The US has been pregnant with recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital at least since 1995, when Congress endorsed the position that ‘since 1950, the city of Jerusalem has been the capital of the State of Israel’. Successive presidents have resisted delivering this outcome on two grounds: they felt it intruded on their constitutional prerogative and had potentially adverse implications for US national security and regional peace. Yet, each as a presidential candidate felt compelled to promise such a move while campaigning. Now President Donald Trump has taken the step of recognising Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Why?

The contrast between the US Congress and the rest of the world over the status of Jerusalem is stark. The strength of international opposition can be gauged through a November 2017 UN General Assembly resolution. It reiterated that Israel is an ‘occupying power’ and its ‘laws, jurisdiction and administration of the Holy City of Jerusalem were illegal and therefore null and void’. The resolution received overwhelming support. All Islamic nations voted in favour of the motion.

Recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital by the US is hardly orthodox strategic policy. The Trump administration clearly anticipated that the reversal on Jerusalem’s status would provoke strong reactions across the Islamic world, and would strain US relationships with friends and allies like Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan. Moreover, it must have been apparent to the administration that the decision would provide justification and motivation to the recruiters of violent extremists. There could have been no expectation that close allies in Europe and elsewhere would fall in line with the new policy. The responses of French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel were unambiguous.

Trump’s statements have often been contradictory and incoherent. His erratic behaviour will encourage pop-psychology explanations for this radical policy shift and accusations of unprincipled pandering to his constituency. The effusive flattery heaped on him by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may have played a part in his decision.

But theories about Trump’s personality can’t account for the long-standing advocacy for this change by many Americans. Simply pointing to a campaign commitment has no explanatory power. And anyway, Trump has stepped back from a number of promises already and been prepared to wear the displeasure of the alt-right commentariat. While it has been clear that Trump might become more active in foreign policy as he’s constrained domestically by issues like the Russian probe and falling approval ratings, that doesn’t explain this especially inflammatory and controversial decision.

Trump’s willingness to embrace the expected mayhem might, however, be rationally explained by a religious narrative. The alliance between the Israeli lobby and Christian right in the US is well documented. It was symbolically formalised in 1979 with the presentation of the Jabotinsky Centennial Medal to Jerry Falwell and Billy Graham by Menachim Begin for their long-time support for Israel.

The Christian right finds justification for its support for Israel in the Book of Genesis 12:3. Here, God announces that those who ‘curse’ the Jewish people will in turn be cursed and those who ‘bless’ them will be blessed. More radical evangelicals see justification for strong support for Israel in the Book of Revelation: the existence of the state of Israel is a precondition for the return of Jesus and the end time. For them, the appearance of the Jewish Israeli state is the miraculous fulfilment of biblical prophecy. That interpretation is found among Christian Zionists; it’s also influential in Christian right ideology and dominates evangelical thinking.

Premillennial dispensationalism has emerged as the predominant belief among Christian Zionists. Its adherents see current events in the Middle East, and social and technological developments elsewhere, as full of prophetic meaning. The validity of this theological interpretation is beside the point. What’s salient is whether the decision to recognise Jerusalem was influenced by end-time belief on the part of Trump and Vice President Mike Pence.

It may be more important in the long term to understand Pence’s convictions because he holds ambitions for the presidency. The vice president, a deeply religious evangelical, was reportedly an important advocate for the policy change. Pence’s address to Christians United for Israel, a Christian Zionist organisation, cast the shift of the US embassy from Tel Aviv in religious and prophetic terms. This isn’t the first time he has expressed Christian Zionist views.

The most troubling explanation for Trump’s decision might be that he and Pence actually believe in some version of premillennial dispensationalism. That rather than simply pandering to Christian Zionists, they share their eschatological convictions. Notably in this context, Steve Bannon, the former presidential adviser, has declared himself to be a Christian Zionist.

