Late Tuesday evening, former President Donald Trump quietly made perhaps the biggest move of his 2024 campaign.
On the social media platform Truth Social, the former president and current Republican nominee announced that he was “Looking forward” to meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday.
Nonetheless, in a massive signal of his intentions should he return to the White House, Trump also posted a typed letter from Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian National Authority, dated July 14. It featured a handwritten reply from Trump: “Mahmoud. So nice. Thank you. Everything will be good. Best wishes. Donald J. Trump.”
Abbas had written to express condolences to Trump and other victims of the July 13 assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania.
“Your Excellency,” his letter began. “It is with grave concern that I have received news and later on watched footage of your attempted assassination.”
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“Acts of violence must not have a place in a world of law and order,” the letter continued. “Respect for the other with tolerance and valuing of human life is what must prevail.”
Abbas then decried the “weakness” of would-be assassins and called for both “peaceful measures” and “freedom of expression.”
“Our thoughts are also with the families of those who lost their life and were injured,” the letter concluded.
Trump’s handwritten reply appeared in bold black ink and encompassed nearly the entire bottom half of the page.
In other words, he wanted to make that reply conspicuous.
“Looking forward to seeing Bibi Netanyahu on Friday, and even more forward to achieving Peace in the Middle East! DJT,” the former president wrote in an accompanying message.
Posting the letter on Truth Social did come with some risks for Trump. After all, Abbas referred to himself as “President of the State of Palestine.” The United States, of course, recognizes no such state — at least for now.
Nonetheless, the Republican nominee almost certainly posted the letter because he has made it clear that he intends to focus on peace and prevent World War III. He also meant to signal — quite rightly — that he is campaigning for the presidency of the United States, not the office of Israeli prime minister or the presidency of a hypothetical Palestinian state.
Furthermore, Trump almost certainly meant to remind the public of his ambivalent relationship with Netanyahu.
For instance, according to Barak Ravid of Axios, by December 2021, Trump had not forgiven Netanyahu for being the first world leader to congratulate then-President Elect Joe Biden in the contentious days following the disputed 2020 presidential election.
But that does not mean his hostility to Netanyahu amounted to a mere personal grudge.
In fact, in a face-to-face interview with Ravid, Trump blamed the Israeli prime minister for the region’s ongoing strife.
“I don’t think Bibi ever wanted to make peace,” he said in April 2021.
By contrast, the former president heaped lavish praise on Abbas.
“I thought he was terrific,” Trump said of the Palestinian leader. “He was almost like a father. Couldn’t have been nicer. I thought he wanted to make a deal more than Netanyahu.”
Of course, no sane person believes that Israel had no right to defend itself following Hamas’ Holocaust-style attacks on Oct. 7. And only insane people, beset by hatred and delusion, believe that Israel has no right to exist.
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Netanyahu, however, is not Israel. And Trump, the ultimate deal broker, has made it clear where he stands on any possible Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.
Parenthetically, in the context of U.S. domestic politics, his decision to post Abbas’ letter should blunt any artificial momentum that Democratic operatives in the establishment media have generated for Vice President Kamala Harris, the party’s now-presumptive presidential nominee.
After all, young American voters surely want peace more than they want the chance to vote for a “woman of color.” And voters of every age should recognize Trump’s statesmanship when they see it.
