I think you're misremembering how we've treated the middle east and other places for some time now. Remember Bush43 walking hand in hand with the Kind of Saudi Arabia? Or Obama bowing to the guy? How many "banana wars" did we fight? What about Somoza in Nicaragua? Or others?

I think you're misunderstanding the scope of what we're talking about here. We have always combined having relations with these countries and pressure to improve their human rights. It's not an either/or binary. These weren't countries that were diplomatically isolated like North Korea, nor were we trying to "force" democracy on them. But We were also trying to get them to change their culture - not leap straight to elections next month, but also pushing them to adopt reforms that would lead to the countries going down that road.

It's not a cultural lens and pretending that the world today is different than it is, but doing the same thing you want to do with China. You're not looking at China and pretending that they're weak and isolated today - you're looking at them and contemplating taking steps so that they will be weaker and more isolated in the future. So, too, with ME countries and human rights: not pretending that they are models of human rights and representative democracy today, but also not accepting that status quo and making sure that we work towards that goal in the future. Which is something that Trump absolutely does not include in his foreign policy.

Yes on the first part of this, emphatic NO on the second part. The Israelis are not letting Gaza go back to 10/6. That, in their minds, is the best way to guarantee there will be another 10/6.

They don't have a choice. The Peace Plan "solves" the Hamas problem by the simple expedient of saying that Hamas will choose to disarm and dissolve. That way the field will be clear for a multinational security force to take over without having to fight Hamas for it, and that MSF will then block Hamas (or the PLFP or any other terrorist group) from taking power in the future. Problem solved!

But if Hamas doesn't disarm and dissolve, then Israel still has a major problem in Gaza. So they're right back in the same position they were on 10/6. They may have a different policy towards Gaza going forward... but I have my doubts. They still have absolutely zero good options. There has to be a government in Gaza: you can't have two million people living without a government. Either Israel will be the government, the MSF will be the government, the PA will be the government, or Hamas will be the government. The last choice is a terrible choice...but I don't know that any of the others are much better for Israel.