‘It is easier to stand up to someone who is seen as a foe, as opposed to someone who’s seen as a friend,’ says David Elhayani, citing the Trump plan for a Palestinian state
ed note–out of the thousands of articles and millions of words spoken and written in the last week or so, it is those appearing in this lone news piece that are the most important in understanding the tectonic events of the last year that have now culminated with the de-facto removal of DJT and the ascension of Joe Biden as POTUS, despite the fact that they will get very little attention, if any at all.
It has been this very issue–DJT’s planned ‘Deal of the Century’–that has functioned as both the source of ignition and the accelerant for the inferno that has surrounded his person and presidency for the last 4 years.
It was never about ‘immigration’, about ‘border walls’, about ‘DACA’, about ‘misogyny’, racism, ‘hate’, ‘white supremacism’, Russia or anything other than that very same issue that saw the destruction of former presidential administrations, including those of Nixon, Ford, Carter, and George H. W. Bush, which was/is
AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY IN THE MIDDLE EAST
And despite the fact that this issue (and in particular DJT’s plans for imposing a Pax Americana on the region that would see Israel relegated/restrained to a mere fraction of the land which she intends to seize in creating her long-planned for theocratic empire stretching from the Nile to the Euphrates) has gotten NO attention/discussion outside of websites such as this, the fact remains that it is THIS PRECISE ISSUE that is the source of all the political instability of the last 4 years that has now culminated in the ticking timebomb all are witnessing right now.
Times of Israel
A top settler leader is pushing back against the narrative that his movement received a major boost during Donald Trump’s four years in the White House, arguing that the outgoing US president fanned the flames of racism while offering merely symbolic measures to the Jewish state that didn’t concretely help solidify Jewish presence beyond the Green Line.
In a Sunday interview with The Times of Israel, the chairman of the Yesha umbrella council of settlement mayors, David Elhayani, was dismissive of a series of steps taken by the Trump administration to normalize Israel’s presence beyond the Green Line.
These included a reversal of policy that deemed settlements ‘illegal,’ a directive to label all US exports from the settlements as ‘made in Israel,’ the extension of scientific bilateral cooperation to the settlements, and a peace plan that envisions Israel annexing every one of its settlements in the West Bank.
‘So they declared that settlements are legal. How does that help the settlement movement? Has it changed our status? Is there Israeli sovereignty here? There is nothing here. These statements are kalaam fadi,’ said the straight-talking Elhayani, using the Arabic word for bullshit.
The settler leader maintained that it was the perception of Trump in the eyes of many in Israel as a ‘friend’ that made him more dangerous to the Jewish state and the settlement movement in particular. In fact, Elhayani expressed relief over Trump’s loss to President-elect Joe Biden, despite the Democrat’s longstanding opposition to settlements.
‘It is easier to stand up to someone who is seen as a foe, as opposed to someone who’s seen as a friend,’ he argued.
Trump’s legacy in the West Bank
Elhayani said that while Trump would be widely linked with the events of the past several weeks — his refusal to accept his election loss, the Capitol storming, the failure to carry out a peaceful transfer of power and his second impeachment by the House, to most Israelis he would be remembered as a good president.
‘Not to me, though,’ he clarified.
The settler leader’s biggest bone to pick with the US president is over the peace plan he introduced in January 2020. While green-lighting Israel’s future annexation of large swaths of the West Bank, the plan also created borders for a Palestinian state on the roughly 70 percent of the semi-contiguous land that remains beyond the Green Line, in addition to several other small areas adjacent to the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
That state, however, is contingent on the Palestinian Authority fulfilling a long list of conditions including the demilitarization of Hamas, accepting an undivided Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, accepting continued overarching Israeli security control of the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, and a ban on Palestinian refugees returning to the Jewish state.
Elhayani, though, dismissed the caveats and those who claim they prove that such a state will never come about.
‘If that really were the case, then what’s the point of the peace plan?’ he asked rhetorically.
‘The Americans are not willing to give us a centimeter of sovereignty before there is a Palestinian state,’ Elhayani insisted, calling such an entity an ‘existential danger to Israel.’
Apples and oranges
He compared Trump’s record on settlements to that of his predecessor Barack Obama. Comparing the latter’s second term to the former’s sole term, figures from the Central Bureau of Statistics show that under Trump, construction starts in the West Bank fell by 35% and growth of the Israeli population in the area dropped from roughly 4.5% to 3.5%.
This is not the first time Elhayani has harshly criticized Trump. The Yesha chairman made headlines last year after the peace plan was unveiled, when he declared that Trump was “not a friend of Israel.”
What made his Sunday comments so remarkable was his criticism of the US president on issues unrelated to Israel and his willingness to declare Biden, a deep-rooted critic of the settlement movement, his preferred candidate for the White House.
Recognizing that he represents a lone voice among his colleagues in the Yesha Council, Elhayani said, “When everyone says Trump is a friend, it’s hard to find the person who has the balls to come and say, ‘Folks, this is not a friend.’”
Elhayani also scoffed at the series of moves that Trump’s biggest supporters point to when touting his pro-Israel credentials.
‘What did the relocation of the embassy give to the settlement movement? What did recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights give to the settlement movement?’ he asked.
‘The Abraham Accords were completely against the settlement movement and we lost sovereignty because of them,’ he added, referring to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to shelve his controversial West Bank annexation plans in exchange for normalization with the United Arab Emirates.
‘So what did we get from Trump? Is there sovereignty here? Are there more residents here? Are there more construction starts? Show me something real that changed. Not words. In practice, nothing changed.’