Ambassador Nikki Haley, in her final U.N. Security Council briefing on the Middle East, began to lift the veil on the Trump administration&#8217;s long-awaited plan for resolving the Arab/Israeli conflict. President Trump and a handpicked team of his closest advisors from his private and business life &#8211; Senior Advisor Jared Kushner, Special Representative Jason Greenblatt and Ambassador David Friedman &#8211; have invested considerable time and effort crafting that plan. Despite obsessive curiosity and endless speculation, they&#8217;ve developed it without a single leak. That they allowed Haley to describe those efforts, even in general terms, suggests that a larger scale rollout approaches.
Haley&#8217;s revelations, while circumspect, described a concrete plan packed with new ideas and a detailed consideration of recent regional developments. She spoke of a plan that &#8220;embraces the reality that things can be done today that were previously unthinkable.&#8221; In other words, a plan quintessentially Trump.
President Trump&#8217;s embrace of reality marks a clear break from the stale thinking, flawed logic, denial of historic fact, and indifference to human nature that have long characterized Arab/Israeli &#8220;peace plans.&#8221; And it builds upon ways in which the Trump administration has already injected welcome, previously unthinkable realism into the debate.
Trump&#8217;s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel&#8217;s capital was a watershed precisely because it reflected reality. For seventy years, the world clung to the fiction that Jerusalem was an international city while Israel&#8217;s capital was Tel Aviv. Absolutely no one believed either half of that story, but it took Trump to assert the obvious truth before others could follow his lead.
More realism: In 1949, the UN created a category of &#8220;Palestine Refugees&#8221; that now exceeds five million people, and an agency, UNWRA, to cater to them. The formal definition of Palestine Refugee differs significantly from what would normally be considered refugees from the region then called Palestine. The Trump administration&#8217;s adoption of standard terminology clarified that such refugees actually number in the tens of thousands.
Even more: President Trump&#8217;s historic Riyadh speech to Arab heads of state was a realist game-changer. Trump correctly identified Islamism&#8212;radical, violent, political Islam&#8212;as an Islamic problem. He highlighted the struggle pitting Muslim modernizers seeking to integrate peacefully and prosperously into global society against Islamist supremacists seeking to promote violence, terror, war and conquest. He called upon the modernizers to take the painful but necessary step of &#8220;driving out&#8221; the supremacist radicals. Since that speech, the U.S. has worked with Arab allies to combat Islamist organizations, including the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood, ISIS, Hamas, the Shiite Islamic Republic of Iran, and Hezbollah. 
It&#8217;s a sign of just how divorced from reality conventional wisdom has become that President Trump&#8217;s acknowledgments of reality strike so many as unthinkable concessions to Israel. Truth and facts are nonpartisan; they&#8217;re simply truth and facts. For decades, most Arab/Israeli &#8220;peace plans&#8221; have rested upon unsustainable lies. President Trump&#8217;s trusted team can differentiate its plan merely by acknowledging the truth. 
In 2004, President George W. Bush floated a bit of Arab/Israeli realism that many of his own advisors opposed. Bush rejected establishing an independent state of Palestine as a matter of entitlement or right. Instead, he laid out behavioral guidelines that would motivate the Palestinian Authority to earn a greater voice over its own future&#8212;including eventual independence. That vision, however, suffered from the same weakness as Bush&#8217;s other foreign policy initiatives: It lacked a contingency plan. Bush never explained how the region&#8217;s players should proceed if the PA continued to behave like a terror movement rather than a state-in-waiting. 
If the Trump plan truly embraces realism, it will lay out behavioral changes and a timetable for the Palestinian Authority, but it will not let PA intransigence hold the region hostage. The PA cannot forever derail the strategic, economic, and diplomatic development of the entire region. If the PA demonstrates its unwillingness or inability to serve the interests of the people it claims to lead, a realistic contingency plan will urge Israel and U.S.-allied Arab states to sideline the PA and work together. 
Ambassador Haley cautioned: &#8220;There are things in the plan that every party will like, and there are things in the plan that every party will not like. That is certainly true for the Israelis and the Palestinians.&#8221; The PA will not like hearing the U.S. clarify that a rejectionist PA cannot contribute to either regional stability or a better life for anyone; it will have earned rejection itself.
As for Israel, it didn&#8217;t have to wait for the plan&#8217;s publication to hear tough messages. The day after Haley spoke, President Trump tweeted his plans to pull U.S. forces out of Syria. Whatever that tweet may mean as a matter of policy, it&#8217;s a stark reminder that though outside powers will alter their conceptions of their own interests in the region, Israel will remain part of the Middle East. One way or another, Israel will have to forge relationships with the region&#8217;s other states. There is no better basis on which to forge them than realism.
Bruce Abramson is a senior fellow at the London Center for Policy Research and a contributor to the news and public policy group Haym Salomon Center. Jeff Ballabon is CEO of B2 Strategic and a senior fellow at the Center for Statesmanship and Diplomacy.
<div> </div>
<div> </div>

ABRAMSON AND BALLABON: A Realist Plan for the Arab/Israeli Conflict?

