Palestine – Trump Must Blow His Own Trumpet With Greater Clarity…writes David Singer

March 13, 2016 by David Singer
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One of the world’s greatest negotiators – Donald Trump – has walked straight into a political minefield when telling the GOP presidential debate in Miami last Thursday how he would resolve the 100 years old Jewish-Arab conflict:

“I will tell you, I think if we’re ever going to negotiate a peace settlement … I think it would be more helpful as a negotiator, if I go in and say I’m pro-Israel, but at least have the other side know I’m somewhat neutral to them so that we can maybe get a deal done,”
How can Trump be “somewhat neutral” to the “other side”?
Who indeed does Trump consider to be “the other side”?
If the “other side” is the PLO – Trump would have to renege on the  following non-neutral positions adopted by his predecessor President Obama that any new Palestinian Arab State:
 1. Be non-militarised
 2. Recognise Israel as the Jewish State
Trump is certainly not bound by Obama’s position on these contentious issues and abandoning them would certainly be open to him. Israel however will not forego these demands which It has consistently stipulated during the last eight years are essential pre-requisites for advancing any possible settlement of the conflict.
The only result of Trump’s neutrality on Obama’s position will see any peace settlement between Israel and the PLO becoming impossible to achieve.
Trump would also need to shred commitments binding America made by the last Republican President – George W Bush – to Israel on 14 April 2004. These commitments were overwhelmingly endorsed by the Congress 407-9. They were given to support Israel’s unilateral disengagement and total evacuation from Gaza – and included:
1. Like Obama – committing to Israel’s well-being as a Jewish State
2. Settling Palestinian Arab refugees in any new Palestinian Arab State rather than in Israel.
3. Israel having secure and recognized borders, which should emerge from negotiations between the parties in accordance with UNSC Resolutions 242 and 338. 
4. Recognition it was unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations would be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949.
Obama tried to downplay his obligation to uphold these American commitments but still was unable to broker an Israel-PLO agreement. Any attempt by Trump to follow in Obama’s footsteps would similarly fail. 
More seriously however it would signal a gross betrayal by a Republican President of a former Republican President’s Congress-endorsed commitments to a loyal friend and ally that would send America’s reputation and integrity for honouring commitments made by it to other nations quickly sinking to rock bottom.
Rubio has already agreed to honour these Bush commitments.  Trump’s stated neutrality position seems to indicate he might not. 
Trump’s neutrality could be construed quite differently however if the “other side” is not the PLO.
Direct negotiations between Jordan, Egypt and Israel to replace the moribund Israel-PLO negotiations could allow Trump to adopt a “somewhat neutral” stance because Israel has had signed peace agreements with Egypt since 1979 and Jordan since 1994.
Peace is far easier to accomplish with States already at peace with each other than with a hostile non-State group pledged to destroy the other party to the negotiations.
CNN and Fox’s blanket coverage of the primaries over the coming weeks gives those interviewing Trump ample opportunities to get him to explain how he hopes to become “somewhat neutral” and with whom.
The interviewers may need to be “somewhat confrontational” in their questioning.
Trump needs to blow his own trumpet with greater clarity by providing more detail on how he hopes to succeed where previous Presidents have embarrassingly failed.

David Singer is a Sydney Lawyer and Foundation Member of the International Analysts Network

Comments

5 Responses to “Palestine – Trump Must Blow His Own Trumpet With Greater Clarity…writes David Singer”
  1. Liat Kirby-Nagar says:

    Good to be in touch with you again, Otto. Sorry about late response. I have moved again! Now in Brisbane … and it’s becoming obvious that I’m not sure where the right place for me actually is. At the rate I’m going I’ll either run out of energy or money, so must stay put, I think. Anyway, I take my inner self with me wherever I am, my passion for words and life and keep up the good fight for Israel. Who can be richer than that?!
    Are you back in Australia?

  2. Liat Kirby-Nagar says:

    Absolutely spot on, Otto. What a brilliant response! Additionally, until he ever leaves his own inflated sense of self and his ever present awareness of his billions outside the door, he won’t have a hope of understanding anything much at all as far as world issues are concerned.

    Bring on the circus clowns! Trump as the next US President, veneer upon veneer.
    What a caricature of a man and what a blustering bully boy. He’s so in love with himself, he needs nothing more.

    Anybody questioning him, no matter how informed and skilled, would meet with exactly the same formula of response you’ve just exposed. He’s found a way not to think and not to be accountable. He would be the biggest embarrassment to a nation as President, and dangerous, too, for his gross ignorance, narcissism and lack of real care about anything but himself in his own image. His utter lack of intellectual curiosity and his shiny, celebrity-buffed persona belong … where? Las Vegas, I suppose.

