Unlock the White House Watch watch newsletter for free
Your guide on what the US elections of 2024 mean for Washington and Le Monde
For weeks, the Arab leaders were impatiently waiting to measure the way in which US President Donald Trump would react to the greatest crisis in the Middle East in decades, suspicious of his unpredictability, his lack of understanding of a complex region and His shameless pro-Israeli bias.
But none in their wildest dreams expected the extraordinary and surreal proposal that he revealed in an amazed world when he took the podium at the White House alongside the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday.
Not satisfied with advocating forced permanent resettlement of more than 2 million Palestinians in Gaza, Trump has considerably increased the issues by announcing that the United States provided Take the besieged band – and that he would use the American army could if necessary.
The idea is so weird that there will be a temptation to reject it even more Trumpian madness. It would be in violation of international laws that the United States has long sought to defend and defend. This could bring American troops back to combat to the Middle East – something Asset had committed himself to avoid.
It would indicate the Washington Arab Allies, its European partners and the world South. The beaten credibility of the United States would take another dive. This would reverse the chances of Trump’s dream to secure a big case – and his desire to obtain a Nobel Peace Prize – with an agreement that would lead to Saudi Arabia and other Muslim states normalizing relations with Israel.
And this would create another catastrophe for Palestinians who have suffered for a long time who have been called for generations called Gaza House. Where would they go? No one knows. No Arab country would dare to accept them and be considered accomplices in the forced displacement of their Palestinian brothers.
The bitter heritage of 1948, when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were forced from their house or fled in the fights that accompanied the Foundation of Israel, remains believed in the Muslim world. The Palestinians refer to this period such as Nakba, or disaster, and many gasans are descendants of those inappropriate.
No one in the region – with the exception of the extreme right of Israel – can be repeated.
However, it was Trump, the real estate magnate and former reality TV host, who has already threatened to grasp the Panama canal and take over Greenland.
He has long seemed to see the Middle East through his own prism of transaction and fixed assets, acted by pro-Israeli acolytes with a new administration, and Netanyahu, who presides over the most under way of extreme right in the history of Israel.
A year ago, Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and former White House advisor in the Middle East, spoke of the “Riverain property” of Gaza saying that it could be “very precious”.
Tuesday, it is the president saying that he imagined that the impoverished Mediterranean band, broken by the war, densely populated and narrow could be “the riviera of the Middle East”.
“We are going to develop it, we will create thousands of thousands of jobs and it will be something of which all the Middle East can be very proud.”
Netanyahu could barely hide a sly smile as he stood next to Trump, praising the most pro-Israeli president in the history of the United States to “think of the beaten track”.
“I think it’s something that could change history,” said Netanyahu.
Since Israel launched its thunderous offensive in Gaza in response to the attack on Hamas, on October 7, 2023, the Palestinians and their Arab neighbors feared that the ultimate objective of Netanyahu is to make the band uninhabitable and to drive the Gazans of their land.
The far -right ministers of his government openly speak of the need to reinstall the band that Israel withdrew two decades ago. Now they seem to have the most powerful leader in the world in their corner.
The shaken Arab leaders hope that Trump’s proposal will be one of certain Gambits or a trader in his plans to negotiate a broader agreement which would lead to Saudi Arabia to agree on official diplomatic links with Israel.
In his first mandate, Trump negotiated the so-called Abraham agreements, transactional agreements that led to the United Arab Emirates and three other Arab states normalizing links with Israel. And he clearly indicated that he wanted to develop this success of foreign policy.
But the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman said on several occasions that this can only happen if there is the creation of a Palestinian State, which includes Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
Many in the Arab world hope that Prince Mohammed will be able to rely on his relationship with Trump and the lever effect in Saudi Arabia could hold on to deliver the “big business” to slow down his wildest policies.
Riyadh was unusually rapid and categorical in his Rejection of the forced displacement of the Palestinians Wednesday. The leaders of the kingdom are wary of the rage that simmer in the region as a generation of young Arabs – the main district of Prince Mohammed – have seen the most Thewast while Israel struck Gaza in the last 14 months.
The pressure will be on the Saudis and their Arab partners to convince Trump of calamity that his program is likely to be unleashed.
What Trump does not voluntarily understand is that for all devastation, poverty and suffering, the Gazans are proud to call the band of their house. This is an integral part of their identity – the land where their children were born and raised, where they buried their loved ones and built and rebuilt stoically and rebuilt through cycles of conflict. They want to continue their life in peace, not another Nakba.
