President Donald Trump’s end of year speech to the American public that took place on December 17th was full of conceits over how the United States under the new regime in power is moving ahead on all fronts to benefit the American people. The reality is somewhat different with a struggling economy, inflation and growing unemployment as well as wars and rumors of wars. The only economic sector that appears to be doing just fine is the “military industrial complex” (MIC), or should one call it the warfare conglomerate, fattening on the one trillion dollar plus budgeted for military and related spending. For sure, the warfare bill is helping to expand the nation’s debt while providing little in the way of national security due to profound ignorance combined with serial blundering by those in power in and around the White House.
The unavoidable fact that Trump has created a mess nearly everywhere that he has trod has been visible practically since inauguration day eleven months ago, made worse by the incoherent and frequently contradictory explanations coming out of the Oval Office itself. One might point to the wars going on in Ukraine and in and around Israel/Palestine as the most unnecessary, and dangerous, of the Trumpean missteps, since both involved no threat to the United States unless they escalate and “go nuclear” while both can actually be described as sustained by what Washington has both done and not done.
And then there is Venezuela, a war for which the pretext is so contrived and orchestrated as to be comic in nature. On Wednesday, Trump described on his “Truth” social media how “Venezuela is completely surrounded by the largest armada ever assembled in the history of South America. It will only get bigger, and the shock to them will be like nothing they have ever seen before – until such time as they return to the United States of America all of the oil, land, and other assets that they previously stole from us.” If one tries to make sense of what Trump meant, it now appears that the esteemed US president is demanding that the Venezuelan government reverse its nationalization of its own assets that dates back to 1976 and turn its oil resources over to Washington. Prior to 1976 US oil companies did indeed develop and exploit Venezuelan oil reserves but there was never any real question that the United States owned either the oil or the land that it lay under. Trump wants to change all that and, oh, by the way, Venezuela supports Palestinian statehood, which just might also have something to do with its being targeted!
Regarding Russia and Ukraine, Trump’s fumbling negotiating team consisting of two property developers Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, one of whom happens to be his son-in-law, consistently fail to appreciate what Russia’s redlines are and have even driven Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky into a corner where he will not concede any territorial concessions. There is no where to go from there in a war that could have been prevented before it started but for US and British intervention.
All of which leads us to Israel, which appears to be the only thing that Donald Trump regards as important. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be in Washington on December 29th, a visit requested by Trump which will be the fifth such meeting this year. It will apparently be a final discussion over steps needed for moving to the next phase of the so-called “Trump Peace Plan” with Gaza. Israel has routinely violated nearly every aspect of the ceasefire agreement and has kept closed Gaza’s Rafah border crossing with Egypt, which was supposed to reopen in October as part of the first phase. But the border remains closed, keeping Gaza shut off from the outside world. Israel has already moved to establish a “yellow line” asserting its continued occupation and control over more than half of the Gaza Strip and is also continuing to kill Gazans and deny them food and medicine. The US is also building a military base, manned in part by American soldiers, on what will be the Israeli side of Gaza. It will no doubt operate in support of Israeli objectives. So the way forward is pretty obvious with Trump, who has not objected to Israeli violation of the US guaranteed agreement, fully expected to concede all points to his owners in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.
Other developments recently both in Washington and abroad also serve to underline who is actually in charge here in the US. Early in December, the US Embassy in Jerusalem co-sponsored with the Israeli government a gathering of 1,000 evangelical pastors from the United States entitled the “Friends of Zion Ambassador Summit.” The visitors were regaled with a full court press of Israeli officials and also Ambassador Mike Huckabee as co-host to create a united front in support of Israel’s so-called “right to defend itself” which most of the world regards as genocide with thousands of women and children having been murdered and every church, hospital, and refugee compound in the region having been bombed with weapons provided by Washington. That the US Embassy is supporting Israeli ethnic cleansing policies is shameful and Huckabee clearly does not understand the proper role for an American ambassador, nor apparently does Trump, who appointed him.
