Out of curiosity, please list these recent peace deals.
If the UAE/Baharin normalization with Israel is on that list, them remove it. Getting two countries, who are not in conflict, to acknowledge each other and begin a formal relationship is definitely not a peace deal. A peace deal needs to involve the warring parties, which this did not.
At the time that was given, Egypt and Israel had been formally in a state of war for over 30 years, and just a few years previously there had been a war in which thousands had died. It's not really a comparable situation.
Also, it was, quite reasonably, given to Sadat and Begin, not Carter.
Sure it's a comparable situation. If UAE/Bahrain had been independent countries in 1948 they'd have in an official state of war with Israel up until now as well.
Man, people are really buttmad because Trump didn't turn out to be as much of a warmonger as, say, Obama. Count your blessings; he's done fine on foreign policy where it counts.
Not listening and getting rid of Bolt? Anyone who was alive during Bush administration all around the world, and want world peace, cheered for the decision.
We’re talking about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict here. There is sustained and ongoing armed conflict between two or more groups. So yes, to win the peace prize for solving the Israeli-Palestine situation you have to have actually stop the conflict. There is no peace to maintain, and impossible to prevent a war that has already happened.
You're talking about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Other people are talking about the wider Israeli-Arab conflict, which has been closer to a cold war in the last couple of decades (modulo various training/funding for proxy operations), but just as real as the Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union. And worth defusing just like that one, though obviously it didn't have the "possible nuclear holocaust" issue going on.
That's a ridiculous amount of hair splitting. The normalization of diplomatic relations between Israel and major powers in the Middle East is a huge win for anyone who cares about peace.
It's astounding to me that people hate Trump so much that they refuse to recognize the historicity of this moment. We're seeing a fundamental change in the dynamics of a conflict that has been ongoing for generations, and there's no denying that a huge impetus for that change has been a rethinking of how to solve the problem by the Trump administration.
There have been many different attempts to solve the Israel/Palestine conflict and its many associated issues. Every US president has a go and having yet another attempt doesn’t win anyone awards until real results & a resolution between the parties involved in the conflict is achieved.
There was no big win here, Bahrain & UAE already had relationships with Israel, they were not in conflict. At best it can be described as possibly a small contributing factor to a future solution, if many other, much bigger and more relevant arrangements can be made. In reality not much has progressed. If anything, the few handshakes and promises made were a smokescreen for the unhappy status quo to go on as it was before.
I suspect the crux of the disagreement is whether the conflict is "Israel/Palestine", as you label it, or "Israel/Arab", as I suspect crusso labels it. The UAE/Bahrain peace deals are a big step for the latter, and not directly relevant to the former. So if you focus on the former, you are right that "not much has progressed", but that's a matter of what sort of progress you care about.
For a long time the two conflicts were sort of interlinked, in that the Palestinians were used as both a rallying point and a pawn in the more general Arab/Israel conflict. Part of the significance of the UAE/Bahrain deals is an ongoing de-linking of the two conflicts.
As a concrete example of a substantive changes that will actually affect the lives of a number of people that have happened recently in the larger Arab/Israel context, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain are now generally allowing flights from Israel through their airspace. This and the other recent liberalization steps are worth considering in the context of the situation described in https://ewerickson.substack.com/p/the-peace-deal-is-a-big-de..., where quite recently references to Israel were routinely censored in textbooks and encyclopedias in the UAE.
It's a big change from that to where we are now, and importantly it's a lot harder to sustain hostility against people you interact with on a daily basis than against a mysterious and vilified "other" that you never experience in person. So to the extent that easier travel leads to the travel actually happening, a practical effect of the sort of normalization of relations we are seeing could be a reduction in hostility "on the ground". Though that's likely to take a generation or three; these things are slow to change.
Now how much credit _Trump_ should get for any of this, I dunno; I wasn't in those conversations. But I also don't think people should claim that the changes here are not important just because they (for excellent reasons!) dislike Trump.
I have a fear the de-linking of the Israel/Palestine and the Israel/Arab conflicts will lead to Israel completely crush Palestine.
Which will be very unpalatable for the wider Arab community, and suddenly we will be back to square one.
I see no realistic solutions, unfortunately.
As for Trump, I know many who can acknowledge that thankfully he has not started any wars, yet see him as incredibly dangerous to the US, and by extension, the world. When the US shrugs, the world trembles.
no it is not. the deal was specifically a hedge for Israel's leadership against an unknown future for the trump administration in the US. they may as well have got Texas to sign a deal with Massachusetts.
Politicians like to be recognized as "great" and a the Nobel Peace Prize does appeal to many. Trump's desire is a good example. If you avoid controversial figures, you avoid using the prize as a motivator exactly where you need it.
For example, Begin/Sadaat and Arafat/Rabin. The first peace worked out. The second one didn't. But, all four of these people led a pretty violent life as militaristic and nationalistic leaders. They're all extremely controversial in the middle east, and in their own countries.
I definitely don't think avoiding divisive political figures is a good. thing. That said, I don't think he's earned one.
When did obama say anything devisive? When did he actively intended to enflame tense situation? When did he say anything outright disrespectful to his opposition ?
Obama may not have been perfect but he was always respectful, always kept his cool.
