Based on recent actions by the United States, all indications suggest a desire by Washington to dictate a peace rather than mediate negotiations between the conflicting parties in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. US President Donald Trump's pro-Israel administration seems to have adopted the view that the best way forward on the Jerusalem issue is to remove it from the negotiations by predetermining who has rights to it.
The Trump administration’s tactic appears to be the implementation of actions advocated by the right-wing Jewish American writer Daniel Pipes. In “A Palestinian Defeat Is Good for All,” a December 2016 article for the Jewish News Service, Pipes calls on the United States to reject all Palestinian claims to Jerusalem. “For Washington to be helpful means supporting Israel taking tough steps,” he wrote. “It means diplomatic support for Israel, such as undoing the ‘Palestine refugee’ farce and rejecting the claim of Jerusalem as the Palestinian capital.”
In less than a month, the United States has undertaken three actions designed seemingly to harm or coerce the Palestinians. The campaign began on Nov. 17 with the Trump administration threatening not to renew the PLO's mission in Washington. This was followed Dec. 5 by a voice vote in the US House of Representatives approving the Taylor Force Act to defund the Palestinian government because of its financial support of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails and their families. Trump capped the campaign on Dec. 6 by recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, in violation of United Nations resolutions, and announcing that he will be moving the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
On Dec. 5, The New York Times reported Trump administration officials as saying that the policy change “could hasten, rather than impede, peace negotiations by removing a source of ambiguity from the American position.” Trump presented this idea in his declaration, stating, “I have determined that it is time to officially recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. I've judged this course of action to be in the best interests of the United States of America and the pursuit of peace between Israel and the Palestinians.”
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