After President Donald Trump announced that the US would officially recognize Jerusalem as the Israeli capital—a long-standing fact away from which US administrations had been ducking away for over 20 years—global (or at least European and Middle Eastern) expressions of angst have been loud.

Out come the pop psychology analyses.

Martin Indyk, former US Special Envoy for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, former US Ambassador to Israel, and current Executive Vice President of the Brookings Institution:

It was an appeal to his evangelical Christian base, pure and simple[.]

Of course it was.

No, wait.  Steven Spiegel, UCLA’s Center for Middle East Development Director [paraphrased by Deutsche Welle]:

Trump’s inclination to shake things up….

That must be it.  Yeah, that’s the ticket.

It couldn’t possibly be simply because it was a right thing to do, especially after decades of failure to achieve peace while using Jerusalem as a bargaining chip.  Nor could it matter that the Palestinians aren’t interested in peace with Israel, and they’ll object—violently—to anything an American administration might do.

Mm, mm.

Feelz, especially feelz of European nations and those of the Middle East, must take precedence, must be obeyed.  Oh, the ego-driven horror of not being listened to on this.