For the first time, the debate about how to restore order is no longer theoretical. For decades, mounting evidence demonstrated that appeasing terrorists did not work—and that demanding a "two-state solution" rather than peace rewarded violent recalcitrance. Until quite recently, there were no hard data showing that calm and coexistence were possible. In fact, a broad consensus among recognized, credentialed, informed experts was that only an independent state of Palestine—the ultimate reward for murderous terror—could bring peace to this troubled region.
The Trump administration put those experts to shame. It relied on two concepts long thought irrelevant to U.S. policy in the Middle East: truth and decency.
This radical approach inverted much of expert-driven conventional wisdom.
Rather than catering to Islamists who preach supremacism, rage, violence and terror, it called upon Arab leaders to "drive them out," and focus instead on the welfare of their people.
Rather than vilifying Israel for its role in a "cycle of violence," it recognized that the violent episodes all begin with terror attacks against innocent Israeli citizens.
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