Seeds of Failure

Posted on January 29, 2026 | Leave a comment

(First published at Israelnationalnews.com)

The return of Ran Gvili H”YD for burial in Israel is a source of great relief and catharsis for all Jews. His personal story, heroism, and self-sacrifice are so compelling that it could easily epitomize the courage and resilience exhibited by our entire nation during this difficult period. For the first time in several decades, no Jew is being held hostage in Gaza or Lebanon, an achievement it itself, and something our enemies know quite well. His return fulfills one of the three war objectives set forth by PM Netanyahu who deserves enormous credit for clinging steadfastly to this one despite intense pressure to settle.

Ran’s repatriation should also remind us of the sheer cruelty of our enemy – brutal mass murderers and revolting ghouls, who torture, maim, and murder, and then callously retain the bodies of the deceased. That enemy might have been ravaged but it has not yet been defeated – and the pathway towards achieving the other war aims – disarming and dismantling Hamas – are strewn with obstacles and dangers, often born of the naïveté with which some of our interlocutors perceive our enemies. One pathway is staring right at us.

The odds of President Trump’s Board of Peace succeeding are less than the odds of Greenland becoming the 52nd state of the United States (after Canada becomes the 51st). It is not only because it is a vanity project that will not survive beyond Trump’s presidency and will likely dissipate long before then accompanied by the fanfare of the numerous synthetic successes it has achieved. The Board of Peace will fail because it possesses little understanding of the dynamics of the Middle East – and much of the rest of the world – and is comprised of enough rogue nations that it already has sown the seeds of its own collapse.

It is undeniable that the Board of Peace fills the vacuum caused by Israel’s failure to articulate a vision for Gaza beyond generalities and, worse, Israel’s reluctance to do what is necessary to ensure that Gaza no longer poses a threat to Israel’s security or existence, i.e., sovereignty, resettlement of Gazans who wish to leave, and settlement of Jews who wish to live there. This disinclination to utterly transform the Gazan part of the conflict guarantees that the recent war was just another round and sometime in the future we will be forced to again fight the same people and their heirs over the same territory and its latest occupiers.

Indeed, the Board of Peace is almost designed to ensure that the conflict will persist. The mere fact that countries such as Qatar and Turkey, enemies of Israel and funders and protectors of Hamas, are part of the Board is a macabre joke at our expense. Steve Witkoff, perhaps others on his team, if not bought and paid for by Qatar, are at least rented by them. He seems unconcerned about the true nature of Qatar but his nocturnal dreams of peace and prosperity are our living nightmare.

The Gaza Board is another farce, filled with assorted Jew haters, scoundrels, reprobates, and a few good men, all assembled on the risible notion that a Gaza with the same Jew-hating, genocidal citizenry can be remade into luxury resort to which vacationers will flock. This will happen shortly after the unnamed nations that have promised billions of dollars for Gazan reconstruction pony up. Any day now. Perhaps an impressive show of confidence would be if the Americans moved their Gaza supervision base from Kiryat Gat in Israel to… Gaza itself, where, if anywhere, it belongs.

A good start for Israel would be drawing a red line against the introduction of any troops from Qatar, Turkey, Russia and other nations whose interests are inimical to ours and then dismissing any practical suggestions from those countries because they are invariably intended to weaken us, preserve Hamas, and prolong the conflict. Already, despite our government’s protestations to the contrary, elements of the Palestinian Authority were granted influence over Gaza’s direction and future. Whatever the spin, that mocks the sacrifices of our soldiers who would have fought, seemingly, to restore Gaza to PA, and ultimately Hamas, control.

Perhaps the time has come to state the obvious, something that the nations of the world have to tap dance around out of fear and intimidation. Assuming that President Trump cannot impose tariffs on me, it bears declaring the following. If all that Trump did was free the remaining hostages we would have said Dayenu, it would have been enough. It is to his eternal credit. But he has done so much more – recognizing Yerushalayim as our capital city, moving the embassy there, recognizing the Golan, declaring that Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria do not violate international law, resupplying Israel as soon as he took office, bombing the Iranian reactors, providing diplomatic coverage at the UN, etc. Dayenu, indeed.

