Jared Kushner, the man entrusted by the president of the United States with reviving Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations, admitted this week that he had no idea how to do it.
“Everyone finds an issue” that blocks progress, the Trump son-in-law and senior White House adviser complained in a closed-door meeting with a group of congressional interns July 31. He suggested that instead, “let’s focus on, how do you come up with a conclusion to the situation." True, there are those who specialize in finding “issues,” but the people undermining the solution to the “situation” are those who invent problems where none exist. Thousands of words have been written about the diplomatic implications of the Temple Mount metal detector problem invented by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (the detectors were placed at the site after the July 14 attack on Israeli police officers). People say that once bitten, twice shy. Netanyahu is among those who once bitten rushes into the lion’s den — or, in this case, East Jerusalem. Unfortunately for him and for us, there is no trained, experienced handler to save him and us from this trouble.