How Donald Trump and the GOP Dropped the Two-State Solution for Mideast Peace

Days before the Cleveland convention, Republicans have just abandoned Washington’s decades-long call for an independent Palestine.




Days before the Cleveland convention, GOP leaders and presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump have found a rare bit of common ground: ditching decades of bipartisan U.S. foreign policy calling for the creation of an independent Palestine.

The shift came when the Republican Platform Committee unanimously approved an Israel-Palestine provision Tuesday night that had a striking omission: any reference to a two-state solution to the long-running conflict. The platform instead uses staunchly pro-Israel language that promises to oppose any outside efforts to force Jerusalem into a deal.

The new platform language was drafted with not only the blessing but the intimate involvement of two of Trump’s closest aides, Jason Greenblatt and David Friedman, according to several sources behind the effort. The two men are Trump’s primary Israel advisors.

The successful push to eliminate the two-state language was led by a broad if seemingly unlikely coalition that included Sen. Ted Cruz’s national security advisor; a Mormon state representative from South Carolina; and a Jewish former media executive who runs a super PAC called Iron Dome Alliance, a reference to Israel’s storied Iron Dome missile defense system.

Members of the ad hoc alliance didn’t know where Trump, the infamously inconsistent businessman and presumptive nominee, stood on Israel-Palestine generally or the two-state question specifically. In the end, they were pleasantly surprised to see Greenblatt and Friedman, presumably with Trump’s blessing, working alongside them to craft the new language.

“The U.S. seeks to assist in the establishment of comprehensive and lasting peace in the Middle East, to be negotiated among those living in the region,” the new plank reads, according to a copy obtained by Foreign Policy. “We oppose any measures intended to impose an agreement or to dictate borders or other terms, and call for the immediate termination of all U.S. funding of any entity that attempts to do so.”

The Republican National Committee has yet to publicly release its platform, which will be formally adopted at the convention, but the Mideast language is a striking departure from what had been stated GOP policy as recently asfour years ago: “We support Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state with secure, defensible borders; and we envision two democratic states — Israel with Jerusalem as its capital and Palestine.”

The significantly different new language raises the thorny question of whether Trump is in fact ready to take to the trail with a foreign policy that breaks with about 30 years of established thinking on one of the most fraught issues in American politics.

Trump tweeted Wednesday, “The Republican platform is most pro-Israel of all time!” and Greenblatt and Friedman quietly published a post noting their involvement from conception to approval.

“We stand resolutely with Mr. Trump in his belief that no country should pressure Israel into making peace, and we are gratified that this conviction is expressed in the platform,” they wrote, emphasizing Trump’s alignment with the party base.

Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks did not respond to requests for comment Thursday on whether he supports a two-state solution, but Thursday afternoon, the campaign announced the formation of the “Israel Advisory Committee.” Greenblatt and Friedman are co-chairmen.

“The conflict between Israelis and Palestinians runs deep. Every president in modern history has tried and failed to resolve this conflict,” Trump saidin a statement. “We mustn’t fear taking new, constructive and mutually beneficial steps to advance the cause of peace in the region.”

Jeff Ballabon, whose Iron Dome Alliance was a significant player in the push, said Trump has been “somewhat of a cipher on policy.”

“He doesn’t have a foreign policy record to look at,” Ballabon told Foreign Policy on Wednesday. But he said he got the “very strong sense” from working with his Israel advisors that “they are exactly where the Republican Party is.”

“There was active involvement in contributing to this plank and moving it away from where it was,” he said, speaking of Greenblatt’s and Friedman’s work.

During the Republican primary, the Manhattan real-estate magnate came under fire from his opponents for saying he wanted to remain “neutral” on the Israel-Palestine conflict and indicating fault lay with Israelis.

“A lot will have to do with Israel and whether or not Israel wants to make the deal — whether or not Israel’s willing to sacrifice certain things,” Trump told The Associated Press in December.

Trump has tried to regain ground by giving a well-received, Obama-bashingspeech in March at the annual conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (whose leadership later condemned the remarks) and taking pains to sound more clearly pro-Israel, rejecting a “nasty” comment on Israel from a June town hall attendee by saying, “We are going to protect them 100 percent.”

Still, the campaign hasn’t been able to shake the widespread perception that it’s willing to use anti-Semitic dog whistles and court the support of neo-Nazis and other extremists.