Nevertheless, President Trump is a showman, an entertainer, whose blustery rhetoric often has little connection to reality. No, Mr. President, Israel created the Iron Dome, not the United States; no, you have not settled eight wars (or nine, if you count that Trump averted the almost war between the US and Denmark); no, you didn’t free all the hostages (almost 200, living and murdered, were freed before you became president); no, the United States is not the “hottest” country in the world (its economic engine is being fueled by trillions of dollars of deficit spending that has devastated the dollar’s value and cannot be repaid); no, you didn’t win by a “landslide” in 2024, 2020, or 2016 (in two elections, you squeaked out a victory by barely winning several states, and in 2020, your opponent similarly squeaked out a victory by barely winning several states, or so the evidence indicates); and the $18 trillion in foreign investment about which you boasted has not arrived and likely never will. In a world governed by appearances, not reality, other countries can play that game as well.

In the most recent and egregious example of careless magniloquence, Trump promised Iranians rebelling against their corrupt and brutal government that “help was on the way” and Iran will be “hit very strong” if the Iranian regime starts massacring its citizens. Well, in exchange for empty promises from Iran not to publicly hang eight hundred dissidents – who made such a promise is unknown – those eight hundred dissidents were not publicly hanged but reportedly privately shot. The Iranian civilian death toll has surpassed 30,000 people and is likely far more than that, and help is still not on the way.

Anyone who thinks that President Trump will endanger American lives in order to overthrow the Iranian regime is dreaming. If anything, he will take the safest, more risk-free approach, bombing targets from the air which is unlikely to topple the Ayatollah. And even if the Ayatollah’s rule collapses because of air attacks accompanied by the most important element of a rebellion – the Iranian military turns on its rulers – the likelihood is that Trump will be quite content to have one dictator (the Ayatollah) replaced by another dictator (some Iranian general) who professes however cagily his support for Trump and America, just as the thug, mass murdering Ahmed al-Sharaa has done in Syria (massacring Kurds while retaining US support and funding).

This would be identical to what happened in Venezuela, where dictator Maduro was captured and imprisoned by the US, only to be exchanged for another dictator, Delcy Rodriguez, who still torments her people but has now pledged allegiance to the US. I cannot help but wonder if Trump rejected the overtures of María Corina Machado, the popular opposition leader, because (in his mind) she won his Nobel Peace Prize. That would be petty, would it not? And how will Trump respond if the Nobel Committee awards this year’s Peace Prize to Steve Witkoff? We may well find out.

But Conchado certainly has more support in Venezuela than does the Shah’s son and heir-to-the-throne in Iran. Regime change in Iran that swaps one hater of Israel in a turban with another hater of Israel in a military beret does not help us that much, nor will that new leader’s promises about Iran’s nuclear ambitions count for much in the real world. Those promises, though, will play well in the ersatz world of proclamations, declarations, signing ceremonies, and assertions that peace, love, and eternal sunshine have broken out across the globe.

Israel has to be grateful to President Trump but also assertive about protecting our interests. There is a short window of opportunity, as Trump is likely to be severely weakened as president after the midterm elections this fall. And Trump’s successor – whether Democrat or Republican – is extremely unlikely to be as viscerally supportive of Israel as is Trump, even if it is sometimes just on the surface and not as much behind closed doors. No conceivable Democratic candidate will be as unabashedly pro-Israel and the Republican party is showing increasing signs of fracture on this issue as well.

Moreover, it is good to remind ourselves even outside of the daily prayers that we are “not to trust in princes, in a human being who has no salvation” (Tehillim 146:3). For, as the medieval commentator Radak notes, “if not for G-d’s will, no human has the power to save another from his troubles. Only G-d saves.” The real G-d, not the pretenders who claim divine powers.

