Awaiting the Peace Bride

As I watched US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speak at the White House last week about Mr. Trump’s 21-point (now 20) plan to end the Israel-Hamas War, I couldn’t say which of the two men has made me cringe and curse more over the years. Still, a proud American and a proud Israeli, I listened closely to both of them with hope in my heart.

When Trump announced, and Netanyahu, caught off guard, agreed that the moment was too fraught with the weight of history to take reporters’ questions, it struck me, so to speak, as par for course. Theirs was not really a joint press conference but a prophecy offered by the most powerful leader in the world.

Trump attended military academy through seventh grade and received five deferments from the Vietnam War, four of them for college, the fifth for bone spurs in his heels. Seeing that his border security experience is limited to dealing with Mexico and Canada, two allies who do not harbor tens of thousands of terrorists bent on eradicating America, when he talked about the Gaza War he lacked gravitas.

Netanyahu’s comments, on the other hand, carried weight. Trained as a combat soldier, he served five years in one of Israel’s elite special forces units and was wounded multiple times in the line of battle. When he spoke about the war, he knew what he was talking about, although his explanation about what lay beyond the war seemed light enough to float out the window.

While watching the event, I thought about the men’s shared love of gifts from people seeking favors. I thought about Netanyahu’s knack to delay four separate trials for fraud, breach of trust, and bribery. I thought about Trump’s 34 guilty verdicts for falsifying business records. And I thought about his guilty verdict for sexual abuse, compounded by the $85-million in damages the court ordered him to pay for defaming the woman who accused him of raping her and won her case. 

But these were fleeting moments. For the lion’s share of the prophecy, I focused on the two masterful communicators at work.

Trump’s knocks on former presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama were predictable, including his nonchalant mention of Obama’s middle name (Hussein). When he deviated from his written speech, he sounded less like an Ivy League university grad and more like a teenager who struggled to finish high school. Netanyahu, an eloquent speaker in Hebrew and English, came off as precise, artfully parrying points in Trump’s pie-in-the-sky plan that he didn’t support.

Trump and Netanyahu both have been dubbed authoritarians, the former for trying to take full control of Israel’s Supreme Court, that latter for his attempt to muzzle the press and talk show hosts, politicizing the Department of Justice and FBI in order to prosecute political opponents, sending the National Guard into cities, most of them run by Democrats, to fight crime that is decreasing, and persecuting immigrants, illegal and legal alike.

Netanyahu has been accused of genocide for the manner in which he has waged the Israel-Hamas War. His alleged responsibility for the starvation of the civilian population as a method of warfare and of intentionally directing an attack against the civilian population have led the International Criminal Court to call for his arrest. As for Trump, his authoritarian moves have inspired critics to find parallels in MAGA America and Weimar Germany, which saw the rise of the Nazi Party.

Netanyahu made it clear that he aims to obliterate Hamas, bring home the hostages and usher in a new age. Trump made it clear that he wants to stop the war, bring home the remaining hostages, and oversee perhaps THE GREATEST MOMENT in the 2,000-3,000 history of the Middle East.  

After the two spoke, a Palestinian reporter for Israel’s Kan 11 television network recast Trump’s prophecy as a wedding engagement announcement where the groom and his father stand alone on stage. When the reporter asked rhetorically how one can have a wedding without the bride, he hit the golf ball out of the country club.

In short, with Hamas not yet signed on to the now 20-pointer, the announcement, no matter how hard Trump tried to sell it as historic, seemed like a puffy pseudo-event. There will be no GREAT MOMENT without a signed peace agreement.

That said, with Yom Kippur behind us, and Hamas reportedly willing to discuss details of Trump’s plan, I am putting aside my antipathy towards both of my leaders to cheer them on.  I welcome the chance to see Israel’s war end and Trump’s prophecy of eternal peace come true.