On July 6, Trump posted, then deleted, an image on his Twitter account depicting Hillary Clinton and a six-pointed star with piles of money in the background, feeding into Jewish stereotypes. He later said he regretted removing it.

Elliott Abrams, a longtime Republican foreign policy hand, said the two-state solution was implicit U.S. policy during the Camp David peace talks at the tail end of Democratic President Bill Clinton’s administration. The creation of an independent Palestine became the stated policy of the United States in 2002, during the administration of President George W. Bush.

The Republican handed off the policy to Democratic President Barack Obama, who in the ensuing years has developed a frosty relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Alan Clemmons, the Mormon South Carolina Republican legislator, and Ballabon met for the first time in 2011 while they were in Jerusalem. They believed the Republican base had moved away from the two-state solution, and they decided the party’s platform “would be the ideal place to make that statement very publicly,” Ballabon told Foreign Policy on Wednesday.

In 2012, Ballabon said that AIPAC and other groups dedicated to what he called “lockstep bipartisanship” on U.S. policy toward Israel teamed up with supporters of nominee Mitt Romney to retain the two-state language. AIPAC did not respond to requests for comment.

So what changed in 2016?

“Barack Obama’s second term showed ever greater schisms between the parties,” Ballabon said, pointing to the heated debate around the Iran nuclear deal.

In the Republican primary, Ballabon advised several campaigns on Israel policy but eventually endorsed Cruz.

In a March debate before Super Tuesday, the Texan called out Trump for saying he’d be “neutral” between Israel and Palestine.

Trump doubled down, saying, “I would like to at least have the other side think I’m somewhat neutral as to them, so that we can maybe get a deal done.”

Once Trump had emerged as the last man standing, Ballabon reached out to his team and was similarly surprised that they were already on board with their Israel policy recommendations, including cutting the two-state language.

Clemmons, a South Carolina delegate, said in the last few weeks that he’s become acquainted with Trump, though he didn’t support him during the primary. While he’s only required to vote for the nominee on the first convention ballot, he said: “I am pleased to report that I will cast each and every vote for Donald Trump. … He sees Israel as I see Israel, and as I believe a majority of Americans, and certainly the base of the Republican Party, see Israel.”

Trump’s advisors vetted and tweaked the plank language, he said. While AIPAC expressed initial concern, it ultimately did not object at the final drafting committee meeting on Tuesday, according to Clemmons. The new language was adopted unanimously.

Despite the apparent convergence of Trump’s advisors and GOP leaders, that doesn’t mean removing the two-state solution from the platform will be without controversy — or risk.

A number of Republicans, including Abrams, have said Trump’s statements on foreign policy demonstrate dangerous inexperience — a point Clinton is hammering. And though only symbolic, the move still could reinforce fears in the Arab world about a potential Trump presidency, given his Islamophobic comments and on-again, off-again Muslim ban.

Abrams acknowledged that the new language could communicate to Palestinians, “‘Yeah, we’re OK with permanent occupation.’”

Still, he said the change was worthwhile because removing the two-state language says to the next U.S. president, “‘Don’t repeat what has failed time and again in the past: reaching for a comprehensive agreement not currently available,’” he said.

Ballabon argued that omitting the two-state solution creates an incentive for Palestinians. That may be why Trump’s advisors were so supportive, he said: “If Donald Trump is anything, he is not someone who likes to lose.”

The Republican and Democratic Platforms on Zion

The Republican and Democratic Platforms on Zion

The Republican platform’s language relating to Israel was adopted by the party’s platform committee on July 12. In past elections, the official Republican and Democratic positions on Israel and the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict were largely identical, signaling the remarkable success of pro-Israel organizations and brass from both parties in ensuring that one of the most emotional topics in international affairs wouldn’t become a partisan issue in the U.S. But that bipartisan consensus is fraying, at least as far as the parties’ official positions go.

The Republican platform language—touted by presumptive Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and others as the most pro-Israel “of all time”—clearly diverges from its Democratic counterpart. The Democratic platform registered the party’s opposition the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement; the Republican platform decries it as one of several “alternative forms of warfare” being waged against the Jewish state. The Republican platform “reject[s] the false notion that Israel is an occupier;” no similar statement appears in the Democratic platform, and the party considered naming Israel as an occupying power in their own platform. The Republicans will seek to “thwart actions that are intended to limit commercial relations with Israel, or persons or entities doing business in Israel or in Israeli-controlled territories,” a dig at efforts to sanction or limit trade related to Israeli enterprises in the West Bank or Golan Heights, like the EU’s special labeling of settlement products earlier this year. The Democratic platform opposes BDS, but makes no mention of efforts only targeting lands outside of Israel’s internationally recognized territory.

