BORDER POLITICIS Fences may make better neighbors but civil discourse facilitates relationships (Photos: AFP/Imagebank)

M ore than 80 years have passed since Franklin Delano Roosevelt took to the airwaves for his famous fireside chats radio broadcasts of ten to 30 minutes in which he clearly articulated his policies on the economy and then World War II to the American people.

Brevity may be the soul of wit but with 21st-century attention spans at ten to 30 seconds or limited to 140 characters many pols come across as lacking soul wit and sound judgment when they attempt to communicate their messages in bite-sized nuggets.

Attempting to score points with Donald Trump Binyamin Netanyahu found himself in a diplomatic bind last week after an ill-advised tweet praising Trump’s proposed border fence with Mexico.

The Mexican government was enraged especially as Bibi’s endorsement came in a week when Trump was ramping up the pressure on Mexico City to crack down on illegal immigration and renegotiate trade agreements.

Damage control teams in Israel’s foreign ministry and the prime minister’s office racked up overtime trying to walk back the comment. After receiving phone calls from members of Mexico’s Jewish community concerned about anti-Semitic backlash Interior Minister Aryeh Deri urged Netanyahu to apologize. At press time no apology had been tendered but Mexico had summoned Israel’s ambassador for a diplomatic dressing down.

Similarly President Trump took a beating for his Holocaust Remembrance Day statement that omitted any mention of the Holocaust’s victims — six million Jews.

That omission sparked internal debate in the Jewish world. Jonathan Greenblatt CEO of the Anti-Defamation League called Trump’s statement “puzzling and troubling” while Ron Lauder president of the World Jewish Congress warned against playing politics with the memory of the Holocaust.

“There are enough real anti-Semitic and true threats facing the Jewish people today” Lauder said. “Our community gains nothing if we reach a point where manufactured outrages reduce public sensitivity to the real dangers we confront.”

Lauder cut his diplomatic teeth as America’s ambassador to Austria in the mid-1980s when there was no option other than face-to-face meetings phone calls or written correspondence to articulate policy positions. Much has been said on the ills of today’s hastily written cryptic e-mails and the short tweets of social media which can incite discord between strangers who have never even met. When an unrestrained social media becomes the default method of statecraft it represents a clear and present danger to the citizenry.

This may be the first and last time that Netanyahu gets snagged making an intemperate tweet but with President Trump the condition is both chronic and acute with aides and staffers whispering that someone ought to confiscate the president’s smartphone.

In his quest to make America great again Trump won’t return to FDR’s fireside chats but if he is going to be successful especially in delivering his most controversial initiatives he might turn to proven diplomatic strategies.

Trump enters the White House from the real estate industry where he earned a reputation as a tough negotiator. He detailed those strategies for success in his book The Art of the Deal.