Jared Kushner Places His Bet

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

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NY Sun
NEW YORK SUN CONTRIBUTOR

Although we’re not a fan of American peace-making in the Middle East, we have developed a respect for the attempt by President Trump that his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, is starting to unveil at Bahrain. It may be that the $50 billion economic portion of the plan is facing what Reuters calls “broad Arab rejection” as a “colossal waste of time.” That, though, puts Mr. Kushner in a promising position; he has nowhere to go but up. We like his pluck.

We’re well aware of the warning that the Zionist prophet Vladimir Jabotinsky issued in 1923, to the effect that the Palestinian Arabs could not be bribed. “Our Peace-mongers,” Jabotinsky wrote, “are trying to persuade us that the Arabs are either fools, whom we can deceive by masking our real aims, or that they are corrupt and can be bribed to abandon to us their claim to priority in Palestine, in return for cultural and economic advantages.”

Jabotinsky repudiated that conception of the Palestinian Arabs. To imagine that the Palestinian Arabs would “voluntarily consent to the realization of Zionism, in return for the moral and material conveniences,” he wrote, reflected “a kind of contempt for the Arab people.” What Jabotinsky himself preferred was an “iron wall” — a military strategy to protect the Jewish settlement in Zion. He foresaw an open-ended commitment until the Palestinian Arabs came to terms.

Himself, Jabotinsky became the founder of the Irgun, and both sides of Israel’s debate have pursued a strong defense of Israel, which has gone on to glory and prosperity and become an example for other aspiring peoples. It had help, too, from other nations. Yet in our long newspaper life we have encountered stories in which economic incentives achieved things of which people hadn’t dared to dream.

Most dramatically, in our experience, was school integration in the Jim Crow South in the late 1960s. We had gone to work for one of America’s great integrationist newspapers, the Anniston, Alabama, Star, where we found ourselves covering a meeting of a school board under the threat of federal civil rights law. The board faced a decision. It operated two school buildings, one for African Americans and one largely for whites. Both needed an upgrade.

The dilemma was that the county could spend its own money upgrading two separate schools. Or close them and build a larger, more modern school that was integrated. If it did the latter — but only the latter — they hoped for some federal financial assistance. We will never forget listening as the members of the board unburdened themselves of the fact that they were none too happy about the prospect of integrating schools.

It was no small thing. Calhoun County itself had a history of violence against those who favored integration. On Mother’s Day 1961, a bus full of Freedom Riders was firebombed just outside of town. So, even if it was in hopes of subsidies, it took courage for the school board to decide to move toward integration. Even if the legal case, known as Lee v. Macon, would rattle on in Calhoun County and across Alabama for some years.

It reminds us of the kind of politicking that, as portrayed in the Steven Spielberg movie “Lincoln,” helped win the 13th Amendment to the Constitution. Neither situation is directly comparable to the drama unfolding in the Middle East. Covering Lee v. Macon, though, made us less cynical. Sometimes economic incentives, or opportunities, can change people’s way of thinking, or at least trump — pardon the expression — their biases.

That seems to be the strategy of Mr. Kushner and his allies in putting the economic plan out before the political program. It’s a moment to remember that the 80th United States Congress passed the Marshall Plan a full decade before, say, France found its footing in the Fifth Republic. And 40 years before Germany was reunited. Mr. Kushner has to know he’s seeking to assemble $50 billion for a long shot in a contest that won’t be called for years. Then again, too, it’s not as if his detractors and skeptics have done better.

NY Sun
NEW YORK SUN CONTRIBUTOR

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.


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