Trump Botches First Foreign Crisis as President-Elect

Plus, Shabbos Kestenbaum switches lawyers as antisemitism case against Harvard may settle

A U.S. Air Force B-52H Stratofortress conducts a combat air patrol over the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility, November 23, 2024. The planes were used to strike ISIS targets in Syria on December 8. U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Gerald Willis.

“THE UNITED STATES SHOULD HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH IT. THIS IS NOT OUR FIGHT. LET IT PLAY OUT. DO NOT GET INVOLVED!” was President Trump’s comment on Saturday morning December 7 about the situation in Syria.

It’s probably an accurate reflection of the sentiments and gut instincts of many Trump voters, many members of the incoming administration, and the president-elect himself. The most generous interpretation is that Trump was talking about the conflict between the Syrian dictator, Bashar Assad, and the Turkey-backed Sunnis fighting against him. Yet the language left the impression that America has no interests to look out for in Syria. That’s a mistake.

A former Trump foreign policy aide, Elliott Abrams, noted in a Jewish Institute for National Security of America web briefing today that the U.S. has about 1,000 personnel in Syria whose main purpose is fighting and containing ISIS. If those troops leave and ISIS launches a terrorist attack against an American target, Trump will be blamed. ISIS beheading videos helped Trump beat Hillary Clinton in 2016. Does Trump really want a replay of that series while he is the one in charge?

On December 8, the U.S. Central Command, using Air Force B-52s, F-15s, and A-10s, struck what it said were more than 75 ISIS targets in central Syria. What were the American pilots over Syria bombing ISIS supposed to think about their mission with the president-elect tweeting “THE UNITED STATES SHOULD HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH IT. THIS IS NOT OUR FIGHT. …DO NOT GET INVOLVED”?

Not since Senate Democrats moved, during the George W. Bush administration, to defund the war in Iraq has there been a more sorry example of an elected American politician undermining an American military mission overseas. Whatever happened to the bipartisan tradition that we’re supposed to have only one president at a time?

Assad had chemical weapons. If those fall into the hands of terrorists, they could pose a threat to America and its allies.

Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, also noted, “We have to ensure that the roughly 50,000 ISIS prisoners in northeastern Syria — being primarily held by Kurdish forces — are not released. We should not allow the Kurdish forces — who helped us destroy ISIS on President Trump’s watch — to be threatened by Turkey or the radical Islamists who have taken over Syria. …The last time ISIS was in charge, thousands of Europeans and Americans were killed by ISIS plots that originated in Syria. Furthermore, the reemergence of ISIS creates chaos throughout the region, which is going to lead to higher gas prices for us at home.”

And we’re in the midst of a global strategic competition with Communist China. Any place on the map where America does “not get involved” ends up becoming a beachhead for Communist Chinese influence. Russia and Iran also use Syria to project their power in the region. Iran arms Hezbollah in Lebanon via Syria. Russia has navy and air bases in Syria. A “this is not our fight” position means cede the territory, and the power, to America’s enemies.

A Trump policy of letting Israel be the regional power and delegating to it, perhaps together with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia, the responsibility for regional order might be the way to go. But that wasn’t what Trump’s tweet said. At the moment, America in the Middle East is a regional laughingstock for its failure to keep sea lanes open against Iran-backed Houthi aggression that has effectively shut the Suez Canal. American retreats—from Kabul, from Iraq—have left dangerous vacuums. Our allies have seen enough American retreating during the Biden-Harris administration and are desperate for America to get back on offense.

President Kennedy’s inaugural said “Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.”

Marco Rubio and Elise Stefanik, or even the incoming chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Rep. Brian Mast of Florida, who is super-impressive, might want to get involved with drafting the foreign policy portions of Trump’s inaugural address.

If Trump lets Tucker Carlson and Tulsi Gabbard handle it, and all Trump has to offer to a world yearning for American leadership is “this is not our fight….do not get involved,” it’s going to be a long four years.

