why would he have limited access? what concerns, what connection to the mueller investigation could there be? i ll ask carol, she has this great reporting in the post, does this distinction between top secret clearance and sensitive come part meanted clearance, does that prevent him from playing a broader role in the middle east peace process. in my experience, you niece s need sci to be involved in this peace making. great question, jeremy. we posed it to several security clearance lawyers. they basically said this is a huge impediment to him doing his job. most junior intelligence staffers have access to sensitive information, which is the crown jewels of the intelligence community secrets,
shepard: continuing coverage on fox s top story. deadly protests in gaza as president trump following through on his campaign promise to move the u.s. embassy to jerusalem. let s go to john alterman from a bipartisan research organization. he served at the state department under president george w. bush as a member of the policy planning staff. good to see you. thank you. good to be back. thank you, shep. shepard: your thoughts on today s development. you know, i guess the biggest question is what is the trump administration really trying to do? a big political gift for prime minister for netanyahu. shepard: which it is. sets back the administration s plan to engage on peace making. europeans have become more alienated. you can argue it doesn t matter, maybe it does. i m not sure where this fits into a broader scheme of things
withdrew from and i met several hundred palestinians and they kept saying the u.s. can t be an honest broker, what you want is an america that can be an effective broker. no one else took the place of the united states during the first four years of the george w. bush administration when it walked away from peace making after bill clinton. the europeans didn t, the russians didn t. no one did. the reason is no one else has the ability to influence the israelis as well as the palestinians and so i think the u.s. can be an effective broker but that s the key. you can t be an effective broker unless you address the needs of both sides. you probably heard nikki haley statement at the top of the segment that we re doing where she said that this is the first american president to reflect the will of the people. i want to put up a poll from december 1st that the u.s. sentiment toward israel and palestinian. 57% want u.s. to be neutral and
background is. he s probably pro-israeli, but that s all i get. he goes over and says he s going to put together a grand deal. saudi arabia, jordan, our sunni allies, and israel all together against the iranian-led shia, and it s going to be our side is going to win and it s going to make sense and be cohesive with israel a key partner in the coalition. then we go away and we make a deal like this. and throws it right in the face of our potential sunni partners. the first rule of middle east peace making is the arab states will never go farther than the palestinians. that is, israelis and palestinians agree to something, they will not be there the morning before. and it s a grand illusion, which i have seen played out numerous times in some of the arab states are going to do something for israel, absent real concessions by israelis or real agreement between israelis and palestinians on a final status agreement. so my beef with the deal is that, you know, nikki haley there saying, you
here s that conversation. when the president says that this is a long overdue step to advance the peace process and to work toward a lasting agreement, to that you say what? i say president trump became part of the problem, not part of the solution. he knows very well that we were engaged with him and his team very seriously in good faith in order to achieve the ultimate deal. and the main principle between us was, as we agreed with the israelis, no side should take any steps that preempt or prejudge issues of status including jerusalem. then comes president trump to announce that jerusalem is the united capital of israel. that s dictation, not negotiation. i think what he did tonight, he really disqualified the united states from any future role in peace making. that s the honest truth. he s rewarding the israeli government for a settlement activities, dictation, human rights violations and the system that they are creating. the fact is such a speech on jerusalem with all its histor