Well, the Lord has blessed our generation with multiple opportunities to conquer, possess, and settle the land that He promised our forefathers. We have seized some of those opportunities but largely squandered many others, consistently surrendering to our enemies the territory from which they attacked us, hoping for a better outcome, rather than just enjoying the bounty that G-d granted us and building thereon a country worthy of our destiny.

Politicians who do not perceive that have outlived their usefulness. Those who do should receive the support of a grateful and faithful nation. And such truly honors the sacrifices of all our heroines and heroes, including Ran Gvili HY”D.

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Democracy’s Flaw

Posted on January 25, 2026 | 5 comments

(First published at Israelnationalnews.com)

One of democracy’s great strengths is the people’s power to change its government with every election cycle. One of democracy’s flaws is that such power currently produces acute discontinuity in a nation’s policies and statecraft that alternately causes stagnation and upheaval.

There was a time when foreign policy was largely a bipartisan concern, with disputes relegated to the margins. American policy towards Communism and the Soviet Union was remarkably consistent for almost four decades, at least until Ronald Reagan rejected containment and ushered in the downfall of Communism in Europe. There was no significant anti-war movement in the United States during the two World Wars and until Vietnam, and even the anti-Vietnam War movement did not reshape the political system until years later. Recall that President Nixon in 1972 defeated the robustly anti-war George McGovern in a true, not Trumpian, landslide, winning 49 of 50 states, and almost 61% of the popular vote.

As the adage went, “politics stops at the waters’ edge,” but Jimmy Carter in his post-presidential global perambulations repudiated that with his frequent criticisms overseas of both Democratic and Republican administrations. And the wars in the Middle East in the aftermath of the Arab terrorist attacks of 9/11, as well as the bitter polarization of American politics, ruptured the consistency of American foreign policy.

Thus, Obama reversed Bush policies in Iraq and Israel, Trump reversed Obama policies on Iran and Israel, Biden reversed Trump’s policies in every conceivable sphere, and Trump II has returned the favor to Biden – on Israel, Iran, NATO, Europe, the US border, and a host of other areas. The next president, Republican or Democrat, is liable to overturn fundamental Trump foreign policies. The sense that American foreign policy can shift dramatically every four or eight years has led many countries to try to game the system, adjusting its policies and priorities depending on who is or who might be in power.

For example, it is invariably true that Russia would not have invaded Ukraine on Trump’s watch but exploited a feckless Biden presidency. Iran manipulated that same administration to ramp up its nuclear program soon after Biden became president even while Iran benefited from the relaxation of sanctions. Iran knew that it could buy time through endless negotiations and that – whatever the provocation – Obama or Biden, unlike Trump, would never militarily attack Iranian facilities.

Similarly, Israel played a waiting game throughout 2024, waiting out a Biden presidency and its vacillations towards Israel (providing some needed weapons and much diplomatic support coupled with occasional threats as well as limitations on Israel’s freedom of action) and hoping for a Trump victory in the fall elections. A nation’s pursuit of even vital interests can progress or languish depending on who sits in the Oval Office.

Compounding the disjointedness of American foreign policy in recent decades is Trump’s trademark unpredictability. The world today is witness to a new and unprecedented phenomenon – thunderous declarations of peace, details to follow, and contraindications of peace ignored or wished away. While Trump’s hatred of war, love for peace, and detestation of American casualties anywhere seems genuine, it leaves countries threatened by real enemies who will not be mollified grasping for coherent strategies.

For example, Trump prefers that his “Board of Peace” designed to create a pacified, peaceful, and prosperous Gaza include such rogue anti-Israel countries as Turkey and Qatar. Such is not only risible and guaranteed to fail, like putting Mexico, Guatemala, and Venezuela in charge of security at the USA’s southern border. It also endangers Israel, empowers our enemies, and mocks the sacrifices of our soldiers who will have died not to conquer and transform Gaza but just to recreate the same old Gaza that inevitably will lead to the same old terror and violence.

