By Denny Gulino
THE WHITE HOUSE (MaceNews) – Questions raised on a Tuesday: Is peace in the Middle East now any closer? Is the removal from office of President Trump and/or the Israeli prime minister any closer? Is the nation’s deepening black hole of debt really as bad as newly described?
The optimistic view is that a U.S. president has agreed the Palestinians have suffered enough and that their future can be immensely improved with $50 billion in investment and a state of their own while an Israeli prime minister has agreed to face-to-face talks and to doubling the area the Palestinians can call home.
The pessimistic view is that a U.S. president trying to ensure he’s not removed from office and an Israeli prime minister trying to do the same, together agreed their deal to create a Palestinian state will be too good to pass up by the deadline for consideration in four years, an assumption based not on historic reality nor on any positive signs from the Palestinians themselves.
The more realistic view seems to be the reflex and preemptive rejection of the deal by the Palestinians, the refusal to cut links with Hamas, the solid refusal to deal with Trump after all he has done for Israel, means the only avenue to agreement might be to wait until there’s a new U.S. president, a new Israeli president and then to negotiate a new version of a peace plan years from now.
A few members of the big contingent of Israeli media that passed through the White House press room Tuesday could be heard marveling, with some apparent apprehension, the terms of the deal for the Palestinians, generally agreeing with President Trump it is “overly good” for them. So far not only the Palestinians and Hamas but Israeli settlers reject any such two-state arrangement on terms they did not help formulate.
Full details of the 80-page proposal are easily available elsewhere and will prompt acres of commentary for and against, at least while it’s still fresh. Meanwhile, the threat Trump described so well continues, of “bloodshed, bus bombings, nightclub attacks, and relentless terror.”
Hoping for the best and as always preparing for the worst, the parties of the Middle East watch to see if President Trump holds on to his job and if Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who waived his immunity to prosecution while in Washington, somehow holds on to his. Political opponent Benny Gantz also agreed to uphold the deal if he wins. He was kept nearly invisible during the visit.
On Capitol Hill, White House Counsel Pat Cippolone declared, “I think we’ve made our case,” knowing the impeachment landscape changed as soon as John Bolton’s words in a forthcoming book were reported by The New York Times. Sixteen hours is allowed for questions from the senators starting Wednesday and then may come the vote on witnesses, or as some suggest, the possibility of an order for witnesses from the chief justice.
Elsewhere on the Washington stage Tuesday were the nation’s top health security officials, from the Department of Health and Human Services, the Centers for Disease Control and the National Institutes of Health. Don’t run out and by masks, was their advice. In the U.S. there is no reason to alter the routines of life. Yet, anyway.
It was enough not to spoil the rebound of stocks. The DJIA recovered 0.7%, about half Monday’s decline. The S&P did better, up around 1%. The Nasdaq was buoyed the most, about 1.4%.
In another corner of Washington there was also a news conference and a report with much the same conclusion as many before it, only more so. And it was nearly ignored by those who set the national news agendas. After all, nothing new. Arguably, though, it had more to do with the outlook for U.S. prosperity in the next five, 10, 15 years than anything else that happened during the day in the nation’s capital.
OK, if it has to be mentioned, that event was the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office budget and economic semiannual update. The nation’s unsustainable debt is getting more unsustainable, in fact, making history by threatening in the next decade the first five-year span since World War II with debt above 4% of the economy, heading toward “a percentage of the nation’s output that is unprecedented in U.S. history.”.
President Trump, incidentally, again left the ropelined reporters with nothing to do as he waved and walked without comment to Marine One late in the afternoon, on his way to another rally, this one in Wildwood, N.J., where he’ll again likely have a lot to say about his Senate trial.
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Contact this reporter: denny@macenews.com