| | The man of the hour is Jason Greenblatt, Donald Trump’s Special Representative for International Negotiations, who is coming to Israel against a backdrop of faint signs of life in the Middle East peace process. Greenblatt, who will meet with Prime Minister Netanyahu and Palestinian President Abbas, gave notice on his way to the region that even though many American Jews have served as Presidential emissaries for peace, he will be the most Orthodox of them all.
It is Greenblatt, in fact, who is probably most responsible for jacking up right wing hopes – or perhaps illusions is the more proper term – of a 180 degree turn in U.S. attitudes towards the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. His interview with IDF Radio a few days after Trump’s election victory, in which he declared that the President will most likely keep his campaign promise to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem and that he “does not view settlements as an obstacle to peace” convinced settlers and their supporters that the road was now paved for massive settlement expansion and possible annexation of certain areas in the West Bank.
Four months later, after Arab countries have had their say and realpolitik has set in, Greenblatt is expected to tell Israel that some settlements might be an obstacle to peace, after all. They could certainly stand in the way of the superior relations that Israel is seeking to cultivate with the new U.S. President.
Greenblatt is often viewed as part of a Tweedledee Tweedledum pairing with Trump’s ambassador designate to Israel, David Friedman. In April both were picked as Trump’s Israel Advisory Committee because, according to folklore, they were the first Jews that Trump happened to see when asked who his Middle East advisers are. And while Palestinians may not appreciate or care about internal Jewish nuances and the differences between the moderate Yeshivat Har Etzion, where Greenblatt studied, or the one in Beit El, which Friedman supports, Greenblatt is certainly the more moderate of the two, as Judy Maltz pointed out in her still indispensable profile.
Greenblatt, who served as the Trump Corporation’s General Counsel for two decades, certainly has more Trump hours than Friedman. He deals in real estate, which is Trump’s favorite hobby, and not in bankruptcy, like Friedman, which isn’t. He is a fierce critic of Palestinian incitement but does not oppose a 2-state solution.
In April Greenblatt told a New Jersey newspaper that ultimately, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can be solved as a real estate deal, facilitated by tons of money. “You need to say to them, ‘Listen, we want to discuss these two issues in this quarter, and then you’ll get your check, and these two issues in this quarter, and then you’ll get your check.”
Imagine the howls of protest if such a statement had come from Trump himself.
P.S. For Purim, read Dan Futterman’s inevitable spiel recasting the White House as the court of the Persian King Ahasuerus, Ivanka as Queen Esther and all the rest.
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