Some nuance on Jerusalem

The Lowy Institute's blog is always a good place for some calmly reasoned discussion of foreign affairs matters, and its take on the Jerusalem declaration by Trump is typically nuanced.

However, I am more convinced by Thomas Friedman's criticisms of it:

Trump could have said two things to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. First, he could have said: “Bibi, you keep asking me to declare Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. O.K., I will do that. But I want a deal. Here’s what I want from you in return: You will declare an end to all Israeli settlement building in the West Bank, outside of the existing settlement bloc that everyone expects to be part of Israel in any two-state solution.”...

 Trump also could have said, as the former United States ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk suggested, that he’d decided “to begin the process of moving the embassy to western Jerusalem, but at the same time was declaring his willingness to make a parallel announcement that he would establish an embassy to the state of Palestine in East Jerusalem” — as part of any final status agreement. That would at least have insulated us from looking like we made a one-sided gesture that will only complicate peacemaking and kept the door open to Palestinians.

Friedman's bigger point is that Trump claims to be a "deal maker", but in fact, as with trade, he is just tearing things up with no sign of deals to come.  He just gives advantage away, then leaves it others to hopefully put together something better from the broken pieces.

Seems to me to be a very valid criticism.   (Could be applied to Brexit and the Right wing generally - cut taxes on the rich, work out what to do about lost revenue later, for example.  Try to destroy Obamacare, work out what to replace it with later.)   It's what happens when "winning" a culture war is all you worry about.