A term first coined by Thomas Friedman on US President
Donald J. Trump’s ill-advised Jerusalem embassy show, but has diplomatic
pornography all along been the guiding principle behind Trump’s “Make America
Great Again” plan?
By: Ringo Bones
The world’s top political and diplomatic analysts are
probably bemused by Thomas Friedman’s description of US President Donald J.
Trump’s Jerusalem embassy show as “diplomatic pornography” when Trump made
serious appeasements and concessions with regards to moving the US Embassy in
Israel from Tel-Aviv to Jerusalem – as in the May 14, 2018 reclassification of
the US consulate in Jerusalem as the US embassy in Jerusalem - despite Jerusalem wasn’t recognized by
everyone as the state of Israel’s capital because it is a disputed territory
claimed by both Israelis and Palestinians.
It was Thomas Friedman who was the first to use the term “diplomatic
pornography” after he tells it like it is during his guest spot on Fareed
Zakaria GPS over the issue of Hamas, Israel and President Trump and his Administration’s decision to move the US
embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. In hindsight, Donald J. Trump’s diplomatic
pornography could be described as an ill-advised policy of making political and
material concessions without making a corresponding leverage. President Trump
could have negotiated for a landmark renewed Israel-Palestinian peace process
that the Obama Administration had never achieved in exchange for going along
with Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu’s green light on allowing those countries
who do so the ability to move their embassies from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
Back in the middle of May 2018, Thomas Friedman managed to
capture the zeitgeist of this fiasco by stating that “The whole thing is a
tragedy. It’s like two bald men fighting over a comb.” And “The embassy event
was really just a Republican mid-term prep rally disguised as a diplomatic
event…This was meant to fire up the far-right religious base of the Republican Party.”As
someone made famous for his iconic business how-to book, The Art of the Deal,
Friedman can’t hold back on his bemusement of this ill-advised policy by saying
“Trump didn’t do the ‘Art of the Deal’, he did the art of the giveaway…Trump
gave away the most valuable diplomatic real estate in the Middle East
treasure-box of the United States and gave it away for free. Believe me, in
Jerusalem they are laughing at him. In the Arab world they are laughing at him.
They can’t believe what a sucker he was to take the bait and give this away for
free when he could have used it for a leverage to truly advance the peace
process.” Unfortunately, Trump’s “Jerusalem Embassy Diplomatic Pornography”
maneuver can also be applied to his lackluster diplomacy on North Korea’s Kim
Jong-Un.