The trip to Israel was paid for by the Israeli government according to reports, possibly assisted by the Israel Lobby and the usual cast of Jewish billionaires. A local Palestinian Christian observed how the evangelical participants “did not seem concerned that Palestinian Christians living minutes away cannot freely access their own churches in Jerusalem and other holy sites without Israeli military permission. Yet these pastors were paraded as Israel’s spiritual partners while the indigenous church—the men, women, and families who actually bear the weight of life in the land—were treated as an inconvenience.”
The US government, for its part, should not have been engaged in the activity at all and those involved should have been condemned under the terms of the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938 (FARA), which regulated the behavior of groups that were acting on behalf of foreign governments. In the summit’s “Before You Go” guidelines, participants “were told that public evangelism and distributing Christian materials were prohibited in Israel, and that they should refrain from preaching altogether. In effect, the very faith that has driven Christians to share the gospel for two millennia was instructed to remain silent in Jerusalem.” In other words, the participants in the summit were force to betray their own religious convictions while supporting the political agenda of a government that is clearly engaged in crimes against humanity. Of course, in spite of all that the Trump Administration will not demand FARA registry. None of the hundreds of Jewish and Christian Zionist groups that operate on behalf of Israel has ever been subjected to FARA. Indeed, John F Kennedy was assassinated shortly after he attempted to register one of the first of those pro-Israeli lobbying groups in 1963, indicating that there are consequences for restraining friends of Israel.
If anyone doubts that Israel and its various instruments own Trump, it would only take a review of Donald’s participation at the recent White House Hanukkah Party. Fox News host arch Israel Firster Mark Levin hailed President Donald Trump as “the first Jewish president” during the reception on Tuesday. Speaking to a crowd of supporters at the gathering, Trump invited Levin to “say a couple of words.” “Come here. And these people do like Israel,” the president remarked. Levin embraced Trump before shouting, “And he loves Israel too!” Levin then proceeded to hail Trump as the first Jewish president recalling how “Six years ago, I was up here, and I said this is our first Jewish president” and Trump replied, “It’s true.” Levin continued, “Now he’s the first Jewish president to serve two non-consecutive presidencies. We thank you for everything.” Interestingly, Levin aside, it has been plausibly asserted that Trump is indeed the first Jewish president, having converted in 2017, a possibility that has been certainly supported by his servile behavior towards the Jewish state during his time in office.
Also at the Tuesday reception, Israeli Las Vegas casino magnate and top political donor Miriam Adelson publicly and openly declared that Trump could pursue a third term as president, despite constitutional limits. Adelson referenced her discussions with expletive deleted attorney Alan Dershowitz about the validity of another term and agreed with him saying “I met Alan Dershowitz, and I said, Alan, I agree with you. So we can do it. Think about it.” She also pledged an additional $250 million in campaign support to fund such an initiative, prompting audience chants of “Four more years.” Trump praised Adelson’s backing and highlighted her late husband Sheldon Adelson’s advocacy for Israel, saying, “Fifteen years ago, the strongest lobby in Washington was the Jewish lobby. It was Israel. That’s no longer true.” Trump then accused some lawmakers of being “anti-Semitic,” citing Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar, whom Trump says “hates Jewish people.” Trump also blamed universities for protecting anti-Israel sentiment, and predicted that Harvard, which he has been suing over antisemitism-related fines, “will pay a lot of money.”
On a final note, we Americans who still value free speech might want to take note of a new senior bureaucrat who has assumed his position in Washington. Trump just appointed Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun, an Israeli-born Chabad-nik extremist who says “there never was a Palestine,” as lead censor of free speech in America through his position as head of the office of the State Department Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism where he will have the rank of Ambassador. Kaploun pledged that inaccurate or inflammatory “hatred content” related to Israel and Jews is being allowed to spread on social media and pledged to work with social networks to curb the spread of antisemitic falsehoods online. Kaploun did not mention what he would do about misleading information about Arabs or Muslims deliberately placed in the Jewish dominated mainstream media, so the presumption is that he would do nothing. This is only about going after those who are critical of Jewish collective behavior or of Israel. Kaploun is Trump’s man and the president obviously believes that that is the correct path for all of us. Goodbye America!
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is https://councilforthenationalinterest.org address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org