Mainstream media outlets have derided President Trump’s yet-to-be-released Israeli-Palestinian peace plan as a “sideshow divorced from reality” that is “destined to fail,” and it’s become fashionable to attribute this to the shortcomings of his soon-to-be-departed Middle East special envoy, Jason Greenblatt. But claims that Greenblatt “wasn’t the right guy” for the job are dead wrong. Whatever the outcome of the plan, he has arguably done more to advance the cause of peace between Israel and the Palestinians than any American diplomat in recent memory.
Though coming into government with comparatively little knowledge of, or experience dealing with, the Middle East, Greenblatt keenly understood that the primary source of the festering conflict between Israelis and Palestinians is the unwillingness of Palestinian leaders to accept a Jewish state as a legitimate political entity. Hamas and Palestinian Authority (PA) leaders may disagree over tactics and political vision, but they share an absolute rejection of living alongside Israelis as equals, and thus see no need to tone down the viciously anti-Semitic content of their educational curriculum, halt violent anti-Israel incitement on state-run media outlets, or take other steps essential to a good-faith conflict resolution.
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