It seems inconceivable that a US president would consciously enact policies intended to facilitate or accelerate Armageddon. The potential consequences of a US administration operating in accordance with Christian Zionist teleological zealotry are frightening. But these are strange times.

Many had assumed that the situation in the Middle East would stabilise after the defeat of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Unfortunately, the region appears to have become even more volatile and a serious conflagration is increasingly on the cards.

A major reason for the deteriorating security situation is that the defeat of ISIS coincided with greater consolidation of the Assad regime’s control over parts of Syria. All players in the region see this as a victory for Iran, Assad’s principal supporter, and a defeat for its regional rival, Saudi Arabia, which had been a major supporter of the anti-Assad forces.

That has made Saudi Arabia’s principal decision-maker, Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman (MbS for short), hopping mad. Saudi Arabia’s inability to defeat the Houthis, whom it considers surrogates of Iran in Yemen, has added to Riyadh’s frustration. The Houthis, as the Economist has pointed out, may be too weak to rule over all of Yemen, but they are too powerful for Saudi Arabia to defeat.

Saudi Arabia’s inability to bring its tiny neighbor Qatar to heel despite the imposition of a quarantine supported by Egypt, Bahrain and the UAE has further exposed Saudi limitations. The refusal of Oman and Kuwait to join Riyadh in imposing sanctions on Iran has exposed the fragility of the Gulf Cooperation Council and the Saudis’ influence over its smaller neighbors. In fact, the move has backfired by pushing Qatar further into Iranian arms and straining Saudi relations with Turkey, which supports Qatar in its confrontation with Riyadh.

Saudi Arabia’s external frustrations have become intertwined with MbS’s ambitions to rule the country as its sole autocrat. Saudi misadventures in Yemen and Qatar have been attributed to the young prince’s incompetence and impetuousness. While the Saudis were involved in Syria before MbS’s rise to power, the setback in the Fertile Crescent has come under his watch and is increasingly attributed to his failure to anticipate events.

In desperation, the young prince has upped the ante by making increasingly hyperbolic remarks about Iran, including calling its supreme leader the Middle East’s Hitler. He has also made it clear that there’s no room for any dialogue with Iran, presenting this argument in sectarian terms and attributing it to the messianic ideology of Shia Iran.

The escalation of Saudi rhetoric that panders to sectarian beliefs of the Sunni majority in the Arab world isn’t a good omen for future Saudi–Iranian relations. Not only does it stir up primordial hatreds between Sunni and Shia, but it also provides Shia Iran with the opportunity to portray MbS as the usurper Caliph Yazid, who massacred Hussein ibn Ali, the prophet’s grandson, and his meager band of followers in 680 CE in the battle of Karbala.

MbS’s visceral hatred for Iran has also brought Saudi Arabia close to Israel, which complicates matters further. While Israel’s opposition to even a minimum Iranian nuclear program is well known, what unites Riyadh and Tel Aviv against Tehran is the fact that Iran ‘has a clear strategic goal: Opening up a land corridor connecting Iran, Iraq, Syria and Hezbollah in Lebanon’. Thanks to its influence over the Iraqi and Syrian governments, its financial and military support to the Iraqi Shia militias, and, above all, its close relationship with the Lebanese Hezbollah, Iran is well on its way to achieving that objective.

Both Saudi Arabia and Israel fervently oppose this Iranian manoeuvre. The Saudis perceive it as their final defeat in the competition with Iran for influence in the heart of the Arab world. Their anger with Lebanese prime minister Saad Hariri, which led to his brief detention in Saudi Arabia, stems mainly from his inability to curb the influence of Hezbollah, and therefore of Iran, within the Lebanese polity. That episode has once again thrust Lebanon into the centre of the competition between Iran and Saudi Arabia—a competition that the Saudis seem to be losing.

Israel is mortally afraid of an Iranian military presence close to its borders and escalation of Iranian support to Hezbollah, especially since it perceives another war with Hezbollah as inevitable. Israel has repeatedly attacked Hezbollah targets in Syria and in the past few days has escalated its confrontation with Iran by bombing a Syrian facility near Damascus that is reported to have doubled as an Iranian base.

