A bet on Donald Trump for president may have seemed risky
two years ago, but for billionaire casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, the payout
has been spectacular. Adelson (85-year old) and his wife Miriam gave around US$82
million to Republicans and candidate Trump in 2016, and within two years his two
major asks were met: moving the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, and
withdrawing of US from Iran nuclear deal.
This was accomplished in consultation with Adelson comprador
John Bolton, who in December 2016 promised members of the American Friends of
Beit El that Trump would not only move the embassy by declaring Jerusalem the true
capital of Israel, but he would not oppose any Jewish settlement expansion in
the West Bank territories. Adelson is also credited with opening the door for
Bolton’s appointment to national security adviser in March
Adelson has enjoyed a direct line to Trump, speaking with
him in person and on the phone at least once a month. Most recently, he was
able to convince the president to cut off US aid to Palestinian refugees living
in crowded, dirty, and unrelentingly hopeless refugee camps outside Israel.
Around the same time, Trump withdrew US$25 million in assistance from
impoverished East Jerusalem hospitals that also serve Palestinian cancer
patients allowed in from the West Bank and Gaza for treatment.
Of course, Adelson’s pro Zionist agenda, which includes
expanding the settlements as far as they can go most recently, is pouring his
money into a huge new Israeli medical university on one of those settlements,
in sync with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud party.
It’s been a great year for all involved.
For the first time in recent presidential history, there is
no pretense of peace with the Arabs. Trump’s endorsement of a two-state
solution at the recent United Nations General Assembly in September may have
appeared hopeful, but it was as lame as it was patronizing. “I like two state solutions,”
Trump offered spontaneously, posing for smiling photographs with Netanyahu.
“That’s what I think works best. That’s my feeling.”
For someone who supposedly has a “peace plan” but hasn’t
announced it after two years in office, his “feelings” are as worthless as
poker chips outside a casino. Maybe that’s why Bibi didn’t offer much of a
response. After declaring he would consider Trump’s non-existent plan “with a
keen and open mind,” Netanyahu reiterated that any Palestinian state endorsed
by Israel will be an unarmed one, not really a state at all.
Not long after Adelson, Netanyahu also encouraged Trump to
stop all funding (an estimated US$300 million allocated in 2018) from a UN
agency tasked since 1950 with providing aid for Palestinian refugees, Trump
abruptly closed the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) offices in
Washington, the only diplomatic conduit between the US and the Palestinian
National Authority. The reason given was “PLO leadership has condemned a US peace
plan they have not yet seen and refused to engage with the US government with
respect to peace efforts and otherwise.”
Trump’s point man for the peace plan is none other than his
son-in-law Jared Kushner, whose family has generously supported the
aforementioned Beit El settlement and is old friends with Netanyahu. Kushner
was the primary agitator behind yanking the refugee funding, calling the aid
entitlement program and withholding of it a punishment for Palestinian leaders
who vilify the administration.
More cynically, reports indicate he is merely helping Israel
end right of return for Palestinians and their kin displaced during the 1948
Arab-Israeli War. Similarly, the embassy move was designed to take the
contested issue of Jerusalem off the table. Meanwhile, Netanyahu’s government
just passed a nation-state law that declares Israel a Jewish state, one that
affirms Jewish settlements and the right to self-determination for Israeli Jews
only, codifying, in essence, that 1.8 million Arabs living there are
second-class citizens. This loads the dice before the games even begin.
Only people like Kushner and Adelson, who at a net worth of US$42.5
billion is the 16th richest man on the planet, would see withholding food,
education, and healthcare as way of disappearing a problem to gain leverage in
future negotiations. Only Trump would consider that the art of the deal.
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