Trump negotiator Jason Greenblatt leaves behind a positive Middle East legacy

• Jerusalem: He oversaw the Trump administration’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and the transfer of the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. He recognized that the fears of violence or bias that diplomats cited were empty. Frankly, the move was decades overdue. Greenblatt’s chief mistake on Jerusalem remains its reversibility. Rather than keep the former embassy for the next administration to re-activate, the Trump administration should either sell it for tremendous profit or transform it into a military hotel, much like the Hale Koa on Waikiki or the Edelweiss in Garmisch.

• UNRWA: The decision to defund the United Nations Refugee Works Administration — a UN agency dedicated to subsidizing Palestinian refugees — was also long overdue. Support for UNRWA operations absolved Palestinian leaders of accountability for their own decisions and perpetrated the conflict. That UNRWA employees engaged in terrorism and its top leadership treated international donations as personal slush funds was simply the icing on the cake.

• Ending Israel’s diplomatic isolation: Under Trump and Greenblatt, the détente between Israel and most moderate Arab states has continued. For all the talk about Israel’s isolation and the promotion of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement among the liberal left, Israel has never been so integrated into the Middle East as it is now, and that integration seems likely to continue.

• Holding Mahmoud Abbas to account: Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas continued all his predecessor’s foibles: corruption, anti-Semitism, incitement, nod-and-wink terror support, and general peace process insincerity. Abbas is currently in the 14th year of his four-year presidential term. He and his sons have accumulated great wealth at the expense of ordinary Palestinians and international donors. Even Palestinian negotiators acknowledge that Abbas rejected an Israeli offer to return territory equivalent to more than 100 percent of the West Bank, showing his disinterest in peace. Recognizing the reality of Abbas was long overdue.

There remains much more to be done, of course.

The decade-long stalemate has led some — especially BDS activists — to question the feasibility of the two-state solution and suggest a one-state solution with Jews, Christians, and Palestinian Muslims living as equal partners in one democracy.

This is unrealistic, however, as, with the possible exception of Bahrain, there has never been a multi-sectarian, multi-ethnic Arab state that has not descended into sectarian cleansing and civil war. Frankly, a three-state solution appears more feasible, as the notion that the West Bank and Gaza can be united into a single entity appears tenuous at best. Thirteen years of Hamas domination of Gaza has permanently changed that territory’s diplomatic culture, and the notion that West Bank-Gaza tension won’t continue in a post-Abbas-era is fantasy. So too is the idea that there must be a single Palestinian state.

A more fundamental question for post-Greenblatt diplomats is how much if any attention should be spent on the Israel-Palestinian conflict. There is no magic formula and the conflict might persist but, frankly, the world faces far greater diplomatic and humanitarian challenges. Perhaps it is time to take Olmert’s plan directly to the Palestinians in a referendum: Accept compromise, or be forgotten.

Greenblatt did not bring peace but, after seven decades, it is unrealistic to expect any single figure will on his own make such a monumental achievement. His real strength, however, may have been diplomatic iconoclasm. He challenged ossified beliefs and, despite shrill criticism, probably set the stage for eventual peace far more than his contemporaries will acknowledge.

Michael Rubin (@Mrubin1971) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner‘s Beltway Confidential blog. He is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a former Pentagon official.