There is something awry when a nation’s foreign policy must be evaluated in units of four years. That essentially means that Trump can focus his sights on the next three years without concern for what happens in three years and a day. It explains why Trump declares he made “peace in the Middle East” even though no one who lives here thinks that. If relative peace is sustained until January 20, 2029, it does not matter what cataclysm befalls us the very next day. And some of his policies if enacted – for example, rehabilitating Gaza without rehabilitating the Gazans – will inevitably explode in an even greater rage of hatred and violence than October 7 when Trump leaves office. Israel is being asked to indulge Trump’s quixotic quest of a “Board of Peace” that has a shelf life of three years or less and thus can ignore longer term Israeli interests. We accommodate that at our peril.

A foreign policy for the short term helps explain why Trump loves strongmen, like Putin, Erdogan, Xi, Kim, and others who can serve for years and present consistent, unwavering policies (moral or not) while scorning leaders of democracies who, like him, will be gone soon enough and cannot guarantee stability. The autocrats can, and so only they win Trump’s highest accolade, as leaders who are “strong.”

Where does that leave Israel? It is unlikely that a President Vance or a President Newsome (or any future Democratic president in the near term) will be as viscerally pro-Israel as is President Trump. The world today is so volatile – the Middle East, Iran, Russia and Ukraine, the decline of Europe, the aggressiveness of Turkey and Qatar, Central and South America, China and Taiwan, North and South Korea – that it is impossible to predict the state of the world three years from now and how the next president will deal with them. Papering over crises with vacuous rhetoric looks good in daily headlines and sounds good in press conferences but plays poorly in the real world. And Trump has been known to yield when countries he has threatened push back and he realizes there is no risk-free method of achieving his goals.

As such, it behooves Israel to identify its national interests and pursue them now, and not just rhetorically for campaign purposes as has long been practiced. Sovereignty over Judea and Samaria is a forceful declaration that the creation of a Palestinian state is inimical to Israel’s existence and a non-starter. Such would end the strategic vacuum in Israel’s heartland that has existed for almost six decades. Jerusalem must be expanded, its undeveloped areas designated for new housing, and its indivisibility reaffirmed. The presence of hostile foreign entities in Gaza, such as Turkey or Qatar, should be off the table and resettlement of Jews in Gaza advanced.

Moreover, Israel must firmly assert that the policy has officially ended of enduring attacks, conquering the bases from which those attacks were launched (such as Gaza or South Lebanon), abandoning them under pressure to the attackers only to have to fight there again in several years.

Presidencies come and go but Israel’s interests transcend any particular presidency and the vagaries and predilections of who holds the office during any particular four-year term. Such is democracy’s flaw. We cannot count on consistency from our allies – but we can demand it from our government.

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Somaliland and Venezuela 

Posted on January 8, 2026 | Comments Off on Somaliland and Venezuela 

(First published at Israelnationalnews.com)

Like the two least popular kids in high school befriending each other, Israel and Somaliland recently established diplomatic relations, to the usual handwringing from our adversaries. Halfway across the world, the United States kidnapped Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro and his wife and brought them to the US to stand trial for drug smuggling and other crimes.

Much of the world is unhappy about the latter although there is not much they can do about it except gripe. The United Nations is feckless except for its routine denunciations of Israel, and the US veto in the UN Security Council precludes that body taking any practical steps. Even the General Assembly will be muted because of the nations’ fear of inciting President Trump’s wrath against them.

There are already mass protests in the United States and globally against the abduction, notwithstanding that it should be difficult to muster any sympathy for a mass murdering, drug smuggling, human trafficking dictator. But then again, many of these same protesters are ardent supporters of Hamas and violently anti-Israel.

