By Yishai Fliesher, ALGEMEINER
Op·por·tu·ni·ty: a set of circumstances that make it possible to do something.
Trump·or·tu·ni·ty: A set of circumstances created by the improbable victory of Donald Trump, which make it possible to achieve progress on many issues in the US and the world, especially relating to Israel and the Middle East.
Just as the world seemed to be progressing towards a post-national, post-family, post-God globalism, three stunning upsets proved that there was a rebellion afoot against those values.
First, Netanyahu won big in the last Israeli election and established a right-wing government, despite serious US intervention and dire predictions of failure. Then, the British people rejected Europeanism and chose Brexit, despite major European pressure and dire predictions of failure. Finally, Trump won while facing a relentless, super-hostile media and dire predictions of failure. These three events were really referendums on the Euro/Obama worldview. Global voters gave a clear response — we want our countries back; we want our values back.
If we are smart and focused, we can achieve powerful progress for Israel under this new zeitgeist. In particular, the new Trump administration — with its strong ties to Israel, and even to Judea and Samaria, and its repudiation of the Obama worldview — offers three big Trumportunities:
The death of the two-state paradigm
In the Six-Day War, Israel was under threat of total annihilation. And then, providence handed the Jewish heartland back to the Jewish people, and Israel’s enemies fell to the IDF in an incredible victory.
But we blew it. We did not annex the heartland. Instead, in time, we allowed an alternative anti-Israel atmosphere and narrative to metastasize in that land and later globally. Later on, instead of fixing the problem and making Israeli law the law of the land, the Jewish state drank the Palestine Kool-Aid, and entered a process of giving away the land to a terrorist organization dedicated to Israel’s destruction.
This was in spite of the fact that “two-states” was never going to work. There was never a way to split the tiny landmass of Judea and Samaria, rip it away from its rightful residents — the Jewish people — and instead empower the jihadists to fight the rest of Israel from the strategic high ground. Yet this is precisely the formula that Israel’s leadership went for, and which subsequent US administrations have adopted. The two-state solution has been taught ad nauseam as the only solution to the conflict, and has been stuffed down Israel’s throat by every US administration since Jimmy Carter was president.
But change is on the horizon. Recently, the Republican party unanimously voted to drop support for the two-state solution in its national platform; rejected the notion of Israel as an “occupier;” and “specifically recognize[d] that the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement (‘BDS’) is antisemitic in nature and seeks to destroy Israel.”
In a recent Statement from Trump’s Israel Advisory Committee, Jason Dov Greenblatt and David Friedman, wrote: “The US cannot support the creation of a new state where terrorism is financially incentivized, terrorists are celebrated by political parties and government institutions, and the corrupt diversion of foreign aid is rampant.”
With the Trump election, a window is opening to finish the work of the Six-Day War and to further a plan of action to assert Israeli sovereignty in Judea and Samaria and dismantle the PA. The first step towards that aim is clear: If freezing construction in those areas was a concession to President Barack Obama, then now is the time to rectify that sin and build, build, build. Maybe we can even put up a Trump Tower in Kiryat Arba.
Moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem
The first clear test of the Trump administration will be the promised move of the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and thereby recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
Actually, Trump won’t have to do anything to make that happen. The Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995 is a US law — passed by the 104th Congress on October 23, 1995 — for the purpose of relocating the Embassy of the United States in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The act also called for Jerusalem to remain an undivided city and for it to be recognized as the capital of the state of Israel. The law was adopted by the Senate (93–5) and the House (374–37). Nevertheless, it has never been implemented, because of opposition from presidents Clinton, Bush and Obama, who have consistently claimed the presidential waiver on national security interests.
All Trump has to do is not sign that waiver and the law — the will of the American people — will be fulfilled. This is a Trumportunity to instantaneously erase the disgrace of Israel’s great ally not recognizing the Jewish right to Jerusalem.