Unlike the Democratic platform, the Republican platform actively opposes “measures intended to impose an agreement or to dictate borders or other terms,” and “call[s] for the immediate termination of all U.S. funding of any entity that attempts to do so”—a provision likely referring to the possibility of the UN Security Council passing a resolution outlining a final status outcome to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, something that the Obama administration has reportedlyconsidered backing over the years. The Democratic platform includes no such language. Most notably, the Republican platform contains no reference to the establishment of a Palestinian state, although it affirms that the U.S. “seeks to assist in the establishment of comprehensive and lasting peace in the Middle East, to be negotiated among those living in the region.” The Democrats, meanwhile, urge that “Palestinians should be free to govern themselves in their own viable state, in peace and dignity.”

For Republicans, the differences between the platforms honestly and accurately reflects what the two parties believe about Israel and its conflict with the Palestinians. This belief that there exists a tangible difference of opinion between the parties comes into clearer focus when looking at the architects of the Republican platform language. During a speech to the Republican platform committee on July 12, committee member Alan Clemmons, a member of the South Carolina House of Representatives, exhorted his colleagues to “send a message to the tens of millions of pro-Israel voters who must see that our party stands on faith and principle.” He added that Republicans’ “support for Israel’s well-being is of paramount concern and will not be sold out or dumbed down for the sake of petty interest, ever again.”

Jeff Ballabon, an activist and chairman of the Iron Dome Alliance who was involved in advocating for the platform’s current Israel-related language, told Tablet: “One party is debating whether or not it’s politically expedient to call out Israel for its oppression and occupation. The other is saying what are you talking about, there is no occupation? The difference couldn’t be more stark.”

As Ballabon interprets it, the Republican platform backs Israeli territorial rights in the West Bank, and even “goes beyond stating the obvious that Judea and Samaria are properly Jewish territories” since it rejects the notion of an Israeli occupation, while also making no distinction between the BDS that targets the entirety of Israeli-controlled territory, and BDS that only targets the areas outside Israel’s internationally-recognized borders. This interpretation is consistent with Clemmons’ speech, which was greeted with a standing ovation. “The false notion that the Jewish state is an occupier is an anti-Semitic attack on israel’s legitimacy,” Clemmons said. “It is impossible for the Jew to be an occupier in his own ancestral homeland, a region that his been known as Judea since time immemorial.”

The Republican platform arguably goes beyond Israel’s own policies, too: Israel has not annexed the West Bank and does not consider it to be part of its national territory. It also applies military law in the West Bank in a way consistent with the legal responsibilities of an occupying power, rather than a fully recognized sovereign authority. For Ballabon, Israel’s equivocal official position on the status of the West Bank is all the more reason for the Republicans to back Israeli sovereignty over the territory: “Many positions are taken by the Israeli government diplomatically or legally that are in response to pressures from the outside,” he said. “The point here is to remove that kind of pressure on israel that distorts Israeli decision making and Israeli independence and sovereignty through coercion.”

It’s unclear whether the Trump campaign has the same view of the platform’s meaning as Ballabon and Clemmons do. A statement published on Medium by Jason Greenblatt, the Trump Organization’s general counsel and one of the Trump campaign’s two advisers on Israel-related matters, lauded the platform language, writing that the campaign was “pleased that the committee has recognized that BDS is a modern manifestation of anti-Semitism.” But the Medium statement made no mention of the language rejecting claims that Israel is an occupier.

Even so, both Greenblatt and David M. Friedman, a bankruptcy attorney and Trump’s other top Israel adviser, were involved in drafting and vetting the platform language. “Jason Greenblatt and I worked with the committee and others to finalize and support the language in the platform,” Friedman told Tablet by email.

Tacking to the right of the Democrats on Israel could turn out to be smart politics for the Republicans: Some 70 percent of Americans have a favorable view of Israel, and the relative lack of debate over Israel during the drafting of the Republican platform is in contrast to the Democratic side, where the party’s approach to Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was the subject of hours’ worth of passionate discussion.

Yet the contrast in the two platforms highlights how the parties are drifting apart on Israel—and how they might be driving a political divide over something that used to be one of the few consensus issues in American politics. “There’s an illusion that the parties are in lockstep,” Ballabon said, “and they’re very far from being in lockstep.