We need not speculate how the world would react if Israel ever tried such a stunt – because we already have. Every incursion into our neighbor’s territory in our own defense (Lebanon, Syria, Qatar, Iran) is immediately denounced as a violation of international law, regardless of circumstances or provocation. And when Israel did kidnap Adolph Eichmann from Argentina in May 1960 and to try him in Israel for war crimes, Israel was denounced by the UN (UNSC Resolution 138) for this “violation of the sovereignty” of Argentina that caused “international friction” for which Israel was urged to make “appropriate reparation.” The resolution passed unanimously, with American support, although the Soviet Union and Poland abstained. The resolution did acknowledge and refused to condone the “odious crimes” of which Eichmann was charged.

Are there lessons that we can derive from both these incidents – Israel’s recognition of Somaliland and the US seizure of Maduro? One lesson for us would be to act more and talk less. Days after the attack, there is still no mention of US or Venezuelan casualties. Another, and the primary lesson, is that we have to better learn how to advance our national interests by making daring decisions after rationally assessing all options and consequences rather than being perpetually reactive.

Accordingly, in retrospect, it is surprising that we did not recognize Somaliland until now. Somaliland, a territory on the horn of Africa almost eight times our size, has never been part of neighboring Somalia and had long fought them (primarily a struggle of clans) until declaring its independence in 1991. Somaliland is a Muslim country that sought friendly relations with Israel, as opposed to Somalia which has always boycotted us and has rebuffed our outreach for more than a half century. And now Somaliland offers Israel friendship, a military base that is in close proximity to Yemen and its Houthi rebels, as well as a possible locale for resettlement of a hostile Gazan population. Win, win, win.

Now that Somaliland’s diplomatic isolation has ended, perhaps other countries will follow suit. Leaving its land in diplomatic limbo for more than seventy years sounds ridiculous. But we foolishly do the same thing.

Israel has never been proactive in promoting our interests. For well over fifty years, we have allowed the status of Judea, Samaria, and Gaza to remain disputed, never declaring sovereignty or even staking a formal claim. Instead, we tolerated this ambiguity to our detriment, negotiating agreements based on fantasies that facilitated the rise of hostile forces with subsequent torrents of terror and wild claims to statehood. That failure is on us and our leadership.

Innovative ideas are usually kicked down the road, with decisions often delayed “until the Prime Minister returns from Washington,” as happened years ago with sovereignty over Judea and Samaria and weeks ago with the municipal plans to rebuild the Atarot neighborhood in north Jerusalem. Both were “temporarily” shelved to “avoid a confrontation,” which begs the question, if they are both right and just, then why don’t we? Why don’t we act in our national interest? Why do we subjugate our rights to the considerations of other nations?

While constructive ambiguity may have its place in diplomacy, it has most often weakened us and strengthened our enemies.

Take a few other examples. Last year, Israel declared it would penalize countries that recognized a “state” of Palestine but literally nothing has happened. France’s illegal consulate in Jerusalem remains open, conducting nefarious anti-Israel activities in gross violation of Israeli law. The Turkish consulate in Jerusalem explicitly declared itself its “Embassy to Palestine,” and other Turkish agencies located in Jerusalem still engage in consistent incitement and anti-Israel activities. All these provocations are met by Israel with empty bluster but nothing ever actually happens.

Additionally, the UK was one of those countries that recognized a “Palestine” and thus seeks to deprive us of the heart of our ancestral homeland. Why not, in turn, appreciate the current friendship and support of Argentina by recognizing the Falkland Islands – still claimed by Argentina, a few hundred miles off the Argentinian coast, and distant from Britain by approximately 8,000 miles (!) – as rightful Argentinian territory? Admittedly, the symbolism of our recognition is greater than the practical effect – but isn’t recognition of a “Palestine” more symbol than substance?

