While there can be some value in shaking things up, breaking old habits, up-ending the status quo, that's a bit different from squirting gasoline on a smouldering fire.
Appointing a US Ambassador to Israel who pooh-poohs a two-state solution, who favors West Bank settlements, who thinks Israel can just annex the West Bank legally, who plans to move the US Embassy to Jerusalem, who compares liberal US Jews who don't blindly support everything Israel does to kapos in the Nazi death camps, and who, of course, has no diplomatic experience … is not just shaking things up. It's shaking bottles of nitro up.
It's almost like Trump wants to swell the ranks of anti-American terrorists in the Middle East.
Trump Chooses Hard-Liner as Ambassador to Israel – The New York Times
David Friedman has questioned the need for a two-state solution and likened left-leaning American Jews to Jews who aided the Nazis in the Holocaust.
Of course.
I’ve said for a while he plans to resign, abdicate, or delegate all the icky work in favor of Pence. I think this might be either deferring to his son-in-law Jared Kushner’s wishes, or part of the deal he’s made with the Evangelicals. The ones that believe that Jerusalem has to be restored (and the Temple rebuilt) for Jesus to return.
And Pence is just the guy to lead us into the Apocalypse.
It's in line with what Israel itself wants, and since most Israelis voted for Trump, he's paying off one constituency that backed him.
+Stan Pedzick It's certainly in line with the Netenyahu crowd, as well as the Christianist pro-Israelis.
But I suspect it's going to be one of those transactional things that interferes with other transactional things. In particular, I think it will end up increasing Iranian influence in the region, weaken (or force away from us) the Gulf State governments, make more problematic any actions we want to take in Iraq and Syria, and, as I suggested, help recruit more folk for the anti-Israeli / anti-US cause.
It will be interesting to see how/if the new Secretary of State deals with this guy.
The US and the Israeli Ambassadors will get along quit well it would seem.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/defending-anti-muslim-group-envoy-to-us-slams-racism-watchdog/
+Dave Hill the one positive on this appointment is that it will end the charade of the "two state solution" that we've been lying to the Palestinians about for the past 20 years.
The ethnic cleansing in Israel will most likely ramp up, the Knesset will feel encouraged to strip the Arab-Israeli citizens of their citizenship and remove them.
Here in the US, the one bipartisan thing that will happen will be the passing of anti-BDS laws, quit possibly at the federal level.
It aught to be a very interesting 4 years.
(Cross-reference for other readers, since I had to look it up: Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.)
+Dave Hill yes, sorry, acronym that has been in use since at least the early 80s.
+Stan Pedzick I'm certainly familiar with the words, the concept, and even with the movement, but haven't been in the right circles to be substantially exposed to the acronym.