Yale divestment: A Yale College student referendum in which “3,338 total students…or 49.5 percent of the student body” participated overwhelmingly approved three measures calling for disclosing and divesting from investments in weapons for Israel and for “investing in Palestinian scholars and students.”

“The first question received 83.1 percent “yes” votes, the second 76.6 and the third 79.5,” the Yale Daily News reports.

“For anyone wondering if Yale is really that bad, it is!,” wrote a Yale Jewish student leader, Netanel Crispe.

“Yale has failed not only its Jewish students, but also its country and civilization,” wrote another Yale Jew, Sahar Tartak.

Save NED from DOGE: The National Endowment for Democracy and its fate in the Trump administration is the topic of my latest New York Sun column, which appears under the headline, “Save Reagan’s Favorite Government Agency from DOGE.”

Kestenbaum Switches Lawyers: Alexander “Shabbos” Kestenbaum, the lead plaintiff in the federal case against Harvard alleging antisemitic discrimination, has changed lawyers.

Alexander “Shabbos” Kestenbaum, a plaintiff in Kestenbaum v. Harvard.

Kestenbaum has two new lawyers. One is Douglas Brooks, managing partner of the Boston firm Libby, Hoopes, Brooks and Mulvey. He made his presence known in a brief court filing Friday, asking Judge Richard Stearns, “Kindly enter my appearance as substitute counsel for Plaintiff Shabbos (Alexander) Kestenbaum.” The other is Jason Torchinsky of the Washington firm Holtzman Vogel.

Asked to explain, Kestenbaum told The Editors, “I am interested in doing what the judge granted us: having a trial. Not interested in settlements that do nothing.”

Kestenbaum has been represented by Kasowitz Benson Torres LLP, a New York firm that in July 2024 reached a robust settlement in an antisemitism case against NYU. There are anonymous students, Students Against Antisemitism, Inc., who will continue to be represented by Kasowitz Benson in the case, and there’s a related case involving former Harvard Kennedy School students represented by the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under the Law that is consolidated for discovery purposes.

The Brandeis Center and the Anti-Defamation League also recently settled a federal Title VI complaint filed against Occidental College in California. That case was an administrative complaint with the U.S. Department of Education, not a federal lawsuit.

Kestenbaum spoke at the Republican National Convention and has testified before Congress about his Harvard experience. He’s become a frequent public spokesman at conferences and on television about antisemitism.

A series of factors may point toward a settlement.

From the point of view of the Jewish plaintiffs, although antisemitic outrages flare weekly on the Harvard campus (See Laura Fein’s recent piece “Harvard’s Antisemitism Has Become Even More Insidious”), there is no ongoing visible encampment as there was in spring 2024. Under the circumstances, Judge Stearns may be reluctant to find that the situation meets the standard of “imminent and irreparable harm” required for him to issue injunctive relief. Kestenbaum has graduated, and recent court rulings somewhat constrain the ability to win monetary damages in Title VI cases.

From the point of view of Harvard, a settlement could help to avoid embarrassing discovery disclosures or prolonged public attention to the issue. Those could provide fodder for the Republican Congress and for the incoming Trump administration, which is threatening to cut off research funding and raise endowment taxes on “woke” universities. Harvard may prefer to put the matter behind it rather than to wage an expensive and time-consuming battle that ends, like the affirmative action in admissions case, in a Supreme Court defeat. Whether Kestenbaum could prevent that by holding out and opposing a settlement would be for Judge Stearns to decide if such a settlement is reached. But the change of counsel signals that a settlement is likelier than it has been in the past.

The NYU settlement involved, among other things, NYU implementing the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism and the accompanying examples. Harvard President Alan Garber is said to be reluctant to do that for fear of faculty complaints that it would interfere with academic freedom. Yet that definition is already in federal guidance and is likely also to become federal law. Garber didn’t directly address the issue in his installation speech over the weekend, though he did say that Harvard will need “to correct course more quickly than has been our custom.”

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