For too long, we have left diplomatic, political, and territorial vacuums, which are then invariably filled with initiatives, policies, and actions that are inimical to our well-being. Granted, we are not a world superpower like the United States that can act with impunity. But we are more powerful than we think, and our power should be used to reward our friends, punish our enemies, and conserve and develop our land for future generations – rather than just kicking the can down the road and making idle threats.

At a certain point, we will run out of road, as has happened before, and what filled those vacuums were catastrophes like Oslo, the Gaza Expulsion, repeatedly mowing the lawn in Lebanon and Gaza to little effect, October 7, and a “state” of Palestine now recognized by 157 countries.

With Iran and its proxies weakened, and Venezuela – an ally of Hamas and a sanctuary for Islamic terrorists – temporarily sidelined as a global threat, it is time to be proactive, identify our national interests, promote them, and achieve them.

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The Vacuum

Posted on December 26, 2025 | Comments Off on The Vacuum

(First published at Israelnationalnews.com)

If someone has a clue as to what is Israel’s current strategy in Gaza, please step forward. It is quite understandable if during the protracted conflict not much attention was paid to the day after. Nonetheless, there were certainly strategists and planners in our government that dealt with this and, presumably, the conduct of the war was designed to effectuate these long-term goals. But what are they?

The immediate war aims were articulated numerous times by our leadership: defeat of Hamas and its extinction as a military and political force in Gaza, including disarmament and exclusion from governance, and release of all the hostages. (Shame on our government for releasing all the terrorists – including murderers – before every last hostage, dead or alive, was returned to Israel.) Those aims were appropriate but we must note the distinction between eliminating Hamas and our strategy for post-war Gaza. Those are not the same. Even if Hamas is completely eradicated as a terrorist entity and political power – no easy task given the current war-weariness of the Americans, not to mention much of the Israeli public – eliminating a negative does not automatically create a positive. What then is our plan, not for Hamas, but for Gaza?

We have already missed several important opportunities. As politics abhors a vacuum, in place of our reticence a series of dreadful suggestions have been proffered, mainly involving rebuilding Gaza in the presence of foreign troops who can hardly be expected to challenge Hamas (if it survives) or thwart the rise of a new terrorist group under a different name. This is a bad plan based on fantasies – but a bad plan based on fantasies will always beat no plan at all.

It seems that we have reverted to the traditional Israeli craving for the status quo, kicking the can down the road, and hoping for the best – a few years of relative quiet. Those who thought that conceptziya was overwhelmed by the Hamas atrocities of October 7 should think again. That conceptziya is alive and well because it substitutes for politicians having to make tough decisions, including insisting on our just rights even in the face of American and international objections. According to reports, it has given rise to the obscenity that our soldiers are now engaged in clearing the ruins of Gaza under pressure from the United States, and at our expense. It is hard to believe but weirder things have happened. Is the IDF also being tasked with rebuilding the tunnels?

What should we want to happen in Gaza? It does not mean it will happen but if we do not propose it, it means we have forfeited any possibility of an ideal outcome. Ideally, we would want Gaza to be free of any hostile Arabs, those inimical to the existence of Israel. We would want Gaza to be open to Israeli settlement. We would want remaining Gazan Arabs to live peaceful and prosperous lives in a territory that is stable, if not flourishing. We would want the Arab world to recognize our rights to the entire land of Israel, respect our sovereignty beyond the lip service, and not hide behind the fig leaf of the alleged unrest of the Arab street. And we want to annex Judea and Samaria. These are dreams, some might say pipedreams, but certainly cannot be realized if we never articulate them.

Imagine this dialogue between PM Netanyahu and President Trump (who has long been puzzled as to what Israel really wants) at their meeting next week in Florida:

PM Netanyahu: “Donald, as I see it, we have two roads ahead of us. One road can transform the Middle East forever and advance vital American interests, and you will become renowned as the reincarnation of Emperor Cyrus. That road has never been traveled. The other, well-trodden road is to maintain the sad status quo. In other words, we can keep spinning our wheels and doing the same thing again and again hoping for a different outcome. We fight in Gaza, give Hamas a beating, pretend that its citizens are innocents who despise Hamas and love the West, lavish money on terrorists and pretend they will use it to help their people rather than plot Israel’s demise, and then fight again in a few years (next time will be the ninth time). We can do the same thing and buy a few years of relative quiet that ends with horrific terror and another war – or we can try a different approach, a new dynamic.”

