The New York Times Subscription
Of the many proposals for an Israeli-Palestinian peace rolled out over the decades, circumstances made the one President Trump announced on Tuesday the hardest to take seriously.
While Mr. Trump outlined what he described as his “vision” for a Mideast peace in the gilded East Room of the White House to waves of applause from a selected audience, his impeachment trial was droning on in the Capitol. And as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, standing by his side, proclaimed Mr. Trump “the greatest friend Israel has ever had in the White House,” Israel was reverberating from Mr. Netanyahu’s surprising decision to drop his request for immunity and to face trial on three corruption charges.
From all appearances, the “deal of the century,” as it was touted, seemed nothing more than a cynical attempt at a diversion by two politicians in trouble, a sop to their right-wing bases as each leader vies for re-election — Mr. Netanyahu in early March, Mr. Trump in November. A chorus of analysts declared the deal dead on arrival and worse, an American abdication of any mediating role in the future.
Read More →