As for how it could have gone, I would say one alternative would have been to tell the Israelis “If you stop building settlements in the West Bank we’ll support your claims in Jerusalem.” Or, we could have phrased it differently, and told the Arabs “Work with us in Jerusalem and we’ll put pressure on the Israelis to give you a better deal at the peace negotiations.”

In other words, we could have used our influence to sweeten the deal for one side or the other and help bring about a fair deal both sides could sign on to. Instead, we’ve played to the Bronze Age Bible-Banging fantasies of our own religious wackos, who don’t give a damn about the Jews or the Arabs, but just about buying their own way into heaven.

Even if there were no riots and unrest on the Arab streets, Trump’s action is wrong because it undermines American influence and legitimacy, diminishes what little leverage we have left on the international scene, and removes any hope there is for peace in that part of the world.

What Trump has succeeded in doing is not only demonstrating that we have taken sides in the Arab-Israeli dispute, but that we don’t give a damn who knows it.

Trump’s malpractice has not thrown the Middle East into a general uprising or into flames, what he has done is ‘awakened a sleeping giant and filled it with a terrible resolve’.

Part of my point here is that we might being a bit patronizing to assume that Arab populations are prone to turning into mobs; to be playing, surely unconsciously, into stereotypes of them as “undisciplined” or less-civilized than us.

I still have hope that my thesis stands, that people who are as capable of watching Trump up close as we are, might not be so easily manipulated. They know what we know: It’s America’s Christian zealots trolling them through Trump paying off a political debt with a symbolic slap in the face. But can America be prodded to go much further than that? Smart people would just bide their time and watch.

But “arson” may not be the right metaphor. Arson is usually carried out for a reason, perhaps an evil one, but a reason nonetheless; such as insurance fraud or sabotage, or just plain malice.

This is just geopolitical vandalism.

But despite the universal prediction that the Middle East will erupt in flames, I wonder if they–the “street”, the populations expected to be enraged–will react so predictably this time?

What’s crucially different now, I think, is that Trump has abandoned the role of “leader of the free world”, no longer speaks for any nation other than the US. We can’t count on anybody to have our backs and back our plays. That universal condemnation of Trump’s panderous move testifies to loss of American influence.

So will they see it differently this time? The Middle East is connected to the global Internet, they’ve been experiencing Trump in real time along with everybody else. They know that, this time, the American President isn’t representing a united coalition of “Crusaders”, that Trump is an anomaly who will soon, the whole world prays, be gone from office.

Or I could be being a pollyanna again, and in 48 hours Trump’s match will have lit yet another conflagration. Another interpretation of the apparent sophistication of a wired population is that it can be manipulated en masse (as we’ve learned to our sorrow), and many of the Middle Eastern leaders harshly condemning Trump may want riots and unrest, and a renewal of their own political power.

Who knew the Middle East could be so complicated?