Push back Iran and jihad
This is what Trump’s Advisory Committee on Israel has written:
Despite the Iran Nuclear deal in 2015, the US State Department recently designated Iran, yet again, as the leading state sponsor of terrorism? — putting the Middle East particularly, but the whole world at risk by financing, arming and training terrorist groups operating around the world including Hamas, Hezbollah and forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The US must counteract Iran’s ongoing… quest for nuclear weapons.
Indeed, the Netanyahu, Brexit and Trump victories are signals from us global voters that we are tired of concessions to jihad — and we want it pushed back. In the UK and and the US, people want an end to dangerous unchecked immigration, and here in Israel we must demand of our leaders to strike at the jihadist infrastructure that exists within the borders of our country. The Obama era encouraged Iran and global jihad; the Trump era is an opportunity to push that dark genie back into the bottle.
But jihadist are not only waging war in Iran, Syria and Gaza. They are also on American campuses and in the media. Much of the intellectual force of jihad against Israel actually sits in offices like those of the New York Times and on campuses like Berkeley — places that affect millions with their incessant teaching and broadcasting of the delegitimization of Israel. In response, Trumps advisers on Israel have written: “The Trump administration will ask the Justice Department to investigate coordinated attempts on college campuses to intimidate students who support Israel.”
Indeed, there is now a Trumportunity to counteract anti-Israel sentiment throughout the world as Trump’s election is, in part, a repudiation of “progressive “ ideology, and within that, of course, is anti-Israelism.
Opportunity to work hard
The Trumportunity is by no means a guarantee. The opportunity here is just that, an opportunity. Just as in the Six-Day War, it can be harnessed or squandered. Now is the time for us Israelis to push hard on our leadership to maximize this moment. Now is the time for pro-Israel Americans to hold the Trump administration to its promise to fulfill its pro-Israel mandate and the Republican platform. Now is the time for all of us to get out and push this wagon all the way home. The victories of Netanyahu, Brexit and Trump are a good start, but nothing here is going to happen automatically. Let’s get to work and take hold of the Trumportunity. May God give us strength to succeed.
its amusing how Israelis do not see for what purpose liberman is in the cabinet. BB always makes appointments to allow him to distance himself from his own deceptive agenda. By appointing liberman to do his dirty work, like yaalon before him, BB creates a lightning rod to attract the criticism while BB maintains a right wing appearance, the real teflon don. BB uses this technique repeatedly and folks still dont get it. So what did liberman get, other than the office of DM, for implementing the BB agenda.
BB has managed to move all israeli discussion far away from any consideration of any major new settlement building outside the major blocks. He has accomplished this by having all the “protestations” revolve only around buiding in the blocks and building in Jerusalem. Meanwhile the suckers completely forgot that there used to be discusions and arguments in Israel over building in C outside the major blocks. Didn’t anyone else notice how he accomplished that shift in the Israel psyche…. no one in Israel ever demands or even calls for discussions over building in area C new settlements outside the major blocks. All he has to do is tell the foreigners to start protesting when he announces anythiing in Jerusalem or the major blocks and then he never needs to mention anything outside the blocks. He did this over a number of years.
If I am wrong then he will immediately build in E1 and create new major settlement cities in area C outside the blocks when trump gets in. After all folks, didnt anyone notice that he has no problem building and approving pal cities and settlements in C?
wake up folks, he used a simple trick that folks should catch.
The minute that nationalists move away from BB you will see him bring in the leftists to government. He need not do that until the right wakes up and realizes there is no reason to vote for him. As long as he can keep up the charade there is no reason for him to change his appearance or his “loyalty”
LOL, give them an inch and they take a yard…. better to give them nothing. the hashemite dwarfs should be booted out of Israel… no soveriegnty over Israel should be given anyone, I see no Israeli soveriegnty over arab nations Jewish holy places.
an excellent precedent for Israel. Also, Russia might be unlikely to back UN sanctions arising from an ICC judgement on anyone to strenfgthen its position. we are returning to bi lateralsim as opposed to gloablism and giving away sovereignties.
the left wing foreign paid opportunist mole got NOTHING, NADA, ZILCH, BUBKISS….. from Bush. Sharon and livni left gaza for NOTHING… a worthless scrap of paper worth less than toilet paper… which has a use. She should be embarassed to bring up her failure to leave gaza, wave a piece of toilet paper… that cannot even be good for wiping ones posterior.
