Washington’s attempt to impose Mideast peace will backfire
US President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and other recent measures suggest that he thinks he can bludgeon Palestinians into accepting an unjust peace deal.
Based on recent actions by the United States, all indications suggest a desire by Washington to dictate a peace rather than mediate negotiations between the conflicting parties in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. US President Donald Trump's pro-Israel administration seems to have adopted the view that the best way forward on the Jerusalem issue is to remove it from the negotiations by predetermining who has rights to it.
The Trump administration’s tactic appears to be the implementation of actions advocated by the right-wing Jewish American writer Daniel Pipes. In “A Palestinian Defeat Is Good for All,” a December 2016 article for the Jewish News Service, Pipes calls on the United States to reject all Palestinian claims to Jerusalem. “For Washington to be helpful means supporting Israel taking tough steps,” he wrote. “It means diplomatic support for Israel, such as undoing the ‘Palestine refugee’ farce and rejecting the claim of Jerusalem as the Palestinian capital.”
