Trump and Gaza: think again, Mr President
Mike Huckabee Donald Trump and Elise Stefanik. (Image created in Shutterstock)
Life is difficult enough in current foreign affairs without deliberately adding new problems. The new US Government has urgently to decide what to do in Ukraine, and on relations with Russia – do not forget the stalled nuclear arms control talks between them — and with China; all are of acute current interest. However, the gratuitous insults thrown by President Trump at Denmark, a NATO founder member, concerning Greenland have unnecessarily increased the tensions over the future of the West’s principal defensive alliance against Russian aggression, absorbing more diplomatic bandwidth in analysis of what the new White House may be going to do.
The Middle East will never be far away either, and the ghastly aftermath of the terror attacks on Israel by Hamas on October 7th 2023 fall into a despairing chronicle of events over more than the last half century. It seems hardly possible to make things worse — but Trump could yet do so.
He returns to the Presidency to an awkward legacy of the US in the region, not entirely his fault. The destabilisation caused by the invasion of Iraq twenty years ago has lingered long. The failure by President Obama to enforce the “red line” against Syria’s (now former) dictator Assad, following his criminal chemical attacks on his own people, let down many Arab leaders. That episode deepened the anxiety over precisely how the US now envisaged its role in the area.
In his first term President Trump himself sent mixed messages. He took no immediate action after Saudi oil facilities suffered a devastating attack from Houthi drones, inspired and supplied by Iran, in 2019. Yet in January 2020 he ordered the air strike which assassinated Iran’s senior IRGC commander Qasem Soleimani. Then, under President Biden but initiated by Trump, there was the ignominious retreat from Afghanistan and the Taliban.
And always there is Israel and the Palestinians. Following the collapse of John Kerry’s last efforts for a resolution of issues between them in 2014, there is no doubt that the issue went on the back burner for many. Arab leaders were tired of the failings of Palestinian leadership. Israel was satisfied that the prospect of Palestinian statehood had receded, so it no longer needed to pretend it wanted a “two state solution”. Prime Minister Netanyahu could continue with his work of managing tensions in Gaza through covert support of Hamas to prevent Palestinian unity between it and Fatah, and drive further extensive Israeli settlement expansion throughout the West Bank.
Trump picked up this new mood with the Abraham Accords and his efforts to envisage the problem as one of real estate, requiring the “deal of the century”. He was successful in creating an historic new partnership between the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan with Israel, which could have presaged much in terms of the new Middle East being sought beyond conflict. But he fatally left out of the equation the Palestinian issue, mistaking as did so many, a false status quo for an end to the Israel/Palestine conflicts.
Post October 7th 2023, no one is making the same mistake again. We are never going back to October 6th. Discussions around a ceasefire and the way forward are notable on the Arab side for clear indications that matters can only now be resolved through two states, and guarantees of an end of terror, and security and justice for all. Qatar, the negotiator of the cease fire, the UAE and Saudi Arabia have all been unequivocal: they are saying there is no normalisation with Israel without it.
A pathway is clear towards that new Middle East, requiring the concessions always needed. Those who want to clear Israel from the map need to know it will never happen, and Israel needs to realise that its efforts to prevent a Palestinian state have cost its people much in terms of peace and security, and that it cannot go on.
Enter President Trump, on Air Force One, with his latest attempt to make a catastrophe worse, suggesting that the population of Gaza leave, so that it can be “cleaned out”. Even for him, this is difficult to comprehend. The region is beset by histories of displacement. The whole modern issue between Israel and the Palestinians cannot be understood without an awareness of the “Nakba”, the leaving of Palestinians in 1948, and their history since. The Middle East abounds with those who have stories of enforced movement, from homes to which they can never return.
Right at the beginning of the present conflict in Gaza, Egypt and Jordan made clear they could not accept the population of Gaza. Trump’s pronouncement threatens the relationship the US has with those states, and the peace agreements they have with Israel.
The only proponents for this have been Israel’s far right: opponents of the ceasefire, committed to the annexation of the West Bank and the re-settlement of Gaza. This cannot be completed without the expulsion of the Palestinians who live there, one way or another, either by Israeli settler violence, other Israeli state force, or political decision.
For President Trump to be contemplating this option, rather than the alternative offered by surrounding states and saner voices in Israel, is astounding. So are his choices of diplomats to Israel and the UN. His Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, apparently believes there is no such people as the Palestinians. UN Ambassador Stefanik told Congress that Israel has a “biblical right” to the West Bank. And let us not go into Ambassador Huckabee’s beliefs about Jerusalem and the end days.
The awful events of the last 15 months deserve to be remembered only as the catalyst for long lasting peace. President Trump can choose with whom to partner in the region to help ensure this. To choose as his option the path of those who only thrive on conflict and division will assure him of the very place in history he cannot possibly want, when another legacy is so open to him.
Alistair Burt served as a Foreign Office minister for the Middle East, 2010-13 and 2017-19.
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