There were widespread “predictions” that President Trump’s decision on Jerusalem would “lead to violence.” I use the quotation marks because many of those “predictions” were actually threats. When someone in a position to stop violence “predicts” violence, he is threatening or promising that violence will occur.

Today there has been violence in the West Bank and in Jerusalem. Is it a spontaneous protest by Palestinians, or has it been fomented by the Palestinian Authority? After all, once a leader has “predicted” violence, he has a good reason to ensure that it occurs. He wants to seem prescient, not out of touch.

Here is what Avi Issacharoff, a journalist in The Times of Israel, wrote about what happened today in an article entitled “Abbas must decide how far to let the demonstrations go”

Full story: cfr.org

By Elliott Abrams
CFR