By Daniel B. Shapiro
King Abdullah of Jordan, left, looks on as Jared Kushner talks with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and his wife during the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington D.C. Feb. 2, 2017.
It was always folly that Jared Kushner, (click here) a key example of Trump's terrible, nepotistic distortion of American government, monopolized the U.S.-Israel relationship. Now he's going down, how much further will critical decision-making deteriorate?
Not since the November 1, 1973 meeting between Prime Minister Golda Meir, under fire for the failures that led to the Yom Kippur War, and President Richard Nixon, already deep into the Watergate scandal, have American and Israeli leaders met at a time of such internal political turmoil in both countries.
As thousands of advocates for a strong U.S.-Israel relationship gather in Washington for the annual AIPAC Policy Conference this week, the fraught situation in both governments raises the question of how to manage the U.S.-Israel relationship through choppy waters and bumpy roads....
...What all these advances had in common was that they resulted from an effort, at least on the U.S. side, to ensure that the bilateral relationship, and the policy that guided it, were spread across all parts of our government....
...There will always be a few key, high-level individuals managing the relationship and making decisions on the most sensitive matters, but others in the government need to be involved, informed, and coordinated.
Lately, one has the impression that the relationship has been shrunk down to three or four people on each side. Trump White House paranoia about the loyalty of career officials, whom they deride as the "deep state", surely contributes. So does the failure to fill many senior State Department posts. Israeli coalition politics, with cabinet portfolios spread across multiple parties and no foreign minister, are a factor as well.
A structure like this one creates problems that benefit neither country....
...Finally, this structure injects chaos when someone leaves or gets in trouble. If all the eggs of the U.S.-Israel relationship are in Jared Kushner’s basket, what happens when that basket self-immolates, as is going on now? Over-investment in one or two individuals, no matter how supportive, actually weakens the structures that the bilateral relationship needs.
Other governments, particularly in the Gulf, have made a similar mistake, leaning far too heavily on Jared Kushner as the be-all and end-all of their relationships with the United States.
That’s because of the terrible distortion of the U.S. government under the Trump Administration - from a collection of professional departments to a family-run business, complete with a crown prince and blatant misuse of government positions to advance private commercial interests.
As Kushner goes down, those governments must ask themselves, now what?...
...President Obama used to say that government officials are like runners in a relay race, carrying the baton for a while and then handing it off to the next runner. That is true across administrations, but it is also true during a single administration, when most people only serve in their posts for about two years.
When Jared Kushner has the baton pulled from his hand, who is going to carry it for the U.S.-Israel relationship in the coming years?U.S. United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley, White House senior adviser Jared Kushner and Middle East Envoy Jason Greenblatt wait for a meeting of the UN Security Council at UN headquarters in New York
Except for Trump and Kushner, no other party finds the plan interesting.
March 12, 2018
By Amir Tibon
Washington – The Trump administration's Israeli-Palestinian peace (click here) plan is currently being finalized and it will not include an explicit endorsement of a two-state solution, according to a report published Monday by the New York Times....
Currently, Eric Prince was hired by the UAE to fight in Yemen.
I believe it was Jason Greenblatt that felt the Palestinian President Abbas was out of line and Anti-Semitic by stating the US Envoy was the "son of a dog settler."
That is laughable.
Greenblatt has a boss in DC, namely the President, that never stops calling absolutely anyone derived names with an emotional punch. I do believe President Abbas was paying Greenblatt a compliment carrying an appropriate greeting. It seems the sincere meaning was lost in the translation though.
I was wondering did Greenblatt receive a handshake in public yet?
Oh, by the way, the Saudis are headed to the White House for a meeting. I'd bet real money they will be asking for OCO funds for Eric Prince's militia.
Why was Geoge Nader in the White House? Trump has pedophile tendancies. Why is there any doubt why Nader was in the White House?