While the Iranians haven’t reacted to the latest Israeli provocation, such incitements if they continue may provoke an Iranian response, especially since the Rouhani government, under attack by Iranian hardliners, can’t afford to be seen as weak-kneed vis-à-vis Israel. However, Israeli aggressiveness appears to be on the rise, especially with President Donald Trump contemplating moving the American embassy to Jerusalem and generally signaling support for the Israeli hardliners on the settlement issue.

All of these factors and forces make the Middle East a very combustible region. It’s unfortunate that the Trump administration has removed itself from the role of an honest mediator. It has done so by its unequivocal support for Saudi aspirations, its refusal to open lines of communication with Tehran, and its failure to discourage its Israeli allies from undertaking risky missions that may drag Washington into another futile conflict in the Middle East.

On 1 November, ASPI and the Begin–Sadat Centre for Strategic Studies met in Tel Aviv, Israel, at the third Be’er Sheva Dialogue to build on the work initiated at the first round, held in Israel in 2015, and the second meeting, held in Sydney last year.

The ASPI–BESA dialogue brings together experienced voices from Australia and Israel to share perspectives and analyses on common security challenges, while reflecting more broadly on the outlook for the relationship between the two countries.

Having participated in all three dialogues, I think it’s fair to say that the Be’er Sheva Dialogue (named after the 1917 battle in which the Australian Light Horse fought) has grown in stature. That’s evidenced by the number of high-level Australian and Israeli participants across government, parliament (from both sides of Australian politics), academia, think tanks, industry, the military and the intelligence communities. A number of Australian and Israeli delegates commented that the increasing maturity of the dialogue means there’s now a greater candour and depth to the discussions.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull addressed this year’s dialogue. His audience also included many supporters of the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council, who’d made the journey to Beersheba to attend the commemoration of the centenary of the famous charge of the 4th Light Horse Brigade to capture the town on 31 October 1917.

Turnbull saluted the achievements that the dialogue had accomplished in a short time, identifying areas of collaboration in defence between Australia and Israel for their mutual benefit. The prime minister’s visit to Israel culminated in the signing of a memorandum of understanding on defence industry cooperation.

Australia and Israel also agreed during Turnbull’s visit that our respective defence officials will now hold annual discussions on strategic and security priorities. To date, there have been almost no high-level military exchanges between the two countries. There’ll also be a track 1.5 cyber dialogue held in Australia next year. These positive measures were suggested at the earlier Be’er Sheva dialogues and were set out in a joint paper produced last year by ASPI and BESA.

We’ve always been seen as friendly by Israel, although it’s rarely been a major focus of policy efforts in Jerusalem. While there’s a mutual recognition of shared values, there hasn’t been sufficient recognition given by either state to how each contributes to the other’s national interests. What both countries are now discovering through high-level visits and track 1.5 dialogues, such as the Be’er Sheva Dialogue, is that there are also lots of opportunities to enhance bilateral cooperation.

In a way, that’s hardly surprising. Both countries face challenges from Islamist extremism. Both countries’ militaries are focused on how to incorporate cyber capabilities into military operations. Both countries operate American equipment and both are close to major choke-points along maritime oil and trade routes, making maritime security an important component of national strategic policy. In air power, both countries have acquired the F-35.

Delegates to the 2017 Be’er Sheva Dialogue exchanged views on regional challenges in the Indo-Pacific, the Middle East and Eastern Mediterranean, terrorism, cybersecurity, maritime strategy (Israel is highly dependent on sea commerce and has significant offshore energy resources), defence industry cooperation, strategic policy under President Donald Trump, and hybrid warfare strategies.

