Israelis celebrate

Mideast Trump touts ME peace but obstacles remain

JERUSALEM, May 24, (Agencies): President Donald Trump showered his Middle Eastern hosts with praise and declared a breakthrough regional peace within reach. No one contradicted him, but behind the pageantry and politesse a wall of skepticism remains solidly intact.

It’s often said that the contours of Israeli-Palestinian peace are well-known. And as Trump professed, much of the Arab world does seem ready to normalize relations with the Jewish state. But the obstacles that bedeviled industrious outside brokers for decades — including Barack Obama and John Kerry — have not been removed.

Trump did not outline his vision for getting around them, or even the process that might enable such a thing. And he asserted he wasn’t here to impose and lecture, and that changes must come from the region itself.

It was a detail-free strategy that he has employed with varying success domestically, whether the issue is health care or tax reform. He avoided the key sticking points that scuttled talks in the past, ignoring the status of Jerusalem, Israeli settlement construction, borders or refugees — and did not even utter the words “Palestinian state.”

Israeli political commentator Raviv Drucker said afterward that Trump’s “understanding of the conflict is as deep as cardboard” and dismissed his ambitions as “almost charlatanism.”

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