Peloni: A fascinating interview with Mike Doran in which he explains the historical basis for Israel being viewed by the US as both an asset and liability, as well as how that relates to Trump’s policy following along the lines of Obama, to a point. He also explains that Netanyahu has to walk a fine line with Trump in such a way as to support those voices in Trumps cabinet who would call for striking Iran over those voices who would hold him to the Obama-like measured approach. Much more as well.
I listened and watched this interview and have a few thoughts about it.
Those individuals in the Trump Administration who are anti-Israel we ought to expose and name. It’s simple. This is antisemitism. The one person Doran actually names is Tulsi Gabbard. This website has done a fantastic job of examining the disturbing aspects of Tulsi Gabbard for both the American Jewish community as well as for Israel. She appears to dress herself up as a liberal but underneath and more secretly is against Israel. In this she is no different from Bernie Sanders, except that Sanders has no problem being openly antisemitic. I am not sure Trump would have anyone in his administration openly antisemitic, but Trump’s approach has been to continually try to widen MAGA to include as many political persuasions as can fit in the MAGA tent.
But Mike Doran then said that the national security establishment has been anti-Israel for a long time. Not Pete Hegseth, not Marco Rubio, but the “national security establishment” and for example identified Bob Gates.
I once heard General Flynn speaking prior to Trump’s election and when the subject of Israel came up he said, “Israel should be responsible for her own security.” It was somewhat hostile and indicated that he felt the US need not concern herself with Israel’s problems. I think this is probably what Mike Doran meant about the national security establishment being against active support for Israel or for treating Israel differently from any other country. To whatever extent individuals in Trump’s administration think this way, we ought to know about it and who they are. It’s important. I am not suggesting General Flynn is antisemitic, but I am suggesting his approach is America First: let’s make our country secure before we worry about the national security of other countries.
But those who want to position Israel as a country we shouldn’t worry about might make decisions that adversely affect Israel.
What is important is how Trump himself feels about Israel. In his last administration there was no sign of ambivalence towards Israel at all. He was straightforward and definite. He was not going to empower the Iranians at Israel’s expense and he said so time after time.
In other words, he put himself against the CIA and intel community which has definitely wanted to empower Iran at the expense of the whole Middle East.
During this current administration I don’t see any definite signs of change from this except these negotiations with Iran.
These negotiations are going nowhere and everyone including himself knew in advance they would go nowhere.
What is needed is exactly as Mike Doran has said; get rid of Iran’s nukes and create a buffer between Turkey and Israel in Syria to prevent war breaking out there.
The other thing Doran said that was interesting was that there is a lot of Iranian money in the UAE as well as Qatar, but that Qatar is not the issue. He thinks the US must take care of Iran, and that will also take care of Qatar.
I disagree with this in that
1. If we have a base in a country, that is a potential or even real boon to that country. We should get something for that. Qatar has not given something positive for that base being there, so I think that base should be moved to a country that shares our values.
2. Qatar has behaved in a frankly evil manner by spending billions and billions in our colleges and universities to indoctrinate several generations of students to hate Israel, equate Zionism with racism, and to normalize Jew hatred. Why should we even tolerate a country that does that?
I believe it is up to us as a country to oversee and have the ability to prevent or end these arrangements, as it takes place on our soil, and indoctrinating students to think genocide against the Jews is a reasonable idea is beyond what we should allow other countries to pay for in our country.
I understand that universities are private entities but when they affect the minds of our young people Americans should be able to have some say about their curriculum. At the very least, we should expose the professors and departments that are professors and departments of Jew hatred so that parents will at least know they are sending their children to learn to hate Jews and Israel.
And finally, though this did not come up in the interview, I can’t help but think Witkoff is the wrong person to be involved in any kind of negotiation involving Israel. He has admitted to being duped by Hamas already, and for all we know he has just been duped by the Houthis, because after Trump made the statement that the Houthis said the would not fire on American ships, the Houthis came out with a statement saying, “That’s not what we agreed to.”
How can Witkoff be trusted if he negotiates and comes out with an agreement that the people he negotiated with deny has been made? If he was duped by Hamas and admitted it, doesn’t this guy have a problem understanding that these people don’t negotiate in good faith? It’s foolish to negotiate with terrorists in the first place. Does he think they’re going to stop being terrorists because he talks to them?
This reminds me of people caring for psychiatric patients on in-patient units and every so often a poorly trained or untrained person comes along, meets with a patient, and suggests that the patient who is psychotic has spoken without any signs of psychosis and can therefore be considered improved, and should have the ability to leave the unit. But when meeting with that patient afterwards, I find the patient unchanged from before, so why the discrepancy between my assessment and the untrained person’s? It’s as if they feel they had the power to heal the patient just by meeting with them one time. This kind of thinking is what Witkoff’s efforts remind me: it’s as if he believes he can change terrorists into reasonable men who think like he thinks just by meeting with them.
This cluelessness on Witkoff’s part, plus the fact that Qatar paid his huge debt so has a glaring conflict of interest, seems like an obvious mistake on Trump’s part. I have no idea how he got Witkoff involved, but I no longer have any hopes of Witkoff accomplishing anything positive either with Israel/Hamas or Ukraine/Russia. He just seems to fail at everything he has been involved with. The faster Trump faces that the better for his administration. And the faster Trump faces Tulsi Gabbard for the dangerous influence she has on foreign policy, the better for the safety of the world. I don’t think including her into his administration was clever, it seems in retrospect that he overlooked very important data about her when nominating her for such an important position. But then again, he nominated Mike Pence and Mike Pompeo for important positions. One would think he would have learned to question his own judgments.