Give Donald Trump credit. In an impressive eruption last week, he proposed to annex Gaza and expel anyone who the inhabitants refuse to leave, generating an ingenious investment opportunity in front of the sea in the bargain. It may seem contradictory, but he has made the Palestinians a great favor. He has not ‘killed’ the solution of two states. That had been dead for a long time. Instead, it has added useful clarity to a pernicious situation.
The horrible Israeli attack of the last 15 months, after the terrorist outrage of October 7, is nothing more than the latest version of a recurring pattern of Israeli repression, useless Palestinian resistance and extremely disproportionate Israeli retaliation.
Whether Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu returns to the murder fields as promised, there will be no permanent hostilities as long as the underlying dynamics are maintained. As Trump has pointed out, when you do the same again and again, “you end up in the same place.”
But that is the farthest that credit can go. You don’t have to say that Trump’s proposal is absurd in his face. Most of the gazanes would surely refuse to leave. Trump recognizes that US troops will not force them. Neither Egypt nor Jordan, alone or in concert, will accept two million Palestinians, for multiple obvious reasons. And Saudi leadership has made it clear that they will not be exposed first of the Islamic world to finance ethnic cleaning in the name of Israel. In summary, this half idea is not going anywhere.
Simultaneously, Trump was asked if his American seizure proposal of Gaza would be combined with the support of the United States for the annexation of Israel in the West Bank. He promised an answer in a month. Predicting to Trump is a silly mandate, but he has telegraphed his answer. His key advisors of the Middle East are strong defenders of Israeli annexation. Trump’s prospective support can be the impulse that emboldery to Netanyahu to do what he wants transparently, but to date he has not dared.
Annexation would reveal the pious enchantments of Western politicians for what they are: an impotent nonsense in the best case, and cynical in the worst.
We should expect it to do it. Israeli settlements in the West Bank have reached a long time since even a contiguous and marginally viable Palestinian state is inconceivable. That is the product of many decades of intentional Israeli policy. The Annexation of De Jure would not change anything in the field. The formal seizure of Palestinian lands would simply be a welcome recognition by Israel of the true state of affairs: which has created and intends to maintain an apartheid state.
But annexation would give the United States to anywhere to hide. While the state of the West Bank was nominally indeterminate, the United States could maintain the cruel fiction that supports a solution of two states. In fact, the United States has been completely complicit in Israel’s successful effort to prevent such a thing. The fact that American politics is a product of inertia and political cowardice, instead of before malice, is not a convincing defense.
Annexation would reveal the pious enchantments of Western politicians for what they are: an impotent nonsense in the best case, and cynical in the worst. I would force them to choose: either openly acquire in the flagrant violation of Israel International Law, or actively oppose him. There will no longer be an intermediate path.
Trump has chosen the acquiescence. Despite all his moral obtuseity, he is compared to his predecessor refreshing directly in what he wants to do. Instead of twisting their hands, he proposes to cut the Gordian knot doing for the Israelis what they could not do for themselves: clear the gazanes and cheat them with the deceptive chimera of “beautiful houses” in other countries, paid by others.
This is actually a continuation of Trump’s first period policy. His “Century Agreement” for the West Bank in 2020 was one piece with the bomb last week. He proposed to give the Israelis virtually everything they wanted in the West Bank, while inducting the Palestinians to trade dignity and sovereignty for the promises of economic investment in the Bantustanes to which they would be relegated. Then it did not work then, and it will not work now.
So, if not mar-a-gaza, then what? There are many existing peace proposals, which involve two states and one. All would be unbearably painful to adopt. With Israel it is militarily impregnable for its neighbors, none could be implemented without enormous pressure from outside the region.
Therefore, it is a useful mental experiment to imagine what type of alternative pressure would be required to divert Israel from its irredentist course. An international campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions will be required, complemented by a complete limit of military and diplomatic support from the United States, and then it might not be enough.
It is unlikely that less say the least. But long -term trends may not be so positive for Israel.
As violence in Gaza goes back in intensity, it focuses more on the continuous predations of Israel in the West Bank: air attacks, land seizures, financial strangulation, intentional destruction of civil infrastructure, facilitation of settlers Israelis increasingly violent. The declared logic is to force the Palestinians to vote with their feet. But that will be unbearably slow. And you can’t hide.
Chinese policy towards Tibetans and Uigures could be a useful model of impunity for the State for Israel, but little Israel depends much more on external support and has nothing like China’s coercive power.
It is possible that the world finally addresses and accepts. But that is in no way assured. Israel is quickly becoming an international outfit. Many countries, even in Western Europe, have pledged to enforce the arrest orders of the CPI for Netanyahu and their former Minister of Defense, issued in response to a 17 -month war crime.
Even in the United States, the negative generational change in attitudes towards Israel is surprising, and the growing disposition of politicians to publicly oppose Israeli politics would have been inconceivable only a few years ago. The furious right-wing demands to suppress Pro-Palestinian protesters on American campuses and punish the ICC are useful indicators of fear.
No, peace in the great Palestine is not at hand. The story will continue its sad course, for now. But in the meantime, Trump’s heat and blockade have also thrown a ray of useful light.
The writer is a former American official and author of 88 Days to Kandahar.
Posted in Dawn, February 12, 2025
