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BREAKING: Middle East Has Not Gone Up in Flames

Foreign policy experts hardest hit

Jerusalem
The Old City in Jerusalem / Getty Images
December 11, 2017

Because it is preposterous to insist that Jerusalem is not the capital of Israel, the political clique opposed to the United States’ recognition of this plain fact—that is, almost all of the western foreign policy establishment, journalists, commentators, former Obama and Clinton administration officials, European politicians and bureaucrats, United Nations cretins, and so on—settled on a different strategy to oppose it.

They fearmongered. In unison, they predicted violence, killing, terrorism, rioting, protests, instability, blowback, and general catastrophe if President Trump followed through on his campaign pledge (and the campaign pledge of many presidents before him).

One sensed that most of these warnings were dishonest—issued not as genuinely believed analysis of what would happen, but as an attempt at scaring the administration out of pulling the trigger. Having spent decades insisting the United States cannot recognize Jerusalem until the Palestinians, Europeans, et al agree, a Trump announcement would not just embarrass but suggest the impotence of an entire political community.

So there was much more on the line than whether the Middle East would plunge into chaos – there was the vanity, prestige, and power of a group of people who have exercised a great deal of control over Middle East foreign policy for decades. The real danger for this group wasn’t so much the announcement itself. It was that Armageddon would not follow it.

Which is exactly what has happened. Yes, there have been protests and a few instances of violence. But nothing close to what opponents presented as the risks of the president merely uttering the words "Jerusalem is the capital of Israel."

This is the same group of experts, of course, that just a couple of years ago reassured the world that the Obama administration’s nuclear deal with Iran would not set the region on fire. Yet the rise of an aggressive, acquisitive, uncontained Iran, fueled by its liberation from sanctions and billions in cash, has been the real story of instability, violence, and blowback in the region. From Yemen to Lebanon, virtually every armed conflict in the Middle East today has one thing in common: Iran.

So the recent record of our foreign policy and media elites is as follows: when they predict catastrophe, there is none; and when they predict harmony and goodwill, there is catastrophe.

To see just how hysterical and wrong they were about Jerusalem, take a look at the tweets below, from the days leading up to Trump’s announcement, and decide for yourself. They’re from a who’s who of journalists, analysts, and former Obama and Clinton administration officials.

https://twitter.com/ilangoldenberg/status/938126801397862400

https://twitter.com/ilangoldenberg/status/938122801403383809

https://twitter.com/ilangoldenberg/status/938086253672783872

https://twitter.com/ilangoldenberg/status/937852145629528065

https://twitter.com/juliamacfarlane/status/938099199501062144

And, in fairness, here is someone who got it right – a reporter for Haaretz, the far-left Israeli daily.

Published under: Israel