Liberman seeks a building freeze which has been what Bb wanted his DM to do all along…why is anyone talking about a settlement freeze in Israel. BB keeps bringing up obama because that is what he will use as his excuse for his settlement freeze. He will say that he froze the settlements in order to avoid the obama non veto… and yet it is only BB talking about it.
its BB policy to freeze and obstruct Jewish settlement outside the ghetto boundaries and facilitate euro of building of muslim homes outside the ghetto boundaries…. trump is irrelevant, BB is the issue.
JUDEN TO THE BLOCKS….MACH SCHNELL, SCHNELLL!!!!!
do not wander outside your ghetto…
the judenraat have spoken….
albeit covertly.
the big noise with Amona is to cover the other under the table REAL movement. Jews will get a crumb if they are lucky but the large vacant portions of area C is being reserved for the muslims by the judenraat. the nationalists and settlers should demand a return to new large settlement building in area C for Jews… if you cannot demand from a right wing gov then hurry quickly inside the ghetto walls becuase under the soros nazi left wing moles there will not even be crumbs.
the loudmouth dunce needs to sent to the corner with a dunce cap and a muzzle….dumbass.
LOL, while there is a big fuss about Amona we get this:
Israeli Jews do not need help or support from anyone including Trump… they need protection from themselves.
the Genius offers what Israel has already taken.. even Bb said the blocks would be kept………..
Liberman speaks to the clouds, the ether seeking recognition for the euro designated ghetto boundaries…..
Liberman wants to give up the vacant lands in area c which were designated by the LON mandate for Jewish settlment in return for recognition of jews being allowed to stay where they already live. Is that what all those Israelis fought for… ghetto boundaries declared by europe?
Liberman is already squandering the opportunities of Trump by shouting to the sky, the clouds the ether… rather than making better deals with he who wanted to give them. All those Jews whining about Trump, obama, the euros keep looking eslsewhere for their mess……. look in the mirror. forget about trump and outside help…. Jews need a psychiatrist to avoid self abuse.
@yamit
same as his influence everywhere… there is supposed to be a right wing GOI with some power. You cut off his funding to Israel, you declare him to be a terrorist and saboteur for funding destabilization, riots, inciting murder…evidience already exists with his funding in US and BLM in Israel… I am sure there are other connections with NGO’s in Israel… then declare him a fugitive with a warrant… collaborate with others seeking the same.. like hungary and russia…. after that accidents tend to occur. He is a financial terrorist and financial terrorists should be hunted down the same as their stooges. demands must first be made to government while it is still partly right wing… as next all his stooges will be in gov and then it is too late.
It might have been wise to await Obama’s turning over the Oval office to Trump in January to make the announcement of a huge building program in Judea and Sameria. Obama just might take revenge on Israel for that rebuke now by abstaining in the Security Council when the Palestinians present their case to the UN – which will most likely cause world wide sanctions to be invoked against Israel. It’s not the first time Israel has shot itself in the foot with the timing of such announcements.
bernard ross Said:
Soros influence here in Israel I believe is mainly thru NGO’s on the left both Israeli and foreign operating here in Israel. Don’t see how our unorganized ‘rightists’ can effect much with ‘Mostly’ right wing Europeans to harm Soros.
the problem is leftists in Israel and netanyahu… they will keep sabotaging nationalists and settlers and squander the opportunity. The same with the leftist high court in Israel, they will sabotage the Knesset and strike down their laws. The left is the problem, they are paid and funded by soros and eu think tanks to carry on their sabotage in Israel the same as they do in the USA. Israeli nationalists should partner with western nationalists to destroy the soros network even using covert tactics.
Good Article.