Comparing Trump's hateful rhetoric of his opposition to
How obama conducted himself is a bad joke.
One thing a lot of people don't realise is that Trump is the first president in a long time that hasn't invaded a country. Sure he's authorised bombings, which president hasn't?
But I can't remember the last time a president didn't put troops somewhere. Ironically he's getting a lot of hate for pulling out of Syria/Germany.
Try listening to his addresses and speeches over the last couple years, and look at the policies he's implemented. Look at all the dishonest coverage, and yes his blunt way of talking doesn't help, but it's still hard not to conclude that the media is the primary source of him being considered divisive.
I've seen a bunch of his speeches and many if not most of his speeches made my blood boil and I don't even live in the US, I don't read/watch much US media and my local news though allegedly left leaning only reports factual news on him and US politics in general.
Can you give an example of him being respectful or understanding of democrat policy or politicians?
The only way the media is making Trump look divisive is by reporting his words.
He has called fascists good people. He has called Mexican immigrants rapists. He has called other countries shitholes. He has recognized the illegal move by Israel to have Jerusalem as their capital (one of the only countries in the world to do so!). He refuses to endorse BLM, one of the largest popular movements in decades, and has sent armed forces to crash peaceful protests. He has escalated deportations even more. He has continued and increased Obama's assassination programs in the middle east, even assassinating a high foreign dignitary on another country's soil. He has repeatedly downplayed and refused to manage the greatest medical and economic emergency in almost 100 years, with consequences that will be visible for the next 20 years.
Maybe the fascists one is a little ambiguous. I believe that he meant exactly what I said, but I admit that other rational people can believe otherwise.
But for the second one he has stated 'When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.' I don't know how you can read this other than as a statement that most Mexican immigrants are drug delaers/users, criminals or rapists.
Not a Trump fan but by "...rapists. And some, I assume, are good people" he no doubt meant some were rapist not all, which is factually correct. Trump says so much bad stuff that twisting his words only really weakens the opposition case.
One-upping Obama seems to be a primary motivation for Trump, but it’s not how awards work. Just because Obama got the peace prize when he shouldn’t have doesn’t mean Trump should also get it when he shouldn’t have. Two wrongs not making a right and all that.
With more peace deals to come, by the way. Also he did not start any new wars, and started withdrawing US forces from the idiotic endless wars started by previous administrations. Donald Trump has done more for world peace than any US president since Reagan. It'd go further back than that, but Reagan defeated communism, which is pretty huge in itself.
Somehow more forces in all the places he said he would withdraw forces from than the beginning of his term = withdrawal of forces?
The only genuine force withdrawal he did was in Syria, which will damage the US dramatically going forward because they completely abandoned their allies because Erdogan was able to sweet talk Donald Teump.
And the “peace deals” are a joke because they were signed between Israel and countries that were never hostile towards each other in the first place. UAE and Bahrain? It was simply Trump paying UAE/Bahrain your tax dollars for them to formally announce something that has always been the case, and Bibi doing the same so that Trump could continue to allow him to annex Palestinian land in peace to satisfy the most orthodox people in his country who are keeping him in power and saving him from prosecution.
And yeah, supplying arms to the Saudis so they can continue slaughtering the Yemenis and unilaterally breaking a peace deal so Iranians can die in massive numbers are not starting a war, but is causing civilian death tolls that are extremely high.
And sure, creating massive instability and allowing China to run free in most of Asia and Africa is also not starting a war, but is completely weakening the US and emboldening China in ways we couldn’t have imagined 5 years ago (for all his anti China talk, Trump has been remarkably weak against them, which isn’t surprising considering that until January the highlight of his tenure was gonna be a joke of a trade deal with China, and that he spent years without touching trade with China but slapping tariffs on all the US’s allies).
And of course, dismantling treaties with Russia, such as the open skies treaty for example, which was a completely one sided treaty in favor of the US and its allies only served to increase the risk of war.
And how about jumping into peace talks between S Korea and N Korea (S Korea’s new President was elected on the explicit platform of trying to restart peace discussions with N Korea) and derailing the entire process, by giving Kim exactly what he wanted...a photo op with the US president which he could promote within his own country, without getting anything in return (I guess the love letters from Kim to Donald Trump was something).
And we haven’t even gotten to the part where he and his have explicitly and implicitly supported and emboldened white supremacists in the US and Europe.
Donald Trump is best looked at as someone who never boiled the water, but definitely turned up the temperature so it’s hitting close to 190. He has taken decades of goodwill and trust, and burned it so he could claim minor victories which hurt the US massively but can be something for him to crow about.
It requires an extremely narrow way of looking at the world (at basically the PR level) to think Donald Teump is even close to being net positive for world peace.
> It requires an extremely narrow way of looking at the world (at basically the PR level) to think Donald Teump is even close to being net positive for world peace.
This checks out - pretty much everything being posted by Trump fans in this thread is a rewording of the PR spin we see Twitter bots spamming everywhere.
If the UAE/Baharin normalization with Israel is on that list, them remove it. Getting two countries, who are not in conflict, to acknowledge each other and begin a formal relationship is definitely not a peace deal. A peace deal needs to involve the warring parties, which this did not.