President Trump: “Bibi, what do you have in mind?”

PM Netanyahu: “Well, Donald, the first idea was yours! Gaza is a hopelessly toxic environment for its residents. By any reasonable metric, it is irredeemable. The fairest, most moral solution is to relocate them to countries where they can thrive and not be seduced by the vile fantasies of radical Islam. Of course, those who want to recognize Israel’s statehood and sovereignty and want to be part of the civilized world should be welcomed to stay or to return to a rebuilt, rejuvenated Gaza. And, yes, we must build Jewish communities in the parts of Gaza that we have conquered. That is the only way that the Arabs will feel that they were defeated, that Hamas and terror are both destructive and self-destructive, that they can choose a better way.”

President Trump: “Bibi, you know that is a non-starter. Even our Arab allies are against it – the Saudis, the Emiratis, the Egyptians will never accept it. They will never accept Israeli sovereignty in Judea, Samaria, and certainly not Gaza.”

PM Netanyahu: “Well, Donald, then we have to ask ourselves, why not? All those countries’ borders are contrived, arbitrarily delineated by foreign mapmakers, or won through conquest. Why are we different? And, if we are so different, then why do they want us to have to fight the same enemies constantly? Why are they dead set against Israel ever living in peace and security? Have they really, truly, reconciled themselves to a Jewish national presence in the Middle East? If not, then for how long must we chase the chimera of peace with those who dream of our destruction every day and night?

President Trump: “But these countries also want a Palestinian state! They keep saying it. They think that is the only solution, the only way to bring peace to the Middle East, the means of impeding the spread of radical Islam. And the only way I can expand the Abraham Accords, my signature diplomatic achievement, is to indulge their interest in a Palestinian state or at least allow them to finesse it with diplomatese, weasel words that give them political cover.”

PM Netanyahu: “Well, Donald, then we are at an impasse because a Palestinian state is one of our red lines. It makes absolutely no sense to reward the genocidal attackers of October 7 with their own state from which they have already pledged to commit future atrocities against us. That will not happen. And if these so-called moderate countries – your allies, as you call them – want to combat radical Islam, why would they want to create a Palestinian state that will invariably be a base for radical Islam that will threaten us, them, and… you, the United States?”

“Look the Abraham Accords were a godsend for Israel. It showed our people that we need not be isolated forever in our region and that there might be Muslims who acknowledge our existence. But the Saudi regime is rooted in a more radical form of Islam than, for example, the Emirates. The slightest relaxation of repression in that country is met in the West as if Thomas Jefferson has been crowned as their new king. But we are an ancient people returned, as the Bible prophesied, to our land. You may not believe that (and I might not believe that) but that is the reality. The Bible said it, repeatedly, and here we are. So, know that Saudi rapprochement is not worth our acquiescence, even in theory or words, to a Palestinian state on our land. Such a pact anyway would be a paper agreement, without real substance, much like – let’s be frank – your repeated declarations that you brought peace to the Middle East after three thousand years of war. There hasn’t been three thousand years of war – and there is no peace today.”

President Trump: “What can you give me, some type of achievement, some diplomatic victory?”

PM Netanyahu: “Donald, substantive and historic achievements are there for the taking! You freed all the living hostages. That could not have occurred without a miracle, and you were the vehicle for that divine miracle. Imagine your place in history if you changed course and – like you say all the time – stop doing things again and again that don’t work. Recognize our sovereignty over Judea, Samaria, and Gaza. It has been in our possession for almost sixty years! Sixty years! For how long must its residents live in limbo? For how long must we play the diplomats’ game that has never worked and will never work? For how long must we pretend that Judea is not Jewish or indulge the Arab fantasy that they can destroy us?”

