West Wing Reads: President Trump's Middle East Plan is a Refreshing Change

President Trump's Middle East Plan is a Refreshing Change “The Trump administration is no less committed to peace than its predecessors. The key difference is that Trump does not feel tied down by the unsuccessful formulas of the past, and he and his team are willing to openly challenge that conventional thinking,” Hudson Institute Senior Fellow Jon Lerner writes in CNN. “The goal of the Trump plan is to end this decades-long conflict and create conditions for a better life for Palestinians and Israelis. The plan will begin to be rolled out at this week's conference in Bahrain,” Lerner writes. “Economic conditions are quite poor in the West Bank, and among the world's worst in Gaza . . . The Trump plan contains specific and realistic projects that could double Palestinian GDP, create a million new jobs in Gaza and the West Bank, and cut poverty in half.” Click here to read more.

“The White House has unveiled the economic aspects of its Middle East peace plan,” Prof. Emeritus Alan Dershowitz of Harvard Law School writes in The Hill. “The bottom line is that if Palestinian leaders were to accept — or at least sit down and negotiate about —the proposed peace plan, they could quickly improve the quality of life of their people. This could lead to a two-state solution that would be a win-win for all sides.”

“Critics would rather bash Trump than acknowledge Obama’s naïve strategy of Iranian appeasement was a failure,” Middle East expert Tom Basile writes in Fox News. “Democrats and Republicans in Congress need to acknowledge that the Obama approach to Iran emboldened and enriched an enemy never willing to be an honest broker for peace. President Trump is trying to get the West back in a position to effectively isolate Iran and counter the Mullahs aggression before engaging in any form of military conflict.”

“Concerns about immigration, and its impact on crime and taxes, have soared to the highest level ever, according to a new survey. Gallup said that more Americans than ever before cited immigration as their top concern in the latest poll,” Paul Bedard reports in the Washington Examiner.

“What do Democrats want to do about illegal immigration? Will they ever tell us? Or will they keep emoting about how deeply they care about the issue without ever offering a plan?” Karol Markowicz writes in the New York Post. “Democrats know what they oppose: any proposal from President Trump . . . They want the emotional validation of being the ‘good guys’ without having to actually lay out their positions on what to do about tens of thousands of people entering the homeland illegally.”