COULD TRUMP LEAD TO BIBI'S DOWNFALL? [View all]

[mfcorey1]

It may look as though Donald Trump is waving a giant green light toward Jerusalem. Standing with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday, he jettisoned a cornerstone of the U.S. approach to peace: the so-called “two-state solution,” with a separate Palestinian state.

But this might not be so good for Bibi, it turns out. For years, American administrations — from Bill Clinton’s to George W. Bush’s and especially Barack Obama’s — have tied the Israeli prime minister’s hands when it came to approving more Jewish settlements in the occupied territories. But Obama’s hard-line policy gave Bibi a valuable bargaining chip. It let him get away with playing a two-level game — blaming the White House for reining him in while enjoying the fact that his strained relationship with the U.S. commander in chief kept the Israeli far right from sinking in their teeth. “I already have this terrible relationship with the U.S.; I can’t make it worse,” you could almost hear him reasoning to the right-wing members of his coalition.

http://www.ozy.com/pov/could-trump-lead-to-bibis-downfall/75640