Zev Chafets, Columnist

In Trump's Middle East, Israel Is No Longer the Problem

Hidden in the new National Security Strategy is a reversal of decades of U.S. foreign policy.

December 21, 2017 at 10:00 AM UTC

Zev Chafets is a journalist and author of 14 books. He was a senior aide to Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and the founding managing editor of the Jerusalem Report Magazine.

He saw things a certain way.
Photographer: Abbas Momani/AFP/Getty Image

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The Donald Trump administration’s new National Security Strategy has made waves for its unexpected emphasis on alliances, tough talk on trade, and focus on homeland protection. But few have noticed, buried on page 49, a paragraph that marks a sea change in decades of American strategic thinking about the Middle East:

Along with last week’s declaration that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital, Trump has stuck a blow for realism in the sometimes upside-down world of U.S. foreign-policy thinking. He’s also taken a swipe at two of his predecessors: Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama.