Can Trump’s ‘carrot and stick’ style bring hope to the Palestinians?

The Palestinian delusion of regaining all of Israel, whether as a function of the Umma concept or replacement theology, leaves no room for the existence of a Jewish Israel next to a Palestinian state.

Generations have been sacrificed on the altar of this belief. Children continue to lose their innocence and learn their national identity through hatred of the other. Even innocent TV characters have become the messenger of this hatred. Their cartoon heroes and their model leaders are those either dead from suicide bombings missions, or in jail for the rest of their lives. They have learned that sacrificing one’s life to this religious/national ideal is the mission of childhood, and caring mothers have learned to be proud of their suicide bomber children and repress the deep pain in their hearts.

The Palestinians have been unwittingly supported worldwide in their illusion by an international community resolute to make them- and keep them- the 21st Century poster children of the underdog. How much longer will generations upon generations of Palestinian children be sacrificed in the name of that stuck narrative? It might be useful to understand the world’s relationship to Israel, the Jewish nation, and to the Jews, that underlies this phenomenon.

Suddenly President Trump arrives on the scene, with his out-of-the-box and seemingly incorrect style, to slay the sacred cows of the impregnable positions. He first focuses his laser-like vision on the funding of terrorist actions, and on the crucial need for a children’s education for peace.

Then he focused on the Palestinian refugee problem, which got worse with each generation, and which continues to make the Israeli-Palestinian conflict intractable and unresolvable. Maybe, hopefully, future generations of Palestinian children will have normal childhoods.

Trump slays another sacred cow by moving the American embassy to Jerusalem, the de facto capital of Israel, questioning why wasn’t it done before? He does not foreclose the possibility that the Palestinians can have a part of the city too.

While the two Abrahamic religions may have needed more time to include the presence of Judaism and the Jews in the Holy Land, Trump has no tolerance for that and wants to bypass more than 2000 years of narrative of the evil, downgraded Jews.

Are Trump’s actions driving the world into the healing vortex, pushing to show Muslims and Jews and Christians are actually all related, all viable, different versions of the essential monotheistic credo? And they all can live together.

Will President Trump’s leadership establish this credo to be quickly adopted, freeing the Palestinian generations to come, as well as other Arabs also caught in that old narrative? Is it possible that President Trump’s actions are the counter narratives we need to bring us out of that stubborn and unyielding trauma vortex into the healing vortex? Can his management style be accepted by those who care about Palestinian suffering? Is possible it will work?

Everything else has so far failed. Why not give it a chance?