I voted for Donald Trump.
Let me pause here long enough for the jeers to die down. Four, three, two, one…does everyone feel better? OK, now let me explain the reasons for my vote.
For starters, they definitely don’t include his pleasant personality, warm regard for foes, tendency to stick to the facts without exaggeration, or ability to avoid legal entanglements. They do, however, involve several issues on which we see eye-to-eye. And one of them is Trump’s attitude towards Israel.
I first noticed it during the president-elect’s initial term. Within a year of assuming office, he formally recognized Jerusalem as the country’s capital, moving the US Embassy there in fulfillment of America’s long-held promise. He also recognized Israeli sovereignty over the disputed Golan Heights and imposed crippling economic sanctions on Iran, the terror-exporting nation financing several proxies dedicated to Israel’s destruction.
And finally came the historic Abraham Accords, accomplishing something no other president had in over seven decades; the normalization of relations between Israel and several of its Arab neighbors.
How did he do it? By ignoring the mythical premise of a “two-state solution” long touted by the West but never honored by the Palestinians. The 45th president simply removed their ability to veto a major initiative fostering lasting peace, which no one before him ever had the temerity to do.
And so, the world moved on, optimistic that an end to hostilities was well within sight. Until Oct. 7, 2023, when—with Trump gone and his sanctions undone—the militant Iran-backed Hamas viciously attacked Israel, ending the peace and regaining the initiative.
Which brings us to the present.
Anyone still clinging to the hope of a two-state solution isn’t really paying attention. It was first offered in 1947 when the United Nations—noting a profound disagreement over whether Arabs or Jews were the rightful indigenous inhabitants of their shared territory—proposed an equitable compromise: divide the disputed area in two.
The Jews said, “hell yes” and built Israel. The Arabs said, “heck no” and immediately attacked the newly formed Jewish state. And that’s pretty much the way it’s been ever since.
Bottom line: there will never be a two-state solution until the Palestinians are willing to live next to the Jews without repeatedly trying to kill them. Or as legendary Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir famously put it: “We will only have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more than they hate us.”
Which is why the current war cannot end until Hamas—and its various cohorts including the Lebanon-based Hezbollah—are completely and utterly demilitarized and destroyed.
I believe Donald Trump understands that. Because, unlike virtually all previous American presidents including Joe Biden, he perceives the folly of foisting two states on people—namely Palestinians—who only want one, namely their own. His most likely solution: unleashing Israel to, as a spokesperson recently described it, “end the war by winning it.”
In fact, that seems to already be happening. Last week, the world awoke to the encouraging news that Israel and Hezbollah had agreed to a ceasefire, further isolating the still-fighting Hamas. Most analysts attribute the development to Israel’s fierce military successes combined with pressure from Iran, undoubtedly worried about Trump’s imminent return.
“And they ought to be worried,” said Mike Huckabee, former governor of Arkansas, unflinching Christian Zionist, and the incoming president’s nominee for US ambassador to Israel. “They know what happened when Donald Trump was in office before.”
Not to mention an Iranian operative’s recent revelation of his country’s thwarted plan to assassinate the incoming president before he even makes it to the White House. “People tend to take that stuff personally,” Mick Mulroy, a top Pentagon official during Trump’s first term, told the Wall Street Journal.
Not the best of times, it seems, to be rooting for Iran.
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David Haldane is an award-winning American journalist and author with homes in Southern California and Northern Mindanao. His latest book, A Tooth in My Popsicle, is available on Amazon. This column appears weekly in The Manila Times.
