Mid-Week Updates

Trump's remarkable start and Amsterdam's continued struggles

The Trump Honeymoon

As the year draws to an end we are of course going through the usual holiday season parties and events. At one last week I got to hear from a panel that included Sarah Goodman who served Canada’s PM for five years as a climate advisor. She gave a somewhat humorous apology about this entry on her resume, an indication of how deeply unpopular Justin Trudeau has become here, and mentioned quite seriously that she was re-educating herself by listening to podcasts that she normally would not listen to. She said that the Trump victory and the rapidly turning political tide in Canada made her realize that certain messages hadn’t been delivered all that well, notably the climate one. Time for an honest rethink so to speak. Without going into the current political mess that Trudeau has wrought, Goodman’s comments reflect not only a pattern of a changing political environment, but also one of new political sentiments. The same is happening in Silicon Valley where its leaders are cozying up to the new leadership in Washington while pre-eminent and previously highly critical TV journalists are making the pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago.

Now I bring this up because at other events I have heard similar sentiments echoed when the issue of Trump came up. Far from the belligerent ‘we need to fight the evil orange-faced fascist’ which was the tone eight years ago, people now are either a lot more quiet, or indicate that things may not be as bad as many were expecting or, like Goodman, change tune and try and figure out what is really going on among voters. And in all three of these scenarios there lies something still unspoken: what if the new president has some valid points after all?

Are we seeing a kinder and gentler Trump who is now more socially acceptable, or are people just caving into a more right-of-centre set of ideas or are some hard to settle issues now all of sudden a lot closer to resolution? It definitely seems that way for the latter, the transition period which ends with Trump’s inauguration next month is now more of a period of co-governance with remarkable progress in foreign affairs. Trump has already met with Zelensky and plans for a settlement in Ukraine are underway and in the Middle East the normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia is all of a sudden on a fast track and a hostage deal, yes, closer than ever. And then there’s Syria, of course which opens up a new array of opportunities where America can now play a much stronger hand than only a few weeks ago. But then you say, what about climate? Not sure, but the close collaboration between the ‘drill, baby, drill’ contingent and the creator of the world’s most successful electrical car will, if they keep working together, produce interesting results.

It is beyond the scope of my quick assessment here to project where things will go, but Trump is starting on a truly incredible high - and that includes the stock markets and Bitcoin - and a critical view might suggest it is downward from hereon. That I doubt. Yet, the trick for the new president will be to focus on the files where he can win and effect meaningful change and not be distracted by potentially toxic sideshows that will eat away his newfound credibility and unexpected support. Judging from the past few weeks he now commands an unprecedented amount of political capital. Spend it wisely and carefully.

Amsterdam Cries (3)

A lot of new subscribers ended up here following my discussion on the Amsterdam pogrom of November 7 which was discussed in detail here and here. It is now time for an update on that as Dutch politics and media action went in all different directions as it veered from the drama of that violent night to a test of Dutch-Israeli bilateral relations.

First, to date seven men that were involved have been brought to court with the district attorney asking for prison sentences ranging from 1 month to in one case 2 years. The heavier sentencing focused on the criminal intent to seek out victims and attack, in some of the cases the hateful conduct (‘going on Jew hunt’) and premedication by participating in online media groups planning the attack weighed on the sentences the DA demanded. In a separate case another seven defendants were apprehended in the ensuing riots four days later on November 11 which I also briefly discussed previously. We will see how this all pans out, sentencing will take place later this month and these are, judging from the length of the prison terms the DA is seeking, potentially hefty prison terms, at least by Dutch standards.

Secondly, not unimportant to note is that none of the defendants were charged with ‘terrorism’ which is what some in Israel and The Netherlands had advocated. This was seen to be a bit of a judicial tour de force for Dutch authorities who consequently cited a lack of evidence to go down this route. But for terror to be proven in court there only would have been the requirement to demonstrate that the defendants had the intent to instil fear in a specific group. Instead the DA commented that the riots originated from feelings over “anger, frustration and grief over the situation in Israel and Gaza” and that somehow overrode the ‘instilling fear' argument.

Well, there you have it. Intentional violence targeting a specific group is a crime, but it is less of a crime given the feelings and emotions that underly the behaviour. Dutch justice, truly a mixed bag.

But this part of the affair pointed to what many Dutch politicians were not happy with and that was the extent to which their Israeli counterparts got involved and tried to influence proceedings in The Netherlands. And while some saw some dents in the Israeli-Dutch relationship, overall I think that the current right-leaning coalition remains reasonably pro-Israel, only last week a parliamentary majority in The Netherlands adopted an amendment to phase out UNRWA funding over the next five years as one of the first western democracies to do so. Still, Europe and Israel will continue to have an uneasy relationship, evidenced at the highest levels of power all the way to day-to-day street life. It can turn violent in an instant.