“Be Big!”

In one of Laurel & Hardy’s classic films, Babe Hardy barks at poor Stan, “Be Big!” It was a call to be bold and not settle for mediocrity. Of course, The Boys were all about mediocrity! (Except when it came to comedy!)

After my recent rants about Donald Trump’s foreign policy team and how they are approaching certain aspects of the Arab-Israeli crisis, Trump himself has come out with a novel idea (not unprecedented, but extremely out-of-the-box thinking where modern diplomacy in the West is concerned).

Last week, Trump raised the possibility of moving most if not all Palestinians out of the Gaza Strip and re-locating them to Jordan and Egypt.

It would be the sports equivalent of scrapping a pro-style offense and installing the wishbone. Except in Trump’s plan, this would work in the modern world.

He’s being big with this plan.

Of course, the corrupt Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan said no way. Egypt said no way.

Trump said, “Way.” In the last 24 hours, when asked by reporters about the reluctance of those two Muslim states to absorb such a sizable, radicalized society, Trump said, “They will do it.”

So, this isn’t an idea that is just floated out there and it goes away like most of Washington usually does. It has come about because Trump is willing to, well, impose his will.

That is something none of our previous presidents were willing to do. Even under Reagan, the State Department was infested with career Arabists. His advisors (such as James Baker) didn’t like the Jews and they didn’t like Menachem Begin’s Israel. George H.W. Bush presided over the disastrous Oslo deal. George W. Bush was considered to be very friendly to Israel, yet he loved the plan to evacuate the Gaza Strip, Sharon’s disaster decision that has led us to the chaos there now.

Obama and Biden were just flat-out anti-Israel.

Enter Trump. I don’t think Trump views any of this through a biblical lens. He’s a secular deal-maker. It would be nice if he felt the way Roberto Silva does, as he tweeted this week:

 “We are in a complex moment of the multi-front war against the axis of evil. It is a moment that we can take advantage of to focus on the only one who has everything under his control: The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. May God bless the hostages and their families. May God bless Israel.”

 But even if Trump is not a Christian Zionist, he has a better team around him than predecessors did. Pete Hegseth at Defense. Mike Huckabee as ambassador.

 How this came about recently is intriguing to a lot of people.

 From the Jerusalem Post:

 “Referring to Gaza’s population, Trump estimated ‘probably a million and a half people,’ and suggested: ‘We just clean out that whole thing. It’s – you know, it’s – over the centuries, that’s – that’s many, many conflicts, that site. And I don’t know. Something has to happen, but it’s literally a demolition site right now. Almost everything is demolished, and people are dying there. So, I’d rather get involved with some of the Arab nations and build housing at a different location where they can maybe live in peace for a change.

“Those comments – he said this arrangement could be temporary or long-term – triggered an immediate backlash, with Egypt, Jordan, the Palestinian Authority, and Hamas all saying, albeit politely, that this was a nonstarter.

“WHETHER OR not this is a well-formed plan, whether any real thought or staff work has gone into the idea or how it would be implemented, by even mentioning the idea publicly – and then repeating it a second time – Trump has removed it from the purview of the Israeli radical Right and introduced it into mainstream discourse. That alone is no small shift.”

What makes this different is Trump’s insistence that Egypt and Jordan will take in the Palestinians. His leverage? For starters, the billions we give them in aid each year. Won’t take the gang of criminals? The money train stops.

 Many people aren’t aware that Jordan’s population right now is Palestinian and has been for 75 years. In September, 1970, Arafat and his gang of criminals/terrorists had gotten so bad in Jordan that King Hussein brutally put them down. It was known as Black September.

 

In Egypt (Yasser Arafat was Egyptian), the Muslim Brotherhood was formed in 1928, and is heavily populated by Palestinians. Much of Sadat’s, Mubarak’s, and now al-Sisi’s time has been spent keeping a boot on the neck of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is the spiritual forefather of every Muslim terror group in the Middle East, especially Hamas.

 No American Administration or diplomatic corps has ever had the backbone to impose its will on the Arab-Israeli conflict in a positive way. They only knew to parrot the grotesque plan to create a Palestinian state.

 Trump is challenging everyone to Be Big.

