Armchair_Politician wrote Yesterday at 8:15am:

Broadly agree.

Hamas should be eradicated.
Albanes and Penny Dreadful are weak, yeah but no but appeasers of Islamists in Australia and in the Middle East.

Nothing has been done about a year long campaign of antisemitic protests and vand a slick across the country. Other than a call for ... as.... an Islamophobia envoy. Ludicrous.

Antisemitic vandalism and deplatforming, violent protests and openly anti-Australian agitations of every kind  are increasing in direct proportion with Islamic immigration and Green/ Left support.

“If those hostages aren’t back, I don’t want to hurt your negotiation, if they’re not back by the time I get into office, all hell will break out in the Middle East. It will not be good for Hamas, it will not be good for anyone. They should’ve given them back a long time ago. They should never have taken them. If the deal isn’t done before I take office, which is now going to be two weeks, all hell will break out in the Middle East.”

– President-elect Donald Trump, January 7



Two factors have transformed the Middle East, one created by Benjamin Netanyahu, one by Trump.


Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar instructed his negotiators to hold out for an agreement that involved permanent Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and provisions for Sinwar’s own safety.

Netanyahu had other ideas. The Israel Defence Forces finally killed Sinwar last October. That shook Hamas. Worse was to come. Israel dismantled or destroyed much of the so-called Axis of Resistance, the Iranian-sponsored Middle East terror network of which Hamas was part.

It started with Lebanon’s Hezbollah. In a series of assassinations, plus technical, bombing and missile attacks, Israel devastated Hezbollah’s military capabilities, killing its leaders and destroying its missiles.

Meanwhile Turkey supported a group of Syrian Islamists who deposed Bashar al-Assad in Damascus. Israel had so weakened Hezbollah it couldn’t come to Assad’s rescue.

Iran last year twice launched missile attacks against Israel, something it had never done before. In retaliation, Israel destroyed most of Iran’s air defences. Tehran’s nuclear facilities are thus more vulnerable to being bombed than they have been for many years.

This regional revolution hurt Hamas. It struck Israel hoping to isolate the Jewish state and start a region-wide war against it involving Iran and all its proxies. The only Iranian proxy still firing at Israel are the Yemeni Houthis.

Trump was the other revolutionary change.

Trump understood that in a conflict between a savage, Islamist terrorist cult and Israel, the region’s only democracy, he should choose Israel.

Biden made essentially the same choice, backing Israel from day one. But Biden was bedevilled by anti-Israel sentiment in the left of his own party and its activist base and youth wings. The left labelled Biden “Genocide Joe” for supplying Israel with weapons.

Biden’s diplomatic style is antique and no longer effective. He’s multilateralist, feeble, wishy-washy. He doesn’t scare anybody. The idea of the liberal international rules-based order has broken down because huge players such as China, Russia, Iran and others don’t abide by its rules and norms.

Further, many Western governments have become so woke they’re no longer trying to enforce basic human rights but to universalise California gender ideology. No one in Asia, not many people in eastern Europe, pretty well no-one in Africa, signs up to the San Francisco social model.

Defenders of the rules-based order are also now ineffectual in their methods. Biden wasted an entire term trying to entice Iran into a multilateral nuclear deal. Disastrously, this empowered Iran by freeing up money that, under Trump, was frozen under the sanctions regime.

Biden’s instinct in every conflict is to de-escalate. But some conflicts must be won.

The same feebleness is evident in the Albanese government, which condemned Israel even for the exploding telephone pagers with which it attacked Hezbollah commanders when Hezbollah, a proscribed terrorist organisation under Australian law, was relentlessly firing missiles at Israel.

Trump’s style, purpose and demeanour are the polar opposite to Biden. In his first term Trump was often crude, he needlessly trash-talked alliances and he did some counter-productive things. But overall his foreign policy was much more successful than Biden’s, especially in the Middle East.

...

Dutton supports a two-state solution that is negotiated fully by Israel and the Palestinians and includes the absolute disavowal of terrorism and the end of all claims on Israel by Palestinians. Albanese and his Foreign Minister, Penny Wong, in contrast, support forcing a two-state solution on Israel even if Palestinian leaders don’t commit to the things necessary for peace. That could be disastrous.

Trump won’t be obsessed by the two-state solution or anything else. The biggest question for Trump in the Middle East is whether he will back Israel in attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities or whether these could be addressed by truly hard-headed negotiations. Trump very much likes the idea that wars don’t happen when he’s president. Iran could be a special case.

In any event, the Trump presidency will transform the Middle East, as it will transform the world.
Greg Sheridan