Chaotic Friendship: Israel and the Trump Administration
The Tikvah Podcast
Tikvah
4.6 • 620 Ratings
🗓️ 31 August 2018
⏱️ 51 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In the first two years of his administration, President Donald Trump has already redefined the American approach to Israel and the Middle East: fulfilling his promise to move the American embassy to Jerusalem, working to dismantle the Iran nuclear deal, confronting anti-Israel sentiment at the U.N., and promising to put forward a new approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. What is the larger strategy behind the Trump policy? Is it succeeding? And how does Trump’s Israel strategy fit within the history of the America-Israel relationship from Truman to Nixon to Carter to Bush?
Michael Doran is one of the world’s leading experts and most influential voices on Middle East politics and history. After holding high-level White House positions in national security in the Bush administration, he is now a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. On August 6, 2018, Dr. Doran spoke to a packed room at the Tikvah Center about the chaotic friendship that has characterized the President Trump's policy toward the Jewish state.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Mike Duran is really one of the great experts on the Middle East and on Israel, |
| 0:06.1 | and someone who has a deep knowledge of the history and politics |
| 0:09.5 | in civilizational past in this complicated region of the world, |
| 0:14.1 | but is also thinking at the highest levels about its political future |
| 0:17.7 | and how do we think politically, as Americans, as Jews, Israelis, |
| 0:21.6 | about how to grapple with the great challenges in the modern Middle East. |
| 0:25.6 | He was trained in Princeton University where he got a PhD in Middle East Studies. |
| 0:29.6 | He's been a very successful teacher in a variety of institutions, including NYU. |
| 0:35.6 | And he has been, for the last many years, a senior fellow in the Hudson Institute. |
| 0:40.3 | But he brings to his intellectual work not only this reservoir of real learning, but |
| 0:46.3 | practical experience in the highest levels, having served in the Bush administration, |
| 0:51.3 | in important positions in the Defense Department, the National Security Council, |
| 0:57.4 | really helping to think deeply and concretely and lead on the issues of Middle East policy. |
| 1:02.6 | Let me welcome. Join me in welcoming by Terrain. |
| 1:07.5 | Thank you. That was such a nice introduction. |
| 1:11.1 | Whenever you do this, I always want to meet that guy |
| 1:13.1 | you're talking about. |
| 1:14.1 | This sounds so cool. |
| 1:16.2 | No, thank you all for coming to the students who came back. |
| 1:19.3 | Thank you for coming back. |
| 1:22.1 | I titled tonight's talk, chaotic friendship. About a year ago, must have been April, May of last year, I had a |
| 1:33.6 | conversation with a senior Israeli official, and I asked him what the difference was between |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Tikvah, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Tikvah and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.