Richard Haass: Trump Has Enormous Leverage If He Decides To Use It on Bibi Netanyahu

EXCERPT:

HAASS: “And the question is, how do you get something where the Israelis don’t have to be there, Hamas can’t revive? The only idea people can think of is some type of an Arab force. But to have an Arab force, you’d have to have a large Palestinian component in that force. Well, that’s something the Israelis balk at because they don’t want to do anything in Gaza that would give momentum, that would impart momentum to Palestinian nationalism. So that’s been the dilemma all along. And the real question, quite honestly, is how hard does Donald Trump push Bibi Netanyahu? Because right now, if he pushed Bibi Netanyahu, Trump actually is more popular than anybody in Israel, and if the Israelis didn’t like what Donald Trump were doing, guess what, who do they go to here? They’re going to go to Chuck Schumer. There’s no way to do an end run around Donald Trump. So Trump has an enormous leverage if, big 'if,' he decided to use it on Bibi Netanyahu."