November/December 2019 21MICHAEL S. DORAN is a Senior Fellow at the
Hudson Institute. From 2005 to 2007, he served
as Senior Director for the Near East and North
Africa at the National Security Council and as
U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense.
real crime is challenging people’s
illusions—and that is an unforgivable
oense.THE ROAD TO 242
Israel’s con¥ict with the Arabs has long
functioned as a screen onto which outsid-
ers project their own psychodramas.
Actual Middle East politics, meanwhile,
churns on relentlessly, following the same
laws o¡ political physics as politics every-
where else: the strong do what they can,
and the weak suer what they must.
The United States entered the regional
geopolitical game in earnest during
World War II, drawn in by the strategic
importance o¡ the oil recently discovered
under the Arabian Desert and elsewhere.
With postwar power came regional
responsibility, however, and Washington
eventually had to decide how to deal
with the messy residue o¡ the British
mandate for Palestine.
In 1948, U.S. President Harry Truman
came under domestic political pressure to
recognize a soon-to-be independent
Israel. The foreign policy establishment
opposed the move, arguing that U.S.
support for Zionism would alienate the
Arab states and drive them into the arms
o¡ the Soviet Union. Many o¡ the voices
making these arguments were diplomats
and experts with deep ties to the Arab
world and little sympathy for Jews,
however, and Truman was not persuaded
by their analysis, so he went ahead and
recognized Israel anyway. The establish-
ment considered it a major blot on his
record—a gross mistake driven by the
intrusion o¡ amateur domestic politics
into professional foreign policy.
With the British gone from Palestine,
the Arabs attacked, and when the dust
cleared, Israel had not just been grantedThe Dream Palace
of the Americans
Why Ceding Land Will Not
Bring Peace
Michael S. Doran
T
he Trump administration’s
Middle East policies have been
roundly attacked by the U.S.
foreign policy establishment. There are
various lines o¡ criticism, including
ones concerning its approaches to
Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Syria,
but the administration’s gravest sin is
generally held to be its support for
Israel. By moving the U.S. embassy to
Jerusalem, blessing Israel’s annexation
o¡ the Golan Heights, and other ges-
tures, the Trump team is said to have
overturned hal¡ a century o¡ settled U.S.
policy, abandoned the Palestinians, and
killed the two-state solution.
These are serious charges. But on
close inspection, they turn out to say
more about the hysteria o¡ the prosecu-
tors than the guilt o¡ the defendant.
Some o ́ President Donald Trump’s
policies are new, some are not, and it is
too early to see much impact. So why
all the hue and cry? Because the admin-
istration openly insists on playing
power politics rather than trying to
move the world beyond them. Trump’s
TRUMP’S MIDDLE EAST