“I will tell you something else, Donald. If we declare sovereignty, you will respect us more, and even more importantly, the Arabs – even those countries you see as allies – will also respect us more. They know the value of land. They are attached to it, even the desert. They sense that our hesitation to declare sovereignty is because we really do not believe it is ours. And if we do not believe it is ours, then they convince themselves that our residence in the land of Israel is tenuous and temporary. Enough with that! You can make history! American recognition of this annexation will neutralize the UN and flummox Europe which will eventually come around as well, much like it did with your recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.”

President Trump: “But we have already a workable plan to which you agreed. Nations from across the globe – Turkey, Qatar, Indonesia, Azerbaijan, and others – have committed to sending in their own troops in order to disarm Hamas and rehabilitate Gaza. They are on the verge of coming, and the Arab world will pay for it!”

PM Netanyahu: “Well, Donald, here is the real deal. In the Middle East, what people say to your face is not always what they mean, and often it is the exact opposite. You might even be familiar with that from the real estate business. Already, Qatar is refusing to fund the reconstruction of Gaza, and no country in the world has agreed to risk their own armies in removing Hamas’ weapons and banishing it from Gaza. None. Everyone is sweet-talking you and your emissaries, talking a good game but not delivering. Even the countries that might send troops want to send them to the area under our control. But we don’t need them there!”

“And do we look insane? Irrational? Why in the world would we allow troops from Turkey and Qatar who are our enemies, who themselves in their private moments dream of our demise, to enter Gaza? Qatar basically paid for Hamas’ terror infrastructure – billions of dollars now wasted – and long hosted their terrorist leaders in luxury. Turkey has been overtly hostile to Israel for almost twenty years and wants to rebuild the Ottoman Empire which ruled the land of Israel for four centuries. Erdogan just said the other day that Jerusalem is Muslim, not Jewish. Do you really think that they will ensure that Hamas doesn’t rebuild or that a new terror organization is not created? Sure – and why don’t you allow Venezuela to interdict drug shipments to the US, perhaps even give them a base in South Florida?”

“You don’t trust Venezuela because they are themselves the criminals. We don’t trust Turkey or Qatar because they are themselves supporters and fomenters of terror. And don’t get me started on the Palestinian Authority.

President Trump: “What do you suggest?”

PM Netanyahu: “Let us, for once, together, do the right thing, the bold move that makes history, just like you did in the first term. We will disarm and defeat Hamas ourselves, allowing anyone who wants to leave Gaza to leave first. Then we will settle northern Gaza and the land that abuts our communities in the south – you do realize that Gaza is about the size of two Manhattans – punctuating our victory and ensuring our security. Then, we will finally annex Judea and Samaria – at first the areas where Jews live, then all of it – bringing diplomatic clarity to that region for the first time since Israel’s founding.

“You will go down in history, again, as a visionary leader. You will endear yourself, again, to your Christian evangelical supporters who understand completely the Bible’s prophecies and the inalienable rights of the Jewish people to Judea and Samaria, the biblical heartland of Israel. I would love to tell you that this would even increase your support among American Jews but, let’s face it, they are a strange bunch who don’t like me any more than they like you.”

“And, Donald, one more thing: is there a better idea than this one that can secure the interests of both our countries and stabilize the Middle East? There is none that occur to me or to anyone credible, beyond, let Israel withdraw and Gaza rebuild, as if that hasn’t been tried multiple times in the past. So, Donald, what do you say, let us together make history.”

There is a strategic and political vacuum in Gaza. We should fill it now, before it is too late once again and we revert to the same failed policies of the last seventy years. We should not let the vacuum linger but replenish it with policies that reflect our interests, values, and destiny.

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