Trump Vindicated On Middle East — Up to a Point

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.

The New York Sun

The vindication by the United Arab Emirates of President Trump’s Mideast strategy of support for Israel is a remarkable moment in its own right. No less of a liberal than Thomas Friedman of the Times writes that for once he agrees with Mr. Trump’s assessment — that the agreement, under which the UAE will establish full diplomatic relations with the Jewish state, is “HUGE.” He calls it a “geopolitical earthquake.”

For our part, we’re more reserved. We’ve never had any doubt that the way to peace in the Middle East is for America to stand behind Israel, rather than between Israel and her enemies. The best marker of this is President Trump’s decision to bow to the United States Congress and move our embassy to Jerusalem. This logic is beautifully articulated this morning in an savvy editorial in the Wall Street Journal.

Our own reservations involve the supposed agreement to forego, at least temporarily, the “annexation” of parts of the West Bank. We’re not particularly exercised one way or another over the timing of the application of Israeli law in Judea and Samaria. We are, though, concerned in respect of the principle, which has been guarded not only by the right in Israel but also the early leaders of Labor Zionism.

The future founding prime minister of Israel, David Ben Gurion himself, made the point in a speech to the 20th Zionist Congress, which met in 1937 at Switzerland and heard the future first president of the Jewish State, Chaim Weizmann, come out for partition of Palestine. The point Ben Gurion made was that while partition was better than the British mandate, no one had the right to abandon Jewish claims.

“If we were offered a Jewish state in the western land of Israel in return for our relinquishing our historical right over the whole land of Israel, then I would postpone the state. No Jew has the right to relinquish the right of the Jewish people over the whole land of Israel. It is beyond the powers of any Jewish body. It is even beyond the power of the whole of the Jewish people living today to give up any part of the land of Israel.”

Those words, quoted by Mr. Friedman in his book “From Beirut to Jerusalem,” are words to remember in the coming seasons. For we are all too likely to see the Democrats try to use the deal struck this week to erode Israel’s historic claims (Remember Security Council Resolution 2234). This is a moment to remember that every step forward in Israel’s struggle was made when it was out in front of world opinion.

This point is made this week in the Jerusalem Post, whose columnist, Michael Freund, urges Israel to follow what he calls the Ben Gurion Model of declaring sovereignty despite world opinion. He recalls that just days before the British mandate was due to expire in May 1948, Israel’s own leadership was debating whether to accept a mere trusteeship. It decided for independence, and the rest is history.

It’s not our intention here to gainsay the dangers ahead (Turkey is already complaining darkly about the latest events). It’s merely to mark that history favors the bold — and not just in Israel. President Trump more plainly than any candidate before him promised to finish the move of the embassy to Jerusalem. And in its wake comes recognition by the Emirates. Our Benny Avni reports that other Arab states might follow, which would be “ yuge.”


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