The New York Post is by far my favorite newspaper, and for many reasons, but I’ll name just two – it is favorable to President Trump, and a friend to Israel, and Netanyahu.

Good enough for me, plus its finger on the pulse of our culture, as from no other source, and the sharp writing.

The paper’s editorials are the best in town, any town. The one I’m reading now runs as follows: “Trump’s plan on Israel-Palestinian settlement is most realistic in decades.”

Not only the Post feels that way. Nearly everybody does about the deal of the century. Except me. 

I’ve been hearing it since my column was published as – “Birth of another terrorist nation.”

Yes, I heard you, Yanni in Brooklyn.

Why so negative, people ask, and then explain that for Israel, it’s win-win. Mainly that Israel gets the chance to declare sovereignty over the Jordan Valley and Judea and Samaria.

More good news is that Jerusalem is to remain undivided – oh, wait, except that Abbas and the Palestinian Arabs get a part of East Jerusalem as their capital.

Sounds divided to me. But that’s just me, right?

True, all that is in the future, if conditions are met. But the letter is in the mail, so already they can, and will, claim triumphs of legitimacy for Jerusalem.  

They can, and will, insist that both the United States and Israel have handed it over, and they won’t be bothered by nuance. 

What happened to the belief that any talk of a two-state solution was an automatic non-starter? Yet how quickly our best and our brightest have folded like an umbrella.   

Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself. What I need to explain is that for me, the devil is not in the details, but in the overall picture.

Like the picture of an audience clapping vigorously each time a “Palestinian state” was mentioned as the salt and pepper of the big plan.

This is good for the Jews? Beats me. Trump himself had to tell people to quiet down and quit applauding. 

People are just wild about the prospect.

An “independent Palestinian state” in the heart of Biblical Israel – what can possibly go wrong and be more wonderful? 

So far as the overall picture, I got to thinking, during the ceremony and the dancing, how brilliant we are in all other spheres, and how stupid we are on politics. 

How gullible and weak-kneed we are when it comes to our own well-being. Our leaders in particular. 

But so it’s been throughout the ages, even back to the 70 Elders who were supposed to accompany and fortify Moses at Pharaoh’s palace. 

Then one by one they slipped away and deserted Moses, and Aaron. 

Typical, and so I remembered Ehud Olmert, as prime minister, assuring the Palestinian Arabs, “I can be very generous.” 

As if it was his land, his property to give. Or maybe it was Ehud Barack. Same thing.

I remembered Howard Kohr, CEO at AIPAC, declaring: “We must all work toward that future: two states for two peoples. One Jewish with secure and defensible borders, and one Palestinian with its own flag and its own future. Today that dream seems remote. This is tragic.” Tragic, he says.

That’s a “pro-Israel” leader talking.

Not quite Herzl. Or what Jabotinsky had in mind.

It appears that only through a Palestinian state can Israel justify itself…not through me, but through the calculations of so many Jewish leaders, inside Israel, and out.

The Arabs come first.

We saw that on display on Tuesday.

So how did I become the party pooper?

First, we are lucky to have Trump in America and Netanyahu in Israel, and after that, after they’re gone, we’re into extra innings. Anything can happen. New pitchers. New ballgame.

Case in point, from the Post’s editorial on the big deal: “Notably, this marks the first time Israel has put its support behind a Palestinian state with defined borders.”

Israel relinquishes its claim as the everlasting Jewish Biblical homeland. By definition, the Arabs have an equal claim.
In other words, Israel relinquishes its claim as the everlasting Jewish Biblical homeland. By definition, the Arabs have an equal claim.

Next: “It would double Palestinian territory and allow for a Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem, where the US will happily open an embassy.” Happily.

So, if you were happy about the first embassy move, imagine the thrills for this next one. 

Then: “Palestinians would get a demilitarized state.”

Like the one they already have in Gaza? The one with terror tunnels and 50,000 rockets suppled through Iran, which they keep firing at Israel? Yes, that demilitarized state.

Then again: Palestinians will have to institute “a measure of free speech, while ending terrorism, and pay-to-slay.”

Only a measure. Other than that – good to go.

Plus, will Jews be allowed to live or visit this new Arab state, without being murdered? Arabs are totally free and safe in Israel.

I did not see that come up at the editorial, or anywhere in the deal of the century. Anybody know?

Almost forgot: “Israel is to stop construction in the ‘West Bank’ for four years.” (Already being done.)

So Israel must shrink as the Arabs expand -- doubly. 

As I said, I only saw the big picture. Tell me…remind me again how pretty it looks.

New York-based bestselling American novelist Jack Engelhard writes regularly for Arutz Sheva.

He wrote the worldwide book-to-movie bestseller “Indecent Proposal,” and the authoritative newsroom epic, “The Bathsheba Deadline,” followed by his coming-of-age classics, “The Girls of Cincinnati,” and, the Holocaust-to-Montreal memoir, “Escape from Mount Moriah,” for which contemporaries have hailed him “The last Hemingway, a writer without peer, and the conscience of us all.” Website: www.jackengelhard.com