 I hope he succeeds.

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A Flawed Strategy

 A strategic flaw of the Right is the historical tendency to take one’s foot off the gas. I won’t go through an exhaustive list, but one example is the catastrophic blunder by the George H.W. Bush regime to snatch terror-dwarf Yasser Arafat from the jaws of irrelevancy and make him into some sort of scarecrow statesman. A hot shower, clean clothes, and Nobel Peace Prize were part of the schtick. Arafat of course went on to use this irrational gift to murder many more Israelis.

I should wait longer, but in today’s technological age, information comes fast and furious. I was going to watch President Trump’s Middle East strategy play out, but I continue to be concerned about his somewhat-surprising agendas, and his associations.

One thing we have to remember: Trump does not come to the Israel question from an emotional base. He doesn’t see these things through a biblical lens. The ultimate deal-maker is addicted to negotiation and deal-making. His strategy in the Middle East is to be so repulsed by war that he swings too much that way. The previous regime was evil and illegitimate and drunk on war-making, like most previous Washington regimes. We had no idea decades ago how corrupt they were. They most certainly did keep us in endless wars.

Trump though is risking letting the terrorists off the hook in the Middle East, by negotiating with them and not killing all of them. His Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, is either naïve or indifferent to the danger to Israel (and, by extension, the rest of us; when terrorists see pressure on Israel, they keep their long-term plans of global domination). Trump’s son-in-law, Michael Boulos, is the son of Massad Boulos, a Lebanese-born, Greek Orthodox(!) businessman. He has ties to “Christian” groups that are sympathetic to Hezbollah.

(By the way, the Greek Orthodox Church is anti-Semitic.

Trump has named Boulos Sr. as a Middle East advisor!

Is it any wonder pressure has been put on Israel to accept a terrible deal with Hamas?

One can negotiate and all that, but we should NEVER negotiate with beasts that rape, torture and murder Israeli Jews. There is no moral reason to do it, in fact I think it’s obvious that such is immoral.

Yet Hamas is being allowed to take over parts of Gaza again, re-arm, and resume the theft of thousands of tons of relief aid. Trump’s policy, vis a vis Witkoff, has rolled back Israel’s gains of the last 10 months. This is madness.

A Jerusalem Post report is troubling, regarding pressure being put on Netanyahu by Trump, to stand-down in Gaza.

“If US President Donald Trump’s first week in office is indicative of what his second term has in store, Israel should get ready for the following: supportive steps in full public view and significant pressure behind closed doors.

“For Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, this duality will present a challenge. Obviously, the supportive steps will be applauded – such as several executive orders Trump signed this week that benefit Israel’s interests.”

Aside from Witkoff and Boulos, who are some of the other troubling actors in this drama?

“Trump will continue with many of the staunchly pro-Israel policies that marked his first term, even as his appointment of some isolationists to key Mideast positions is raising some eyebrows.

“The most prominent of these is Michael DiMino, a critic of Israel who believes the US should reduce its presence in the region, who is replacing Dan Shapiro as deputy assistant secretary of defense for Middle East policy.”

Trump’s signaling that he wants to approach Iran from a sanctions and even negotiation process is also troubling. Why in the wide, wide world of sports would you let this terror scum off the mat? Israel has left Iran wide open to attack to finally knock out its sinister nuclear program. In a sane world, a good American president (an exceedingly rare animal) and a once-a-generation Israeli premier would easily coordinate a knock-out blow to the world’s leading sponsor of terro.

Further, the Middle East, which on the surface looks to be open to sanity in terms of rapprochement with Israel, is still in the grip of terrorists.

Syria’s new regime has met with 60 different armed factions—thugs—and they have agreed to become part of Syria’s defense establishment. That’s an obvious problem.

Iraq continues to spiral-down into a deeply anti-Semitic sewer.

Jordan, in my view, is never to be trusted.

And, again in my humble opinion, the Abraham Accords are merely a business deal for Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Both are deeply anti-Semitic and can turn on Israel in the blink of an eye.

All this reminds us believers that real peace is not coming until the Redeemer appears again to take us home and usher-in righteousness.

May He come quickly!

Jim1fletcher@yahoo.com

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