Trump, Israel, Palestine, Prison & Illegal Immigrant Labor, and WW2

It's a Q&A extravaganza!

Grayson Jones asks: “Do you have any insight/opinions on the Mike Waltz, Pete Hegseth signal gate saga and the reassignment of Waltz to the UN on allegations that he is an asset for Israel? Do you think Trump will detach from Israel and recognize a Palestinian state?”

Answer: I don’t have any special insight on Signal-gate saga. People I know who work at the Pentagon have told me that things have been pretty chaotic since the new administration took over, but I’m not sure how much of that is just the bias of people who don’t like the changes. One person I know, who works in a high enough position to know what the bosses are thinking, is a two-time Trump voter, though, and that person has said things have been pretty disorganized. Hopefully it’s just transition growing pains.

No, I don’t think any US President will detach from Israel, and recognizing a Palestinian state would be tantamount to doing so. It is not impossible, however, that the US could stop using its Security Council veto on Israel’s behalf, and then let events take their course. I’ve been told by people who’d know that Trump changed after he got shot. He knows he doesn’t have much time left on this earth, and is very concerned with leaving behind a legacy that will, in time, drown out all the bad press and cement his family name in American history. Short-term political considerations, like pissing off Netanyahu or the Israel lobby, might be less of a factor than they would have been when he was worried about what the New York Times writes about him. But who knows? I talk to people who talk to Trump fairly regularly, and as much as he’s a heart-on-the-sleeve kind of guy, even they don’t always feel like they have a good read on him.

I think it is important for Trump, and the US & European governments in general, to recognize that the Likud Party under Benjamin Netanyahu has devolved into an extremist movement obsessed with revising the regional order by violent means. Netanyahu’s Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben-Givir, is the leader of the Jewish Power, has called mass murderer Baruch Goldstein, who killed 29 people and wounded 100 more in 1994, his “hero.” Just imagine if the US Secretary of Defense was the leader of the White Power Party, and went on TV to call Dylan Roof or Robert Gregory Bowers (perpetrator of the Pittsburgh Tree of Life synagogue massacre) his hero. Epithets like “extremist” get thrown around a lot these days, and it has made many people unable to recognize the real thing when they see it. We have no business even associating with a government that includes men like Ben-Gvir in such high positions, let alone giving them our unconditional backing.

It seems as if Trump is beginning to understand that Benjamin Netanyahu and his party do not actually want peace. They want to keep the conflict at a low boil as cover for them to expand Israel’s borders and colonize more Arab land. This has been very clear for a long time, and Netanyahu & others have often said as much on the record, but hopefully Trump is starting to see that Israel is the single biggest obstacle to his hope of leaving a legacy of peace in the Middle East.

I want to be clear, because I know people are sensitive about this and have very strong opinions on all sides. As many of you know, I have spent a lot of time in Israel (12-15 trips for a combined 6-8 months or so over 12 years, all in my capacity as a DoD civilian). I have Israeli friends, most of whom were IDF officers or civilian employees of the Ministry of Defense when I met them on the job. I have always liked Israelis - in fact, they tend to be more realistic and tolerant of my views on this subject than non-Israeli Zionists (Jewish and non-Jewish) here in America. When this conflict was in its opening months and it became clear that the Israelis were going to wreak unprecedented destruction on Gaza, I stated that I couldn’t blame Israelis for wanting revenge and a dramatic result was both inevitable and (by Hamas) intended (though I think they probably got a lot more than they bargained for). The Israelis and their overseas boosters shot themselves in the foot by lying about certain atrocities supposed to have been committed (babies baked in ovens, 40 beheaded babies, etc.), but I know people who have seen some of the videos that were taken - people I know well, some of whom are harsh critics of Israel and who are not making things up - and the atrocities that really did happen were monstrous. It would have been unreasonable to expect the Israelis to behave rationally in the aftermath of October 7. That’s why it ought to have been incumbent on the United States, as Israel’s ally and sponsor, to be the sober party and hold them back from the abyss. As I said at the time, “I look at Israel as the drunk friend throwing bricks at a row of Harleys outside a bar full of Hell’s Angels, and I’m trying to calm him down and get him to safety before he gets himself killed.” If your friend’s child is murdered, and you see him loading his shotgun before heading to the courtroom to watch the trial. The killer deserves it, and the father deserves his revenge, but a real friend would hide his shotgun shells and remind him that he has a wife and two other kids who don’t need their dad to be imprisoned or killed by police. After 9/11, a critical mass of Americans would have signed off on any just about any act of violence, and I think, looking back, we all wish there was some country, or some combination of countries, with the power and influence to hold us back from making some of our worst mistakes. We had the ability to play that role for Israel, but instead we loaded the shotgun and drove them to the courthouse.

James Guzman asks: “What are your thoughts about the American justice system and how felons and illegal immigrants seem to fill the role of modern day slaves. And how the poor seem to be directly affected by the lawfair of the present day?”