While most of the world reacted with revulsion toward Donald Trump’s decision to declare Jerusalem the capitol of Israel, Fox News host Harris Faulkner and contributor Dan Gillerman all but broke out pom poms.
Vox provided the sobering facts Faulkner and Gillerman, a former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, chose to avoid:
World leaders from France to Saudi Arabia to China had cautioned Trump against the decision. Pope Francis even weighed in, calling on world leaders to let “wisdom and prudence prevail” so as “to avoid adding new elements of tension.” The US Consulate in Jerusalem issued a security warning barring all US government employees and their families from traveling to Jerusalem’s Old City or the West Bank ahead of the announcement because “widespread demonstrations” were expected.
But even though Trump’s speech ultimately didn’t go quite as far as many had expected, it may be too late to change perceptions that the Trump administration has unequivocally aligned itself with Israel. In other words, the damage may already be done.
But even the threat to Americans abroad could not dampen the Fox News enthusiasm for Dear Leader’s dangerous move.
Gillerman called Trump’s declaration “a great day for Israel” and said he believes it’s “also a great day for America.”
Then it was time to start slobbering over Trump.
GILLERMAN: He’s shown courage, he’s shown vision and I think he’s also brought the peace process forward because he’s destroyed a lot of illusions, he has woken up people from hallucinations and actually made the dream of Jerusalem the capitol of Israel something real which the Palestinians will have to reconcile with, live with and make peace with. … It means only good things. It truly does.
[….]
The president has actually given a gift today, not just to Israel but to the world – to the Christian world, to the Muslim world, to the Jewish world because he, by doing that, he has assured everybody that the existing status of freedom of religion which is practiced in Jerusalem more than in any other place in the world – certainly more than in many Arab, most Arab countries, will remain. The Muslims today can pray in Jerusalem, in East Jerusalem, the Christians can walk the Via De La Rosa, the Jews can pray in Jerusalem. Freedom will be maintained, it will be assured, Israel has always kept it and this announcement only makes it more of a certainty and less of a mystery.
In other words, Gillerman thinks peace should come by shoving a pro-Israeli solution down the throats of Palestinians and then magnanimously letting them pray. I’m sure that will work out really well. Maybe about as well as our gift of democracy to Iraq at the end of our guns.
Faulkner was too overwhelmed by the wonder of Trump to comment on Gillerman’s views.
FAULKNER: You know, the audience doesn’t know this but you were sitting by me as the president was making the announcement and I noticed how emotional you got. Did you think that you would ever see this in your lifetime?
No, he didn’t. And it's all because of the awesomeness of Trump (who probably couldn’t find Israel on a map, much less Jerusalem). “To see an American president standing there, fulfilling his promise and actually, as I said, making history while recognizing history was for me a very, very emotional moment," Gillerman said. "I think that all Israelis should be very grateful today to the courage and the vision of President Trump but also realize that he has laid out the beginning of a path towards peace and two-state solution between us and the Palestinians."
Finally, Faulkner addressed the criticism of Trump’s move. But she euphemistically described it as, “Nothing rolls out with perfection.” She only cited “a senior official within the Turkish government” as one of the opponents.
Watch it below, from the December 6, 2017 Outnumbered Overtime.
Coked off his head or his dentures rejected him.
’Nuff said.
Kidding aside, the Pence White House’s move here should be alarming to anyone paying attention. Given that these guys are panicking about their terrible approval numbers and about the prospects for multiple criminal prosecutions of their people, it stands to reason that they’d openly provoke a confrontation in the Middle East. How else could they try to incite an incident that might give them fodder to start the old “Rally Round the Flag” routine? Also known in some circles as “Wag the Dog”…