The Trump impeachments were more political theater than anything substantive.
The feeling was that Trump did not belong inside the business of politics-as-usual in Washington, DC, and that position was held, unfortunately, by almost all Democrats as well as too many Republicans.
Donald Trump was a good president for Israel and though some of the leadership in our community has made short shrift of that reality, the upcoming agreements between Israel and Saudi Arabia should be credited to Mr. Trump as well. Had there been no Abraham Accords there would be no current Saudi–Israel conversation.
Today the American political system is stuck in the mud with wheels spinning. Each side of the political divide would like to see the other side in prison. Can that be considered healthy or normal?
It’s difficult to ignore that whatever happens here in the U.S. is mirrored in some way almost six thousand miles away in Israel. Unlike Trump, Netanyahu is a longtime seasoned politician, while Trump’s main issue was that he had never held elective office and was new to the business. But they are similar in that their opponents are seeking to put them in jail as a way to derail their political objectives and their future seat of power.
Today, despite the solid right-wing majority in the Knesset in Israel and an increasingly weak administration here in the U.S., Israel still finds itself in limbo in terms of issues like judicial reform and extending Israeli law to the more than half a million residents of Judea and Samaria, which was the hope and plan not too long ago.
The main issue Israel will need to address upon returning from summer vacation after the chagim in October is: Is it worth setting all other coalition agenda items and even priorities aside in order to establish a new diplomatic relationship with Saudi Arabia?
As with so many dilemmas in Israel, the answer to that question is both yes and no.
Establishing diplomatic relations between Israel and the Saudis is a major Middle East game-changer. To appreciate the possibility of that development requires understanding how hardline Saudi Arabia once was, and the idea of even discussing or hinting at such a possibility was as impossible as it was forbidden in the kingdom and beyond.
The vision of the Abraham Accords changed that, but still there are a series of moving pieces that we need to understand as the process proceeds. Firstly, there already exists a relationship of sorts between the Saudis and Israel. No longer is the idea anathema to Mohammed Bin Salman, better known as MBS. The prince and future leader of the kingdom sees great benefits for his people if the doors were open and there were exchanges in terms of trade and tourism between the Saudis and the Jewish State.
The Biden people, however, have other ideas for how Israel’s relations will be constructed with the Saudis and other Arab countries even beyond that. For President Biden and his foreign policy apparatus, agenda item number one is creating a Palestinian state, also known as the two-state solution, and that includes a division of Jerusalem and so on.
As things heat up between Israel and the Saudis, folks like Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin feel that this is their opportunity to score a foreign policy victory and deliver two states after a half-century-long effort.
But as you can see, the Biden administration is about to embark on defending itself from what might be the most serious charges of corruption in the history of the United States. As it stands at this stage, what the president and his family may have indulged in over the last many years makes Richard Nixon, who resigned from office in disgrace, look like a Boy Scout.
For the Saudis—unlike Mr. Biden—the Palestinian issue is not atop their agenda. Both Israel and the Saudis agree that now is not the right time for the establishment of a Palestinian state in any form. PA leader Abbas is in his 18th year of his four-year term and there are no elections anywhere on the horizon.
The Palestinian Authority seems to be a thorn in everyone’s side except for the Biden administration—but they rarely mean what they say anyway. The fairly well-known secret is that Saudi relations with Israel are not conditional on an Israeli–Palestinian agreement, which has been elusive for decades. That might come as a surprise to both the PA and the U.S., but that is basically it.
To placate the U.S. so that the Biden team does not undo any progress here, Netanyahu announced this week that he will delay extending Israel sovereignty to Judea and Samaria until 2028. That, of course, was not received well by the parties on the right who are essential to his governing coalition. For Israel, it is a matter of kicking the can down the road—that is, an issue that will have to be dealt with someday—and you can rest assured that at the end of the process Israeli law will be extended to the territories. The only question is when.
For now it is just a stopgap solution. The expectation is that four years from now, when tourism and trade is widespread between Israel and the Saudis, whether or not there will be Israeli law in the territories will be an insignificant matter.
But this type of thinking requires consideration of what is in Israel’s best interest over the short-term. An open Saudi–Israeli relationship, along with the abundance of Saudi oil and Israel’s know-how in a variety of areas like farming and technology, changes a lot in the Middle East. An additional consideration has to be the renewed diplomatic relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran as well as their new closeness to both China and Russia. These moves can eventually lead to the closest thing we have seen in a long time to world peace, with the centerpiece being Israel.
It is obviously unknown how long it will take for these changes to move us in that direction and bear fruit—or, in this case, world peace. Right now that looks impossible, but from a Divine perspective, that just may be a sign that we are almost there.
Read more of Larry Gordon’s articles at 5TJT.com. Follow 5 Towns Jewish Times on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter for updates and live videos. Comments, questions, and suggestions are welcome at 5TJT.com and on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
