Daily Times

Donald Trump has come a long way. Back in the summer, he seemingly didn’t realise that Israel was in the Middle East. Yet today, so confident is he of his cartographical prowess that he has decided to unilaterally relocate the capital of the Jewish state from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Not like that. Like this.

One has to admire his sense of timing, if not history. For he has ‘nailed’ it in the way only the most unpleasantly suave can. Meaning that the showman president carefully chose the small window of misappropriated opportunity that falls between Thanksgiving and Christmas by way of the centennial anniversary of the Balfour Declaration and the 70th anniversary of the vote for the partition of Palestine. So much for the season of goodwill to all men.

But it would be too easy to write him off as an — ahem — apprentice. For what he has skilfully done is this: struck at the very heart of the Middle East without firing a single shot. Thereby demonstrating that one doesn’t necessarily need to drop the mother of all bombs to wreak terror on an entire region. One just has to be a certain type of mother bomber to get the job done. Of course it helps that he has the indirect backing of his country’s Supreme Court, which has seen fit to immediately put into effect the infamous #muslimnotmuslim travel ban. Oh how Trump Town loves it when a plan comes together. Just as all good mercenaries do. Nice.

And of course this was a long time coming. For while in Riyadh over the summer to unveil the Islamic Military Alliance — he was most delicate when it came to referring to the elected representatives of the Palestinian people as a terrorist organisation. Yet the message today is even blunter: there will be no two-state solution. The national unity government is dead. Ding dong! Simply put, the Palestinians haven’t suffered enough; now they will not only have to endure the ongoing illegal Israeli occupation that is now actively grabbing East Jerusalem from a future Palestinian state. They will also be held directly responsible for what will likely be an almost immediate backlash from groups like ISIS, who will do much more than simply look this gift horse in the mouth. In short, there will be bloody reprisals; none of which will be unanticipated. Indeed, Trump has been warned about all of this from everyone in the region from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to King Abdullah of Jordan. All of whom have advised him that the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims, 2.2 Christians and 360 million Arabs are not going to take this redrawing the map of their collective future lying down. But this is exactly what Trump is banking on.

Indeed, his penchant for inciting religious violence has rapidly progressed from retweeting suspect videos posted by an odious British far-right group to leaving a calling card for global terrorists everywhere. All the better to distract everyone as the unquiet American attempts to bury the unity government for good. Thus by recognising a unified Jerusalem as the capital of the occupying state prior to so-called peace talks — Washington is effectively telling the Palestinians not to bother; their participation isn’t required. The deal has been sealed and it has been well worth the squeeze. Meaning there is little hope that the world will finally wake up to the reality of the occupation.

The unquiet American’s penchant for inciting religious violence has rapidly progressed from retweeting suspect videos posted by an odious British far-right group. Thus by recognising a unified Jerusalem as the capital of the occupying state prior to so-called peace talks — the US is effectively telling the Palestinians not to bother

For the stage has been neatly set. All the props are in place for the politics of distraction to take the spotlight once more. And by way of this one single act has the apprentice-president overnight made his country the world’s most dangerous nation. Paradoxically both in terms of being a rogue state as well when it comes to ‘inviting’ imminent threats to the security of the US homeland. But it is the latter that will captivate the West’s imagination. Because it will become just that much easier to persuade the American public that the Muslim world is nothing more than a rag-tag bunch of fanatics who would rather breathe their last than give religious pluralism another chance. But of course, we all know that this is not about faith but about an illegal occupation that Trump has just legitimised. Yet in doing so, he has thrown one of his two BFFs in the region under the camel. And just when everything was going so swimmingly in terms of getting one over on Tehran regarding a certain assassination in Yemen.

We, here, in Pakistan can’t even take comfort in the fact that the US has sneakily stolen our crown and is being feted as the biggest and baddest threat to global security. But we might be able to spare a thought or two for the Blair Witch Project. After all, he was the most dishonest broker of Middle East peace. And here is a comparatively uncouth American president stealing his thunder. Yet again.

The writer is the Deputy Managing Editor, Daily Times. She can be reached at mirandahusain@me.com and tweets @humeiwei

Published in Daily Times, December 7^th 2017.