1. REWARDING PALESTINIAN INTRANSIGENCE

"It is absurd that the administration is willing to recognize yet another Arab Palestinian state while refusing to recognize even a small Kurdish state despite the Kurds having refrained from terrorism and having been crucial allies for decades” says Eugene Kontorovich a constitutional law professor at Northwestern University and part of the Kohelet Policy Forum. “Moreover the danger of recognizing a Palestinian state is that it’s the kind of move that is impossible to reverse. Whereas the Palestinian side of the bargain can always be abandoned.” On the plus side Kontorovich says the news leaks describing a possible new deal suggest several promising developments such as the abandonment of the previous administration’s insistence that a Palestinian state be based on 1949 Armistice Lines or that Jewish settlers be expelled as part of such process. “That of course means that the Palestinians will never actually accept this deal. But it doesn’t mean they won’t pocket any concessions in their favor which always becomes the floor for new negotiations.”

2. SETTING BORDERS

The leaked news reports say merely that the Palestinians would declare a state and the US would accept it. It’s not so simple. Under international law prerequisites for statehood include: a) effective and independent government control; b) the possession of defined territory; c) the capacity to freely engage in foreign relations; and d) effective control over a permanent population. For now if you grouped the above prerequisites into a multiple-choice test the answer would be e) none of the above. So the entire concept is problematic because the PA is incapable of doing any of the above without Israel’s direct involvement. The idea that Palestine could be born as an amorphous borderless entity is unlikely which probably means that sections of Judea and Samaria currently under PA control would end up being part of their state. And as Kontorovich asks: “If Hamas takes over as it did in Gaza would the US ‘un-state’ the State of Palestine? Of course not.”

3. KNOW YOUR CUSTOMER

As president Donald Trump still markets his expertise as a businessman and any prudent businessman is careful with whom he deals. Yoram Ettinger a retired Israeli ambassador and a longstanding source of mine said it best this week when he wrote: “The choice of business and social partners should be based — objectively — on a proven track record not subjectively on unproven hopes and speculation.” Ettinger then ticked off a long list of allies that the Palestinians have partnered with in the last century including the Muslim Brotherhood Nazi Germany North Korea Cuba Venezuela China Russia and Iran. “In 2017 Hitler is still glorified by Palestinian officials and media and Hitler’s Mein Kampf is a best-seller in the Palestinian Authority ” Ettinger notes.

4. LOSING THE CULTURE WAR

As of now if you ran a popularity contest between the Ebola epidemic and Donald Trump among leftists Ebola would probably win. It will be illuminating to see the left’s reaction to a Trump administration peace proposal that embraces many of the left’s pet positions including Palestinian statehood and makes Netanyahu and the right squirm. Will the left find an elegant way to embrace the idea but not the man behind it? And if Trump’s initiative falls apart like every other peace plan before it he will probably find that the left scorns him more than before and that the support he gained from the Israeli right will dissipate.