It’s Trump’s proclivity for deal-making and no mess I’m holding on to for progress toward a Palestinian state

The only thing we know for certain regarding a Trump Middle East doctrine is that the president-elect has no clear policy regarding that part of the world. Contradictions abound in his appointments and statements. Donald Trump’s first term perhaps offers clues – the signing and promoting of the Abraham accords with the Gulf states and Israel while also moving the US embassy to Jerusalem and shuttering the US consulate in Israel that catered to the Palestinians in east Jerusalem and the West Bank and Gaza, while also tossing the PLO representative out of Washington and shutting down that ambassadorial-rank office.

He allowed his US ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, to encourage increased West Bank settlement, himself a patron of the hardcore ideological Jewish settlers. None of these actions made an agreement between Israel and the Palestinians easier or more near, and now, after October 7, the terrain is more fraught and confused.

Jo-Ann Mort is co-author of Our Hearts Invented a Place: Can Kibbutzim Survive in Today’s Israel? She writes frequently about Israel for US, UK and Israeli publications