement.”
That may be. But high hopes don’t always bring results.
The Palestinian Authority has spent the better part of its near-23-year history sending out vitriolic messages about Israel — even while supposedly negotiating peace with the Jewish nation. In 2013, for instance, in the throes of peace discussions that were headed to Washington, D.C., P.A. leader Mahmoud Abbas made clear all Jewish settlements on the land Israel won during the Six Days War would have to go — that all were deemed illegal.
His words: “In a final resolution, we would not see the presence of a single Israeli — civilian or soldier — on our lands,” the Jerusalem Post reported.
Such talk falls on deaf Israeli ears.
And then there’s this, from the English version of Aish.com: “It will be impossible to make peace with Israel at a time when the Palestinian Authority is telling its people that Jews use wild pigs to drive Palestinian farmers out of their fields and homes in the West Bank. This is what PA President Mahmoud Abbas told a pro-Palestinian conference in Ramallah.”
Yes indeed. Generally speaking, if you’re trying to forge peace, you don’t want to blatantly insult the people you’re trying to strike a peace deal with — it’s just not good for discussions. But such messages are being flooded into Palestinians’ mosques, into their media outlets, as made by P.A. leaders.
Trump himself may be seeing some cracks in his peace plan, as well.
According to several media quoting Israel television, Trump, in his recent meeting with Abbas in Bethlehem, raged at the P.A. chief for deceiving him during their recent talks in Washington.
Basically, Trump bought the line that Abbas fed about desiring peace with the Israelis. But then Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu showed Trump some behind-scenes info and intel that showed otherwise — that showed the P.A.’s leadership inciting violence and launching attacks on Jews in Jerusalem and the West Bank.
Trump’s response?
“You tricked me in D.C.,” he said to Abbas, Newsweek noted. “You talked there about your commitment to peace, but the Israelis showed me your involvement in incitement.”
Reportedly, the Palestinian delegation was shocked at Trump’s rant.
But it only circles back to what Bolton said, and what seems the sad but true reality of Israeli-Palestinian two-state deal: It just ain’t gonna happen.
“I don’t think the two-state solution is viable any more,” Bolton said. “It’s not a question of personality or effort. It is just undoable.”
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