Trump restores realism with his National Security Strategy

President Trump threatened yesterday to cut off aid to any country that votes today against the U.S. decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. The vote takes place today at the emergency special session being convened at the United Nations General Assembly, called for by Turkey and Yemen (via Iran).

This vote follows the announcement of Dec. 6, when Trump fulfilled his campaign promise to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and directed the State Department to begin the process of moving the U.S. embassy there. But more than that, Trump’s recognition acknowledges the underlying problem of the past 30 years of diplomatic efforts: recognizing reality.

The Jerusalem announcement was a preview of President Trump’s larger vision of operating within reality, a central theme in the subsequently released National Security Strategy. On Jerusalem, it acknowledges that “Israel is not the cause of the region’s problems,” and accurately blames regional instability on Iran and jihadist organizations. This administration is the first in American history to so explicitly break from the false causation made between Israel’s existence and the problems of the region. The rejection of this lie is long, long overdue.

Further, while reflexively dismissed by pundits and foreign governments, the Jerusalem announcement may well be a helpful step in negotiating the "deal of the century" if it is properly leveraged.

The Palestinian leadership still wages the war that the Arab countries started 70 years ago upon the approval of the UN partition plan, which is a genocidal aim to destroy, rather than promote, peace. Only with an Israeli victory over rejectionist enemies — including Palestinian leadership along with Hamas, Iran, and Turkey — will the conflict end. History has shown that lasting and meaningful peace between Israelis and Palestinians will not come through negotiations.