israel

Imagine a high school or college student who&#8212;in this climate of heightened awareness of bullying, violence, even school shooters&#8212;posted on his social media something like: &#8220;I&#8217;m so fed up with all the crap people talk. When I get back to campus, I&#8217;ll physically fight anyone who spouts bullsh*t! I&#8217;ll abolish your a**.&#8221; 
If you were a school administrator, would you take that seriously? Consider disciplinary action? Be concerned about liability? 
Not really a tough call, right? Not in this day and age.
Let&#8217;s say the threat comes from a student leader &#8211; one specifically tasked by the school to welcome new students and look after the welfare of others.
It hardly seems too much to expect students elevated as exemplars to refrain from threatening to instigate violence. You might generously reason that we all lose it sometimes; perhaps a stern warning will discourage such lapses of discretion in the future. Yet, as an administrator responsible for the safety of students as well as the general campus atmosphere, you couldn&#8217;t possibly retain such a student in a position of authority. Right? It&#8217;s not just the impact of inaction on others; imagine the liability if he did make good on his threat.
Shall we make the hypothetical still more interesting? Instead of general references to crap &#8220;people&#8221; talk, or a threat to fight &#8220;anyone,&#8221; suppose the posting were more specific. What if it targeted black students or Mexicans or women? Oh, and what if the threatening student has a long history of engagement with organizations known to encourage discrimination and violence against the group he&#8217;s threatened?
Targeted threats are a heightened problem&#8212;particularly when hurled against vulnerable groups with a history of being victims of discrimination and violence. At this point, there&#8217;s simply no way you&#8217;d allow such a student to represent the university or oversee the welfare of others. You&#8217;d seriously consider expulsion and potential criminal charges. And you&#8217;d take immediate and unequivocal steps to distance your school from this student and condemn his odious threats.
What if the group he threatened is Jews?
Full stop. 
Somehow the decision just got blurred. Certainly, the situation deserves careful attention and&#8230;some kind of nuancing? Perhaps the threat was understandable&#8212;under the circumstances, and all. It would be a shame to let one ill-advised post undermine a fine student leader.
That appears to be the case at Stanford University. Because the only &#8220;hypothetical&#8221; part of the story to this point is the actual quote.
Stanford&#8217;s Hamzeh Daoud, a former student senator and an incoming resident assistant, posted on Facebook:
<blockquote>
I&#8217;m gonna physically fight Zionists on campus next year if someone comes at me with their &#8216;Israel is a democracy&#8217; bullsh*t. And after I abolish your a** I&#8217;ll go ahead and work every day for the rest of my life to abolish your petty a** ethno-supremacist, settler-colonial state.
</blockquote>
Daoud reportedly is a longstanding member of the rabidly anti-Semitic Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), a group directly involved in campus anti-Semitism and violence and with well-established ties to terror-funding groups. 
A week later, and only after students demanded action, what has Stanford&#8217;s response been? &#8220;The author of the post will receive fair and thoughtful consideration, as our work with students demands.&#8221; This, from an institution whose Human Resources department organized counseling programs and circulated a campus-wide letter &#8220;to reaffirm the university&#8217;s commitment to support every member of our community&#8221; when Hillary Clinton lost an election. Perhaps they should simply have reaffirmed their commitment to support every member of the community except &#8220;Zionists.&#8221;
That&#8217;s not to say, of course, that all Jews at Stanford have lined up against Daoud. In a culture where Jews are targeted exponentially more than any other group, &#8220;Battered Jew Syndrome&#8221; is a recognized phenomenon. The hard-left Jewish Voice for Peace &#8211; an anti-Israel organization of Jews who prove their progressive creds by feting murderous anti-Jewish terrorists and slandering Israel with the same inciteful blood libels as Daoud and SJP &#8211; rallied to his support. After all, they contend, only Islamophobes and off-campus agitators would oppose Daoud.
It would be nice to think that Stanford&#8217;s administration would act forcefully to prove them wrong. It seems obvious that the university should stand up unequivocally and without hesitation to defend any of its students against bigoted hatred and threats of violence. So far, however, it appears that the Israel-haters may be correct that off-campus agitation may prove necessary. Because left to its own devices, Stanford just doesn&#8217;t seem to give a damn when the target is Israel or Jews.
This incident and the university&#8217;s appalling passivity resonate well beyond the Stanford campus. Anti-Semitism is on the rise. It&#8217;s being mainstreamed. Daoud and his defenders are merely ugly symptoms; the climate established by Stanford is the problem.
Bruce Abramson is a Senior Fellow at the London Center for Policy Research and a Contributor to the news and public policy group Haym Solomon Center. Jeff Ballabon is CEO of B2 Strategic and a Senior Fellow at the American Conservative Union&#8217;s Center for Statesmanship and Diplomacy.

ABRAMSON, BALLABON: Does Stanford Condone Violence When It’s Directed Against Jews?

