[Salon] President Donald Trump took steps that favoured Israel and outrage Palestinians

[Todd Pierce <todd.e.pierce@icloud.com>]

Title: President Donald Trump took steps that favoured Israel and outrage Palestinians

(Sorry for the “contextualization” here, but when no one else is saying it . . . .) 

There’s been an orchestrated “Cognitive Operations” campaign begun by the Right-wing Oligarchs who joined in concert in 2015 to get Trump elected. Micro-targeting with multivarious/multifarious “narratives” the various factions in the electorate, per Arthur Finkelstein’s “Six-party Theory,” was their method, amongst others. And using the joint efforts of Bannon’s/Mercer’s Cambridge Analytica, SCL Corporation, and Peter Thiel’s Palantir Surveillance Corp.” they succeeded. That the Russians were blamed for that was just “gravy” for these anti-Russians. As even elements of the Republicans, as seen in Ron Paul’s popularity in 2012, and in two lost elections by the Republican candidates, were becoming “war weary,” though not anywhere close to the majority, they invented the Myth of the “Right-wing Peacenik,” as a perception management instrument to get Trump elected, once Thiel, the Adelsons, Charles Koch, and the Mercers all settled on him as best able to advance the Israeli Fascist Right in accomplishing their objectives. As articulated earlier by Benzion Netanyahu first, followed by Meir Kahane, and most recently, for the US right-wing audience, Yoram Hazony. All in a straight ideological line of descent. So, with data scraping of Facebook, and micro-targeting with contradictory narratives which no one ever puts together because of information siloing, Trump was promoted simultaneously as the Leader who would make America’s Military Great Again, and restore torture as US policy, and wage war against Muslims in general, Iran in particular, and China. With it never dawning on most people that those targeted countries necessarily “required” war against Russia too. 

And simultaneously presented as a “Right-wing Peacenik," with people actually falling for that fallacious meme, as an example of the insanity which can be produced through Perception Management. 

With Trump promptly escalating war against Russia and Iran with Special Operations forces, along with an escalation of “Information” and Economic War (“real” war, as DOD recognizes it as). Leaving that aside for now, here’s what he did to accelerate the genocide against the Palestinians, for those who are only transfixed by what Biden is doing, and are helping get Trump elected with their omission of what the even more fanatical Republicans are doing to support all of Israel’s genocidal policies. 

Call this “Forgotten History,” except that the “Right" never acknowledged this for it to be “forgotten.” That not all of this was achieved under Trump only goes to the need to at least get close enough in vote in 2020 to enable the sort of "Putsch” he and his most rabid followers attempted by interfering by violence with the House of Representative’s constitutional duties. So for that as one reason, Netanyahu wasn’t given total carte blanche to annex all the territory he intends to eventually absorb into “Greater Israel.” As his ideological forebears; his father, Meir Kahane, Jabotinsky, Menachem Begin, Likud, and its forerunner, Herut, all intended. As does their their contemporary ideological descendants, the Israeli Fascist Right, to include Yoram Hazony’s National Conservative “Settler front group.” So beloved and loyally adhered to by the US Third (New) Recht, which Trump is the undisputed Führer” of, to use the original language of where this political theory originated. With Germans Carl Schmitt and Leo Strauss, to name the most prominent German right-wing ideologues adopted in American Conservative circles, most cited today (though Schmitt less so in “polite circles,” though readily apparent in any comparative political theory analysis).   

https://www.reuters.com/graphics/ISRAEL-PALESTINIANS/0100B284173/index.html

Trump moves favoured Israel

After Trump took office in 2017, his White House took a series of steps that outraged the Palestinians and delighted Israel. The U.S. moves were widely seen as a bid to pressure the Palestinians into entering peace talks that have been frozen since 2014. 

PUBLISHED SEPT. 9, 2019 | UPDATED JAN. 20, 2021

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The 2019 announcement by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo abandoned the position that settlements in Israeli-occupied territory were “inconsistent with international law”, reversing a legal position taken by the U.S. under President Jimmy Carter in 1978.

Israeli settlements backed by Trump plan

Following the 1993-95 Oslo interim peace deals the Palestinian Authority gained partial or full control over so-called  ■ Areas A and B in the West Bank and over theGaza Strip. 

Israel has full authority over  ■ Area C which accounts for some 60% of the West Bank.

WEST BANK

River Jordan

Nablus

1949 Armistice Lines, known as the Green Line, separated the Israeli from the Jordanian-held territories.

Netanyahu’s proposed annexation of the Jordan Valley announced before the September 2019 election likely on hold under Biden.

Occupied Golan Heights

U.S. recocognises Israeli sovereignty.

UN buffer zone

Ramallah

Jericho

SYRIA

No Man’s Land

Jerusalem

West

Bank

Gaza 

Strip

Bethlehem

Dead

Sea

ISRAEL

Hebron

EGYPT

JORDAN

Note: Part of the western boundary of Netanyahu's proposed annexation is defined by the Allon Road. The remaining exact boundaries are unknown.

On March 25, 2019 Trump announced U.S. recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the occupied Golan Heights, territory that Israel captured from Syria in the 1967 war and later annexed in a move unrecognised by the United Nations and most of the international community.