On the cyber and innovation agenda, it was evident that Australia can learn a number of lessons from the Israeli cybersecurity success story, particularly in start-ups and skills development. But we need to be mindful that the Israeli experience may not directly translate to Australia: much of Israel’s success stems from compulsory military service and the unique cybersecurity skills nursery that the Israeli Defence Force provides.

In an interesting aside, one delegate noted that Australia is benefiting from Israeli technology in our almond industry. Significant investments here are safeguarded by Israeli sensors in orchards that tell what the trees need, such as water and fertiliser, making this an unusual cybersecurity issue.

Areas noted for possible future joint exploration were how both sides can counter the soft-power threats to liberal democracies and how to leverage social media monitoring for indicators of radicalisation or intended terrorist acts. It was also clear from our discussions that there are prospects for further joint exchanges on how we can share experiences of hybrid threats and what they mean for the battle space, as well trends in military innovation, specifically unmanned aerial vehicles, force protection and missile defence. There was a strong interest in sharing lessons on how to protect the gas industry at sea.

Australia and Israel should identify the conditions for closer practical collaboration in cyber industries with security applications. Israeli government agencies work closely with their cyber industry. Australia can learn a lot from the Israelis on how to build trust and achieve a common purpose between government and the private sector.

The discussions about China, particularly on critical infrastructure investment in Israel (China is building key Israeli ports and Chinese military vessels have visited Haifa), suggest there’s an opportunity for greater exploration between the two nations on the role of China and foreign investment.

In defence, consideration might be given to undertaking a small-scale joint Australia–Israel military exercise in the coming year in an area of mutual interest. The announcement of defence exchange between officials is very positive, and consideration should be given in the near future to having a regular ministerial-level dialogue.

On international policy, our discussions showed that there’s potential for looking beyond bilateralism and mapping possible structures for discreet multi-party consultations (for example, with India, which Israel is forging closer relations with).

The third Be’er Sheva Dialogue again underlined how each state can contribute to the other’s security interests.

Donald Trump entered the White House promising to be ‘the most pro-Israel president ever’. This hyperbolic bombast gratified what is certainly the most right-wing Israeli government ever, which is celebrating the 50th anniversary of Israel’s crushing victory over Arab armies in 1967, and half a century of occupation of the West Bank and Arab east Jerusalem it has no plans to end.

President Trump, the self-described dealmaker, keeps hinting and tweeting he is on course to do ‘the ultimate deal’ that has eluded his predecessors: never spelt out but assumed to mean an Arab-Israeli peace encompassing a deal for the Palestinians, who have sought in vain the state proffered tantalisingly by the Oslo accords of 1993-95.

This most erratic of US presidents, meeting Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, in February, threw the international consensus on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since Oslo to the winds, saying that the two-state solution, meant to offer security to Israel and justice to the Palestinians, may not be the way to resolve it. ‘I am looking at two-state and one-state [solutions], and I like the one that both parties like,’ Trump said, to nervous chortles from Netanyahu and general bemusement.

Trump may have got something right: that the extent to which Israel has colonised occupied Arab land with Jewish settlements has placed a Palestinian state beyond physical as well as political reach. Yet nearly all Israeli Jews and most Palestinians oppose a one-state alternative.

Jews see a demographic time-bomb, in which Arabs would eventually outnumber them in the cramped space between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean (the two peoples are now roughly level-pegging at about 6.3m each). Palestinians, fed up with their corrupt and feckless leadership, would only opt for one-state if they got the same rights as Israelis, including the vote. That isn’t going to happen. Remaining as second-class citizens, under occupation in a de facto single entity, holds little appeal.

The Trumpian blur of empirical impressionism—talk of ‘a much bigger deal’ that would ‘take in many countries’—is starting to come into focus, if not feasibility. After last month’s inaugural foreign trip, starting in Saudi Arabia and then Israel, his plan seems to be to get Sunni Arab states to join Israel in an alliance to isolate their shared enemy in Shia Iran, and in passing solve the century-old question of Palestine.

