When All Else Fails
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T he smoke has long cleared and President Donald J. Trump has concluded his first official visit to Jerusalem. As the first US president to visit the Western Wall during his term in office he certainly created a historical moment. The leader of the strongest nation in the Christian world as a guest of the Jewish People in their own country offering a silent prayer at the remnant of our ancient Temple.
True there was some unpleasant pettiness on the part of some staffers who planned the president’s itinerary and made a point of rejecting Prime Minister Netanyahu’s offer to escort him personally to the Kosel — on the grounds that the entire Old City is “occupied territory.” But nevertheless the visit itself was an acknowledgment by the leader of the free world that behind that Wall the Jewish Temple stood the spiritual focal point of the world where all nations will one day ascend.
Indeed from a declarative point of view the president’s visit made a dramatic statement. After thousands of years of exile (which has not yet ended) it brought us a whiff of great things to come G-d willing.
Yet one thing cast a shadow over all the hopes the visit engendered. It was the president’s preceding visit to Saudi Arabia a hard act to follow.
We can’t know what was said there behind closed doors. But what was said and done out in the open was enough to keep policy makers in Jerusalem tossing and turning at night. From their vantage point the big arms deal that was signed between Washington and Riyadh certainly looked like a substantial bribe paid into America’s coffers and obviously Israeli interests were sacrificed in its favor.
Donald Trump eager to revitalize his country’s economy and to create new jobs in areas hit hard by unemployment received a nice gift from the Saudis. The billions of dollars that will stream into America’s arms industry are definitely an achievement from Mr. Trump’s Middle Eastern trip. No I’m not saying that from now on the US will be putty in the hands of Saudi Arabia. Trump’s favorable feelings toward Israel and the Jewish People will continue. But Israelis need to be aware that he will surely have to take the Saudi point of view “into consideration” any time their interests are involved.
For example the Saudis’ view on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And since the Saudis are not about to hand over all at once the fantastic sum of $300 800 000 000 but will be paying it in increments over the next ten years the US will not have complete freedom for the coming decade in any matter that might upset the Saudis. That is perfectly understandable and no one can criticize Washington for that. President Franklin D. Roosevelt who earned everlasting notoriety during World War II by refusing to help the persecuted suffering and hunted Jewish People declared at that time that in a half-hour talk with the king of Saudi Arabia he’d learned all he needed to know about the Jewish problem. His conscience was washed away by the intoxicating smell of the black liquid spurting from the Saudi oil wells. And although the two presidents are different in the extreme who knows what Donald Trump learned in his brief but oh-so-productive visit to Riyadh?
When the president returned home he put pen to paper and broke his solemn and oft-repeated promise to move the American embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Undoubtedly the Saudis conveyed a hint at least that such a move would be undesirable. Even I an obscure armchair columnist predicted as soon as Trump took office that the embassy move would not take place and that the rejoicing in Israel was premature. Naive Israelis even in governmental circles had already begun speculating on suitable locations for the new embassy building. How ludicrous were those arguments about whether to place the embassy in East or West Jerusalem! The arguments fizzled out soon enough when they realized that the embassy wasn’t moving anywhere. But of course the White House softened the blow with promises that the move was off the table “for the time being.”
And that is only one example of what we can expect from the most friendly-to-Israel president to occupy the White House. Friendly yes but also a man with no patience for long drawn-out talks that might take days weeks months or even years. He will want to see results and see them fast and judging from past attempts to make peace between Israel and the Palestinians we will have to pay the price.
I certainly can’t vouch for the veracity of everything I’ve heard in the media but rumblings are never totally in a vacuum. One of those tidbits is that the two Jewish angels of peace Trump has appointed to bring the Mideast conflict to an end are open to the left-wing elements in Israel. Tzipi Livni is a welcome guest in Washington and her anti-Bibi rhetoric does not go unheard. That is to say even before the start of any negotiations the powers that be have already determined that Israel will have to make some very big concessions. This has not been stated explicitly but the message is liberally sprinkled between the lines. Thus we can already foresee that when the negotiations break down — and they will undoubtedly break down — all the blame will once again be heaped on intransigent Israel. If Trump’s two Orthodox Jewish representatives are already talking in Obama-speak now what can we anticipate further down the road?
Israeli author Micah Goodman offers a razor-sharp analysis of the complex situation created by the Six Day War in his book Milkud 67 (Catch 67) and contends that there is no visible way out. No program concocted by the left can bring lasting peace nor can anything in the arsenal of the right resolve the political entanglements that followed the victory whose 50th anniversary was just celebrated. Even die-hard right-wingers are aware that if the State of Israel were to somehow formally annex all of the land comprising Eretz Yisrael a very stressful situation for the Jewish population of Israel would ensue. And if on the other hand Israel were to retreat from all the land that was recaptured in 1967 even the leftists who cry out for that retreat admit that it would put Israel in an untenable security position. When you’re between a rock and a hard place where can negotiations get you?
I’ll just reiterate what I’ve said many times: There is no human solution to the dilemma Israel finds itself in today; the Ribbono shel Olam deliberately puts us into impossible situations like these so that we turn to Him for salvation. As I learned from the Chazon Ish ztz”l Hashem’s yeshuah generally appears after it becomes clear that none of the routes we take in order to extricate ourselves from the trouble we’re in is going to work. And therefore take heart because this is actually a time for optimism. We just need to keep in mind that at some point after President Trump’s efforts to resolve the Mideast conflict have failed Hashem’s Hand which has been working all along behind the scenes will stretch out to help us. (Originally featured in Mishpacha Issue 663)
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