Trump/Netanyahu meeting: Mid-East peace, no; Legal defense strategies, yes

Satire from Ted Block

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Trump, Netanyahu meet 

Agenda does not include Mid-East peace; two talk legal defense strategies

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visit to Washington this week comes at a time when the mix of politics, personalities and historical grievances that has stood in the way of Israeli-Palestinian peace is even more combustible than normal.

• President Trump’s point man for mediation, Jared Kushner, is in the middle of a political firestorm and has lost his security clearance, while his Mid-East peace plan remains a mystery;
• Palestinians aren’t even speaking to the White House; 
• Netanyahu and Trump are both distracted by mushrooming legal investigations at home.

Given all the issues facing Trump and Netanyahu, the White House announced that the two met not to address the peace process but instead spent their time together brainstorming defense strategies they might use to fight their myriad legal and political problems.

As such, customary attendees at a meeting like this, including secretary of state Rex Tillerson and national security advisor H.R. McMaster, did not participate. Rather, Trump and Netanyahu met with senior members of Trump's crack legal team, Ty Cobb and John Dowd as well as White House counsel Don McGahn. And in a surprise, despite the fact that Mid-East peace was not on the agenda, Jared Kushner did attend the meeting in order to 'kibbitz' and to listen in on legal defense ideas. A spokesman for Kushner confirmed that it was OK for him to attend as no top-secret issues were discussed.

Pressed by reporters about the idea that Trump could possibly be “brainstorming” anything, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee “Colonel” Sanders said, “Look, maybe not brainstorming, more like “spit-balling.”

When asked for Netanyahu's opinion about the talks, a spokesman for the prime minister, Dudu Moscowitz, said, "The primary reason for Bibi's trip to Washington is for him to receive the adulation of attendees at the annual AIPAC conference, while also seeking donations for his legal defense fund. He left any meeting agenda decisions to the president and welcomes any insights and ideas he can use when he returns home.