It’s hard to see this “grand bargain” as serious, much less getting very far.

It’s true that Arab leaders have long colluded and collaborated with Israel, despite ritual outpourings of brotherly solidarity with the Palestinians. But an Arab peace initiative, backed by the 22-member Arab League and all 57 states in the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, has been on the table since 2002. It offers Israel peace treaties with full diplomatic relations in exchange for its withdrawal from all Arab land captured in 1967, and the creation of a sovereign Palestine on the West Bank and Gaza, with east Jerusalem as its capital. Israel has always refused to discuss it.

Things have moved on. The common threat to the rule of Arab autocrats posed by the turmoil of the so-called Arab Spring, which opened new opportunities for jihadi extremism after 2011, and a shared hostility towards an Iran that has hardened its Shia axis since the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, extending it through Syria to Lebanon, and branching down into the Gulf—all this has relegated the Palestine issue.

But Arab rulers do care above all about survival, and the mood of their peoples, for whom Palestine—and above all Jerusalem—are emotive issues. Mr Trump’s musings about a single state have encouraged annexationists in the Israeli cabinet such as Naftali Bennett, education minister and leader of the far right Jewish Home party. He’s pushing to foreclose decisively on any two-state option by annexing Ma’ale Adumim, a settlement east of the Holy City whose municipal boundaries exceed those of Tel Aviv, and expand its built-up area to put in place the last ramparts that enclose occupied east Jerusalem and encircle Bethlehem.

Saudi players such as Mohammed bin Salman, the young deputy crown prince in whom King Salman, his ailing father, has invested extraordinary power, will sound conciliatory. But the House of Saud ultimately must look to its legitimacy, and Jerusalem is a ticking bomb. Saudi rulers, who style themselves as the custodians of the holy places of Mecca and Medina, cannot ally openly with an Israel that refuses to share any part of Jerusalem, which contains the third holiest place in Islam—the al-Aqsa mosque in the Noble Sanctuary, on what Jews know as Temple Mount.

The larger point is that the domestic costs to Israel of uprooting its 50-year settler enterprise to make way for a Palestinian state far outweigh the benefits of satisfying the episodic strictures of an international community that isn’t willing to change this cost-benefit equation. Nathan Thrall, an International Crisis Group analyst who makes this case almost irrefutably in his recent book, says: ‘so far Israel has proven quite capable of living with the decades-old label of “pariah”’.

The growing opprobrium of subjugating a people, colonising their territory, and appropriating scarce resources such as water and arable land hasn’t impeded Israel from building a sophisticated and world-class economy. For Israel’s current extremist rulers, talk of a peace dividend is abstract in the extreme.

It’s important to remember that at the halcyon height of the Oslo peace process Israel got a peace dividend, without ending the occupation. Diplomatic recognition of Israel doubled in 1992-96, from 85 to 161 countries, leading to doubled exports and a six-fold increase in foreign investment, while per capita income in the occupied territories fell by 37 per cent and the number of settlers increased by 50 per cent.

President Trump, moreover, is trying to better Barack Obama, who was really ‘the most pro-Israel president ever’. His personal antipathy towards Netanyahu masked this, but Obama was the only US president since 1967 never to have allowed Israel to be condemned at the UN Security Council (last December, as a parting, shot, he abstained on a vote against West Bank settlement policy). Obama also signed the biggest military aid package the US has ever given Israel.

It’s hard to believe Trump can improve on this. But it beggars belief he’s the man who will change the calculus of an Israeli occupation well set to grind on pitilessly.

Hidey-ho, readerinos.

Here’s a bunch of stuff that’s guided us through the action-packed week stateside: Politico calls in the big guns to grapple with the question of whether we’re approaching constitutional crisis territory; over at Foreign Policy Max Boot suggests Republicans bail; the almighty James Fallows, who covered Nixon as a journo, reckons the Comey tale is worse than Watergate; and in the Grey Lady, Ross Douthat is fed up, handing down an astonishing indictment of the President, appealing directly to the GOP leadership and serving up the 25th Amendment as a way out of this mess.

