The New Yorker reports today that in January Trump sent a provocative message to Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, basically asking him if he was a reasonable man or a terrorist.

Here’s the photo of the message:







Wow that’s pretty dang bad ass.

Here’s the background on the message:

Trump secretly reached out to Abbas at least one more time. On January 17th, the New York Post published a column by Michael Goodwin, a Trump partisan, with the headline “abbas’ jew hatred exposed.” The column described a speech in which Abbas had made comments disparaging Jewish history. It featured a photograph of Abbas waving two clenched fists. On a copy of the article, Trump wrote a note in large black script, “Mahmoud, Wow—This is the real you?” He signed it, “Best Wishes, Donald Trump.” Some of his aides argued that it would be undiplomatic to send the message. Kushner loved it. “That was the President being the President,” he told aides. The White House sent Trump’s message to Donald Blome, the consul-general in Jerusalem, who had it delivered to Abbas at his headquarters in Ramallah. Kushner told aides that Trump was challenging Abbas, saying, in effect, “I want to know, are you a great leader or are you a terrorist? You show me. It’s your choice.”

That’s pretty in your face actually. The only predecessor of Trump that I could see doing something like that would have been Reagan, and that’s just a guess.

In related news…

JUST IN: U.N. General Assembly adopts resolution condemning Israel for excessive use of force against Palestinian civilians pic.twitter.com/lhsYd2JEgF — Reuters Top News (@Reuters) June 13, 2018

Ugh.