Palestinians regard Trump’s move as yet another pro-Israel step. Israel had held several rounds of peace talks with Syria about giving the Golan back. But since Iran and Hezbollah, Israel’s enemies, stepped in to help Assad in the Syrian civil war, Israel started lobbying for the U.S. to recognize its hold over the part of the Golan that it holds.

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Two-state solution

Trump’s 2020 Mideast plan envisaged a form of the two-state solution, which would see the creation of a state that Palestinians seek alongside Israel, in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

The United Nations and most nations around the world back the two-state solution.

ENDORSING PALESTINIAN STATEHOOD 
Bilateral recognition of the State of Palestine

SUPPORTING THE TWO-STATE SOLUTION 
Vote on Nov. 26, 2013 on UN Resolution 68/15 supporting the two-state solution

137 UN member states recognizing the State of Palestine

56 not recognizing among which Israel, the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and 19 EU member states including France and Germany

165 UN member states voted in favour

6 voted against – Israel, the U.S., Canada, Micronesia, Marshall Islands, Palau.

6 abstained – Australia, Cameroon, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, South Sudan, Tonga.

 

Further alienating the Palestinians, in September 2018, his administration shut down the Washington office of the Palestine Liberation Organization, in response to Palestinian attempts to prompt an International Criminal Court investigation of Israel, cutting short any possible dialogue with the Palestinian authorities.

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Proclaiming Jerusalem Israel's capital

In December 2017 Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital, reversing longtime U.S. policy.

The status of Jerusalem – home to hundreds of thousands of Jews and Arabs and to sites holy to the Muslim, Jewish and Christian religions – is one of the biggest obstacles to reaching a peace agreement. Israel says Jerusalem is its eternal and indivisible capital. The Palestinians claim East Jerusalem as the capital of the independent state they seek.

JERUSALEM UNTIL THE SIX DAY WAR 
How the city was divided between 1949 and 1967

JERUSALEM AFTER THE SIX DAY WAR 
East Jerusalem, having been captured by Israel in 1967, was later annexed and settlements were built as across the West Bank

Green line

The Armistice line that separated the Israeli and Jordanian- held sides of Jerusalem between 1949 and 1967.

West Bank

West Jerusalem

Old city

East Jerusalem

ISRAEL

No Man’s Land, captured by Israel in 1967 with the rest of East Jerusalem, occupied and later annexed.

East Jerusalem occupied, expanded and later annexed by Israel

Extended city limits

Israeli settlementsin East Jerusalem and across the West Bank

West Jerusalem

Guatemala Embassy

U.S. Embassy

West Bank

The U.S. Embassy moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in May 2018. Ten months later it absorbed the U.S. Consulate – America's local diplomatic channel to the Palestinians. The Embassy site cuts across the 1949 Armistice Agreement Line.

West Jerusalem

No Man’s Land

Israeli settlements

U.S. Embassy

Green line

East Jerusalem

86 countries have diplomatic missions in Israel

Only two of them have their embassies in Jerusalem, Guatemala and the U.S.

All these steps toward Israel angered the Palestinians. They also upset the Arab world and Western allies.

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Cutting humanitarian funds

The Trump administration has carried out a series of cuts in aid to the Palestinians. These included funding cuts to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) that serves Palestinian refugees, the World Food Programme and to East Jerusalem hospitals. In February 2019 the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) announced that it had ceased all assistance to Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza.

HUMANITARIAN AID Reported funding to the occupied Palestinian territories according to UNOCHA financial tracking service

In 2016, the U.S. government accounted for about 40% of all the funding to Palestinian territories.

Since Trump took office, funds went down from $112 million in 2017 to $3 million in 2018 and $0 pledged in 2019.

46 governments and organizations have maintained or increased their fundings between 2017 and 2018

11 decreased their fundings, the U.S., the United Arab Emirates, Japan, Turkey, the UK, Poland, South Korea, Austria, Saudi Arabia, Spain and Estonia*

*Funding from private individuals and organizations and sources that are not specified also decreased.
Note: Humanitarian funding reported to the UNOCHA financial tracking service as of July 29, 2019

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Trump’s Mideast plan

In June 2019 at the 'Peace to Prosperity workshop' in Bahrain Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner proposed a $50 billion global investment fund to boost the Palestinian and neighbouring Arab state economies.

‘

This workshop is simply a political laundry for settlements and a legitimisation of occupation

’

Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh on June 24, 2019

The Trump administration hoped that others - principally wealthy Gulf states and private investors - would foot much of the bill. Israeli officials were not invited to the workshop, but gave it their blessing.

‘

The economic basis is important for coexistence and eventually for peace

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on June 27, 2019

Trump unveiled the political phase of his plan at the White House in Jan. 2020. Embraced by Israel but rejected by the Palestinians, it seems unlikely to survive his administration.

Sources: U.S. government; United Nations; Financial tracking service, United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs; B'Tselem; Peace Now; Economic Cooperation Foundation; Palestinian Authority's Ministry of Planning; Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Permanent Observer Mission of the State of Palestine to the United Nations; Natural Earth; Maps4News; Reuters
Top image: photo-illustration by Matthew Weber
Editing by Stephen Farrell, Maayan Lubell and Michael Ovaska
Additional work by Prasanta Kumar Dutta
By Léa Desrayaud | REUTERS GRAPHICS