Suppose I Were an Anti-Semitic White Nationalist

Published at 08:19 on 1 January 2017

Suppose I had the ear of Donald Trump. Suppose I wanted to destroy (or at least badly damage) Israel.

What I’d do is get Trump to be as fawning to the Israeli right as possible. I’d have no problems with settlement construction in the West Bank. I’d appoint an ambassador who wants to move the US embassy there to Jerusalem.

I’d move the embassy, preferably to occupied East Jerusalem. I’d back Israel 100% in settlement building (and in oppressive police measures, and anything else ethically questionable Israel does to the Palestinians). Then I’d let the inevitable blowback hit — and dump Israel.

Trump need not even be aware of the overall plan. His right-wing Christian backers almost certainly aren’t. They’ll support the initial stages as being pro-Israel, as the Israeli government will. But after the war heats up, the anti-semites (together with the unwitting support of the antiwar left and many middle Americans who both would be rightly afraid of a dangerous entanglement) will get Trump’s ear and convince him that his bread is now buttered on the side of isolationism and letting Israel fend for itself.

Not saying that’s actually what’s going on, of course. But given the ties of the Trump regime to the far right, it just might be. Moreover, they’ve already done the things detailed in the second paragraph of this post. Finally, the Israeli right is ideologically vulnerable to being played like a fiddle into doing its utmost to provoke a conflict with the Arabs.