If a Pulitzer Prize were awarded for the (unintentionally) funniest and most piquant headline written by a “major” news organization in 2024, then the New York Times – which craves such frivolous trinkets – would undoubtedly win it. .
Here’s the “award-winning” headline, published last week in the wake of US President-elect Donald Trump’s diplomatic choices that the Times says will “help shape President-elect Trump’s strategy” in the Middle East.
“Trump’s choices in the Middle East demonstrate a resolute pro-Israel policy,” writes the Times.
It’s so comical, isn’t it?
An identical headline could have been recycled verbatim after every Democratic or Republican president-elect has made public his “Middle East choices” since the artificial creation of Israel in 1948.
My God.
The implicit suggestion of the title is that somehow, for some strange reason, there may have been a shred of doubt that Trump was not going to adopt a “decidedly pro- Israeli” like all his deferential predecessors.
Of course, Trump played nice with a bunch of gullible Arab “leaders” (pawns) in the swing state of Michigan during the presidential election campaign to curry favor with a “community” that he would immediately abandon in a heartbeat. time he would have obtained 270 electoral votes.
The second underlying conclusion of the title is that any elected American president – Democrat or Republican – would consider, much less be able to adopt anything other than a “decidedly pro-Israel policy.”
Finally, and perhaps most absurdly, in its ongoing and iconic efforts to normalize a fascist president-elect, the Times’ stormy headline and subheadline imply that Trump, who will soon occupy the Oval Office for a second time , has a nuanced understanding of the Middle East that will translate into a well-defined “policy” and “strategy” for the region.
My goodness – the sequel.
This may be a revelation for the Times, but I don’t think Trump can even tell Iran from Iraq on a map.
But, as we know, a nuanced understanding of the Middle East is not necessarily a prerequisite in the White House or State Department when it comes to electing or appointing people to take charge of charge American “policy” or “strategy” with regard to this troubled region. part of the world.
Do the discredited names of George W Bush, Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice and the late Donald Rumsfeld and Colin Powell come to mind for anyone – especially the New York Times shill?
Lest we forget.
Predictably, Joe Biden and Antony Blinken followed in the ruinous footsteps of the ‘shock and awe’ gang by giving indicted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu all the money, weapons and cover. strategic” that he needed to commit genocide in Gaza and the occupied territories. West Bank.
Biden, Blinken and UN Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield have pursued the same “kill first, think later” “policy” or “strategy” – take your pick – as the “shock and awe” gang » used with such disastrous and inhumane consequences.
One would reasonably have thought that the calamitous invasion of Iraq would have given Biden, Blinken and Thomas-Greenfield pause.
You would be wrong.
Instead, true to the “kill first, think later” formula, Biden, Blinken and Thomas-Greenfield have enabled genocide – which has already claimed the lives of more than 43,000 Palestinians, most of them children. and women – with Trump’s patina of faux-seriousness and ending the lack of enterprise that is so appreciated by the savvy savants at the Times, CNN and MSNBC.
So why anyone, anywhere would be “shocked” that Trump chose evangelical Christian and raging Israeli settler Mike Huckabee to be the next US ambassador to Israel is a silly mystery to me .
Why anyone, anywhere would be “shocked” that pro-Israel zealots like Sen. Marco Rubio and Rep. Elise Stefanik were named Secretary of State and Ambassador to the UN, respectively, is also a silly mystery to me .
Like Biden, Blinken and Thomas-Greenfield, Trump, Rubio, Huckabee and Stefanik believe that Israel enjoys the absolute and undisputed “right” to defend itself. If that means the obliteration of Gaza and the West Bank, so be it: decency, human and civil rights conventions, and international law be damned.
Beyond the rhetorical outlines about a mythical “two-state solution,” there is no “daylight” between Biden, Blinken and Thomas-Greenfield and Trump, Rubio, Huckabee and Stefanik regarding “the future” Palestinians in Gaza and the West. Bank.
They have no “future”.
Biden, Blinken and Thomas-Greenfield have enabled Israel to do to Gaza and the West Bank what Trump, Rubio, Huckabee and Stefanik had long hoped to do to Gaza and the West Bank: turn what remains of Palestinian land into dust and in memory in, if necessary, deadly and indiscriminate force.
Trump, Rubio, Huckabee, and Stefanik represent the slightly more direct and profane continuum of America’s “kill first, think later” attitude toward the Middle East.
This is why the furious “outrage” from Democrats and pundits over Trump’s “scandalous” cabinet and other top administration picks has largely been reserved — surprise, surprise — for his “controversial” prosecutor picks General and Secretary of Defense.
The methodical destruction of Gaza and the West Bank, which lasted more than a year, is obsolete news.
Biden, Blinken and Thomas-Greenfield have given Israel the “green light” to kill as many Palestinians as it wants for as long as it wants and Trump, Rubio, Huckabee and Stefanik will do exactly the same.
On genocide: The new White House gang is the same as the old White House gang.
Wait. There is still hope. Arab leaders (pawns) who met with Trump late in the campaign – unlike Kamala Harris – sent him a letter asking the president-elect to “exert (his) political influence to demand an immediate ceasefire in Lebanon and Palestine. » with a view to negotiating “a lasting peace”.
Of course, a letter – provided Trump bothers to read it – is bound to change Washington’s deeply ingrained view that Palestinians are always the perpetrators and never the victims, and that their lives are as disposable as they are inconsequential. .
Yes, a nicely worded letter should finally do the trick.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Tel Aviv Tribune.