The folks over at Lawfare—a bloody ripper of a blog, by the way—have been earning their keep this week. Check out this sober analysis, written in the style of an intel brief, which draws together a range of threads including White House disfunction, the Comey affair, interplay between the administration, GOP and Congress, and the President’s Twitter dependence, among others. In the last 24-hours, the site’s editor-in-chief, Benjamin Wittes, has gone on the record to clarify his relationship with Comey—a mate—over at Lawfare, in the Times and in front of PBS’s camera (26 mins). All sensible stuff.

A quick shout out to our pals over to at Devpolicy Blog for the launch of their fresh new look. With both eyes on the UX prize, the team has split their analysis into two streams: one focusing on Papua New Guinea  and the Pacific, the other on aid and global development efforts. Bookmark it (if you haven’t already).

As the 50th anniversary of the Six-Day war approaches, transcripts from the Israeli cabinet committee charged with strategic decision-making have been declassified and posted online. If you don’t have time to pore over them all, this interesting longread from Tablet has some key quotes and analysis unpacking the material. And looking to the future, The Economist has a solid read that argues that a Palestinian state would actually help Israel to cement its victory in 1967—referencing the ‘Trump card’ as a new opportunity for brokering lasting peace in the conflicted region.

Following on from Israel–Palestine, a couple of other historical pieces caught our eye this week. First up, London Review of Books has a cracking article on US involvement in the two Koreas since the end of WWII, and what shapes our perceptions of the North today. Here’s a primer:

‘South Korea’s stable democracy and vibrant economy from 1988 onwards seem to have overridden any need to acknowledge the previous forty years of history, during which the North could reasonably claim that its own autocracy was necessary to counter military rule in Seoul. It’s only in the present context that the North looks at best like a walking anachronism, at worst like a vicious tyranny.’

And next up, War is Boring examines the legacy of the 1893 mishap that saw the sinking of the Royal Navy’s HMS Victoria—and where overconfidence in one’s own maritime superiority might lead to hubris.

And finally, if developments around the world have been too much for you, allow us to offer you duck ramps. While some in the heart of DC have attempted to politicise ducklings’ access to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, others choose to see the happy birds and their families for what they are—très cute.

Podcasts

As Donald Trump prepares to board Air Force One and leave behind the burning ruins of Washington DC for the oil fields of Saudi Arabia, a couple of podcasts weigh in on what the President’s last week means for foreign relations, and what pundits can expect from his first jaunt abroad. Global Dispatches checks out the political and strategic implications from the trip and the significance of Trump’s selection of Saudi (20 mins), while CSIS’s hit series About the News features The New York Times’ White House correspondent Peter Baker on the week that was and the week that will be (37 mins).

The CogitASIA podcast is back this week with a brand new offering on Japan’s engagement—political, economic, security—with Southeast Asia. Listen to CSIS’s Kei Koga and Geoffrey Hartman sit down with host Will Colson to unpack the benefits Japan could have for the sub-region’s security in this quick 20 minute episode.

Videos

Late last month New America held their annual Future of War conference which was, as usual, a bonanza for wonks of all predilections. The day-long event was recorded and sliced into 16 videos, all of which are available over on YouTube. Have at ’em.

Events

Canberra: Here’s something to keep Canberrans warm as winter settles on the capital—the AIIA has announced that their National Conference, this year on Foreign Policy in an Uncertain World, will be held on 16 October. Register here. (And young things should also have a gander at the masterclass series which will run again in advance of the conference.)

Sydney: Sydney-siders only have one day left to register for a pretty special opportunity: an evening with visiting ASEAN ambassadors and members of the ASEAN Committee of Permanent Representatives who will be stopping by Sydney for a networking event and panel discussion hosted by the Asia Society Australia. Mark your diaries for 29 May, and register now.