Anti-Semitism

Stanford

In recent weeks, a small but growing number of lifelong Democrats disgusted with their party&#8217;s progressive leadership and its attacks on traditional liberal values has decided to #WalkAway. Most of those walking identify with one or more of the minority communities that have long given disproportionate, automatic support to the Democrats. America&#8217;s Jews should pay attention. 
Brandon Straka, the man behind the hashtag, is gay. Until fairly recently, the gay rights movement represented people who sought to live their lives in ways that conflicted with traditional morality without governmental restrictions, without crippling discrimination, and without asking anyone else to alter their own lives, families, or lifestyles. Many&#8212;almost certainly most&#8212;gay Americans still believe in that traditional notion of freedom. To the progressive leadership of the LGBTQ movement, however, traditional morality is little more than a smokescreen entrenching a structurally racist, privileged, gender-binary patriarchy. 
The message to gay Americans is clear. If you want to impose your beliefs on those who don&#8217;t share them, stick with the progressives. If you embrace a live-and-let-live view of the world, #WalkAway from the progressive LGBTQ leadership. They don&#8217;t represent you. Don&#8217;t support them. 
African-American voters have also begun to #WalkAway. Their exit reflects a longstanding debate between colorblind integrationists like MLK and black nationalists like Malcolm X. Today&#8217;s progressive black leadership pays lip service to King while championing a black nationalist agenda. From its demands for reparations and segregated dormitories to its embrace of Nation of Islam acolytes, today&#8217;s progressive black leadership fears a society in which content of character is all that matters. 
The message to black Americans is clear. If you see yourself as a victim in need of a revolutionary national uprising, stick with the progressives. If you share King&#8217;s dream, #WalkAway from the progressive black leadership. They don&#8217;t represent you. Don&#8217;t support them.
I write as a Jewish American who spent many years as an active Democrat, a proud part of the 1990s center-Left. I worked with the National Jewish Democratic Council and the Democratic National Committee as a volunteer for the Gore and Kerry campaigns, and later served on the Bay Area Jewish Community Relations Council. I watched firsthand&#8212;and up close&#8212;as America&#8217;s Jewish leadership refused to fight for Jewish interests.
I don&#8217;t think my politics are outside the mainstream. As an American, I want leadership that demonstrates: the willingness to confront and defeat the Islamist threat to Western civilization; an understanding that economic growth is a prerequisite for positive social change; and a commitment to civil rights and civil liberties. As a Jew, I prioritize: support for Israel as a secure Jewish state; opposition to anti-Semitism, anti-Zionism, and all forms of Jew hatred; and preservation of the freedom to live in accordance with the teachings of my faith.
Today&#8217;s progressive Democrats stand openly, explicitly, and proudly on the wrong side of three of these issues: Progressives are more concerned with a fictional Islamophobia than with a real Islamism. Their economic programs tout redistribution rather than growth. And they embrace a &#8220;Palestinian struggle&#8221; opposed to Israel&#8217;s security. Their approaches to my remaining issues are subtler: Progressives have redefined civil rights, anti-Semitism, and freedom of religion to pretend that they stand for justice rather than against it.
I walked away from the Democratic Party when the DNC handed leadership to Howard Dean and his progressive followers. I didn&#8217;t join the GOP until five years later.
Much of America&#8217;s Jewish leadership moved in the opposite direction. It jettisoned Jewish interests to embrace the progressive agenda. Far too many leading Jewish organizations collect sizable donations to fight Jew hatred, support Israel, and preserve religious freedom&#8212;then hand it to progressive politicians and groups that work against all three causes.
While that situation may cheer progressives who happen to be Jewish, it should dismay every American Jew concerned with the future of our community&#8212;regardless of beliefs about taxes, abortion, the environment, or anything else. 
If you&#8217;re part of that group, speak out&#8212;with your voice, with your donations, and with your vote! Say to our communal leaders and the politicians they support:
If the Women&#8217;s March backs Hamas and the Nation of Islam, #WalkAway from it or we will #WalkAway from you.
If Black Lives Matter incorporates Jew-hatred into its platform, #WalkAway from it or we will #WalkAway from you.
=If your alma mater gives free rein to anti-Zionists who terrorize Jewish students, #WalkAway from it or we will #WalkAway from you.
If intersectionality compels you to deny, question, or qualify the Jewish right to self-determination in the Jewish homeland, #WalkAway from it or we will #WalkAway from you.
If the Congressional Black Caucus welcomes virulent anti-Semites like Louis Farrakhan or Jeremiah Wright, #WalkAway from it or we will #WalkAway from you.
If a politician, organization, thinker, or publication supports an independent terrorist Palestine or a nuclear genocidal Iran, #WalkAway from it or we will #WalkAway from you.
You don&#8217;t have to embrace the opposition to stand up for yourself. #JewToo can #WalkAway.
Bruce Abramson is a Senior Fellow at the London Center for Policy Research and a Contributor to the news and public policy group Haym Solomon Center.
<div> </div>

Menu

Bruce Abramson

ABRAMSON AND BALLABON: A Realist Plan for the Arab/Israeli Conflict?

ABRAMSON, BALLABON: Does Stanford Condone Violence When It’s Directed Against Jews?

ABRAMSON: #JewToo Can #WalkAway