Kushner, Israel and Palestine

The circus that came to town on January 20, 2017, continues to run amok. The starring buffoon, Donald Trump, garners most of the attention, and anything directed at any of the other acts reflects on him. Ringmaster John Kelly threw a hissy fit, and told high-wire acrobat Jared Kushner, balancing between Mexico, Israel, China and United Arab Emirates, that he must now only use the less-prestigious  high wire, the lower one with the safety net. His wife, Ivanka, balancing on a giant ball while juggling both North and South Korea, seems to be teetering towards disaster. And, for added fun, the clown Trump, in his most comical way, is telling the audience that witches are out to get him!

So much information to comment on; so little time! For the sake of brevity, we will focus on just one of the current miseries self-inflicted on the Trump administration. We will look at Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

It is hardly worth mentioning that, by appointing Kushner and his annoying wife (Ivanka still addresses her father, publicly, as ‘Daddy’), Trump violated government –issued nepotism rules, but he is, after all, ‘The Donald’. His hotel in Florida is also benefitting greatly by his very frequent weekends there with the entourage that accompanies any president, so the rules apparently don’t apply to him. But that is a topic for a different time. Kushner is our focus today.

It was bad enough that Trump appointed as one of his chief advisors, and by all accounts one that he trusts above most of the others, a man with no government or diplomatic experience. It’s worse yet that Kushner was tasked with making peace between occupied Palestine and apartheid Israel, since he is a close, personal friend of Israeli Prime Murderer Benjamin Netanyahu, and has donated substantial amounts of money to support illegal settlements. An honest, unbiased broker, he’s not. (At the risk of boring the reader, we will only mention briefly the fact that negotiations between Israel and Palestine are both unnecessary and impossible. Unnecessary, because all that is required is adherence to international law. Impossible, because the field on which the two countries play is not level).

To make matters even worse, the Washington Post has now reported that four nations discussed using Kushner’s lack of experience and troubled company for their own benefit. Among the countries whose governments discussed exploiting the naïve and incompetent Kushner was -surprise! surprise! –  Israel.

What can one conclude from this? Let us summarize:

• Kushner is a fawning supporter of  Israel.

• He counts among is very closest friends the soon-to-be-indicted Netanyahu (Kushner will be able to assist him, at least providing the same kind of moral support he no doubt provided his own father during his indictment and incarceration).

• The presidential adviser and son-in-law was tasked with bringing peace to Palestine and Israel.

• He supports the settlements, which are illegal under international law and are condemned by every nation on the planet (including, usually, the U.S.), except Israel. Does the fox ever consider himself guilty of raiding the henhouse?

• He has no experience in international affairs.

• He never worked in government before being tapped for his current role by the overgrown man-child currently living in the White House, who happens to be his father-in-law.

• Evidence has now surfaced that Israel saw his many vulnerabilities, and at least discussed exploiting them for its benefit. Is it possible that it was those vulnerabilities that enabled Trump to name Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, despite almost universal worldwide condemnation?

We will now consider for a moment the major thrust of the nepotism law, passed in 1967, possibly in response to President John F. Kennedy’s appointment of his brother, Robert Kennedy, as Attorney General (at least Robert Kennedy had a law degree, making him more qualified to be Attorney General than Kushner is to be a top presidential advisor). The law states:  “A public official may not appoint, employ, promote, advance, or advocate for appointment, employment, promotion, or advancement, in or to a civilian position in the agency in which he is serving or over which he exercises jurisdiction or control any individual who is a relative of the public official.” The law includes sons-in-law as ‘relatives’.

So, just what are we left with? We have someone illegally appointed to a top role in the government, who has no discernible qualities for the role to which he now attempts to fulfill. His professional background is so spotty as to put him at risk of being used by foreign governments for their own purposes, which probably don’t have a whole lot to do with U.S. ‘national security. He is despised by the chief of staff, but supported by another top advisor, his wife, the daughter of the president.

He is tasked with resolving a decades-old problem that the U.S. hardly even sees as a problem, and one on which he sides with the aggressor. That side is one nation whose government discussed ways of taking advantage of Kushner’s naiveté and complex business problems.

To hear some politicians, from both sides of the littered aisle, tell it, the U.S. is a model of democracy for the world to emulate. Nepotism, incompetence, foreign abuse of ignorant officials – hardly a model of progress and enlightenment.

And can any of us forget Trump’s statement about bringing the best people to his administration? Jared Kushner? Really? Among the 320 million people living in the U.S., can he possibly, by any imaginable measure, be considered one of the ‘best people’ to help run the government? He has no experience, no skills, and no discernable aptitude for the role.

This is the U.S. in 2018. These are members of an administration that is going to ‘make America great again’ (as if it ever was). These are the people who have made the U.S. an international laughingstock as it goes from one mishap to another, indicating appalling incompetence, demonstrating unbridled greed, and making decisions condemned by the international community.

No one need look to the 2018 mid-terms, or even the 2020 presidential election, for any major change. As long as the Republicans and the Democrats, different wings on the same ugly bird, have a stranglehold on elections, no real change can be expected.