    • Otto Waldmann says:

      Dear Liat long time no see, what a delight reading you bcs it is all about hedonism simply due to the caper that Trump is asking people to love him as a top bloke , straight forward and NON politically formal, actually the anti-political chum so immediately identifiable with the punters themselves; that is because about NONE of the voters are politicians and they will respond so much better to someone “just” like them ( never mind the billion dollar gap between them ).

  3. Otto Waldmann says:

    If one strives to detect traces of reason, rhetorical structure based on logic, consistency not just between speeches given at different times and locations and even consistency on the same issue within the same speech and EVEN sentence at Trump, the torrents of shock may not allow the reader/listener to complete the task and remain still sane !!!
    The salient point here is: DOES TRUMP FOLLOW A CERTAIN FORMULA, ANY STRATEGY !!
    The answer is a resounding : AND HOW !!!!

    Here is the TRUMP RHETORICAL STRUCTURE:

    I observed the following constant elements actively used in NO particular order:

    Trump will peg on a seemingly infinite number of issues in all his speeches – not in the same manner when in multiple debates with other GOP contenders -. All major matters are treated in no more than four to five sentences all with the use of the most unsophisticated, political correct, typically electoral vernacular. Trump will mix major issues dealt with, as I said, in a few short and “brutal” words with immediate observations related to the specific place he is delivering the speech with NO aparent – or essential – connection between issues. If in Nth. Carolina he will use the following formula – my own sample based on actual speech -:
    “Now, let’s look at China and their war on America, conquering us through intentional currency devaluation, like your Governor, is he doing an honest job about poverty in North Carolina !!! Is crime rate going up or down !!! Well, I say loud and clear and I don’t care if the GOP like it or not. I am not accountable to them, NOBODY has been my boss ever snce I made my first billion and don’t want to be your boss either, simply because I want you to be under President Trump to make your own billions, right, am I getting the message to you, do I get a resounding “Yes President Trump !! or what !!!’

    The above sample show how Trump has jumped without the slightest trace of paraphrasing from one issue to which all connect in a flash – and that is what he used, flashes – and almost all of them felt satisfied, felt that Trump spoke to THEM and did not………………mince his words !!!

    Brief electric shock in the only sensitive spots of an audience which wants to be inebriated by shots of “relevance”.

    So, while me mate David Singer is ALWAYS 100% right in all his analytical efforts and I do not know anyone better suited to explain and resolve the Israel – palestinians problem, Trump does not need to be as cogent as David – or even me – simply because he is on a HIT and run for President mission.
    So far, his figures, the electoral Republican figures make Trump the most UNlike David Singer “thinker” yet the most likely to succeed.
    Time we agree that the American Presidential races – all of them – cannot rely on decent logic, but a logical formula of their own. Once in the White House, Trump or whoever, will have to leave at the door the electoral race cum rationale of self promotion and get stuck into the tachles of REAL politics where political correctness is just as useful as in the race completed and won. That is the only connection between the two distinct political courses, expected reason as we, the mere punters conceive it, is something we are still waiting for, still just …expected.
    Now

  4. Erica Edelman says:

    I think what Trump is really saying is that he’s a fence-sitter. His personality doesn’t lend itself to negotiation at a political level. He simply doesn’t have “the smarts”. And he has no intention of making the Jewish/Arab conflict his priority. What you have written, David, is sensible, thoughtful and pragmatic. You, or someone with the same thought patterns as you, needs to interview Trump (in the flesh) and/or all the other hopefuls. Bright journalists need to pose questions in such a way that will require simple answers. If the questions are right, the answers will be easy for a candidate who knows Mid East politics and how to negotiate with the Arabs.(Is that an oxymoron?) The world needs to see and hear about the countries who won’t or can’t negotiate with “pragmatic” peace partners. More often. Much more often. These countries should be hung, drawn and quartered in the media. More often and impolitely.(BDS should have been shut down 15 years ago! – but for the political correctness of waspish journalists who are not that bright!) We need to see more provocation. Confrontational journalism: people with chutzpah AND brains.

    On another note I feel so frustrated when I read the on-line comments section in the political pages of the New York Times for example. There are some VERY clever people who could solve the Mid East conflict in a matter of months. If the hopefuls we see and hear on our screen each day, Rubio, Cruz, Sanders, Clinton, Trump, et al, are the best we have, just G-d help us.
    We are going to leave the biggest mess for the next generation.

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