Vanity Fair ridiculed a Kushner criticism of the Palestinian leadership as “Jared Kushner: Palestinians Have Never Done Anything Right in Their Sad, Pathetic Lives.” It noted there was video: “Don’t worry, there’s footage of Kushner making this statement, so it can be played back for all eternity.”
It seems pretty unlikely that anyone is going to go back to it now.
The critics took great umbrage at Kushner’s admonishing the Palestinian leadership, not realizing that they were beholden to an out-of-date conventional wisdom. The tectonic plates were shifting such that the only path to peace no longer ran through the Palestinians, if it ever did. The frustration that Kushner was expressing was shared by Arab leaders.
Of course, since Kushner had been intensely engaged in the region, he understood this when most of the journalists and advocates portraying him as a hopeless ignoramus had no idea. He knew what he was talking about when they, by and large, didn’t.
Trump’s fans call Trump a disrupter, too often simply to excuse anything he does. But in the case of the Middle East, he overturned the policy he inherited, did things no other president would (especially the move of the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem), and then was in a position to capitalize when something shook loose.
This is an undeniable achievement and one that was intelligently conceived. With honorable exceptions, very few Trump critics have been willing to give credit where it’s due.
For them, as ever, it’s on to the next thing, but the record will show who got this one right and who marinated in their own self-righteous disdain.
www.nationalreview.com
It seems pretty unlikely that anyone is going to go back to it now.
The critics took great umbrage at Kushner’s admonishing the Palestinian leadership, not realizing that they were beholden to an out-of-date conventional wisdom. The tectonic plates were shifting such that the only path to peace no longer ran through the Palestinians, if it ever did. The frustration that Kushner was expressing was shared by Arab leaders.
Of course, since Kushner had been intensely engaged in the region, he understood this when most of the journalists and advocates portraying him as a hopeless ignoramus had no idea. He knew what he was talking about when they, by and large, didn’t.
Trump’s fans call Trump a disrupter, too often simply to excuse anything he does. But in the case of the Middle East, he overturned the policy he inherited, did things no other president would (especially the move of the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem), and then was in a position to capitalize when something shook loose.
This is an undeniable achievement and one that was intelligently conceived. With honorable exceptions, very few Trump critics have been willing to give credit where it’s due.
For them, as ever, it’s on to the next thing, but the record will show who got this one right and who marinated in their own self-righteous disdain.
Jared Kushner Was Right | National Review
Rarely has so much mockery been directed at an approach that ultimately achieved a breakthrough.
www.nationalreview.com
