UPDATE (Feb. 4, 2025, 8:35 p.m. E.T.): Throughout a joint press convention Tuesday night time with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Donald Trump stated: “The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip and we’ll do job with it, too.”
As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited President Donald Trump on the White Home on Tuesday and King Abdullah II of Jordan does the identical on Feb. 11, one query retains effervescent as much as the floor: Can Donald Trump, the self-professed “peacemaker” who has eyed the coveted Nobel Peace Prize for a few years, go the place no U.S. president has gone earlier than by placing a transformational, complete peace deal within the Center East?
Trump’s critics would reply with a giant eye roll. And but his pressuring of Netanyahu to signal onto the primary stage of a three-phase ceasefire cope with Hamas — three extra hostages had been freed over the weekend in return for greater than 100 Palestinian prisoners, the fourth spherical of prisoner exchanges because the deal took impact in mid-January — at the least provides some credibility behind the ambition. Trump clearly has Center East peace on his thoughts, and the Trump administration’s want to develop the 2020 Abraham Accords, which normalized relations between Israel and 4 Arab nations, is rarely removed from its lips. As nationwide safety adviser Mike Waltz stated earlier than Trump even stepped foot into workplace for his second time period, Israeli-Saudi normalization is a “big precedence” for the crew.
Trump clearly has Center East peace on his thoughts.
However Trump can kiss all of this goodbye if he intends to maneuver ahead along with his ongoing calls to expel the Palestinian inhabitants from Gaza, an thought he referenced throughout his joint press convention with Netanyahu on the White Home. Whereas he didn’t particularly use the phrase “expel” in his remarks, his suggestion that Palestinians may wish to take into consideration packing up their issues and going to a different space whereas reconstruction commences has prompted shock and trepidation throughout the Arab world. Trump even instructed that his plan was within the works, with varied nations contacting him and pledging help. Whether or not or not that’s the case, Trump seems more and more invested in making this relocation scheme a actuality. “Gaza is a demolition web site proper now,” Trump instructed reporters on Tuesday. “You’ll be able to’t dwell in Gaza proper now.”
If this had been simply one other one-off, rambling remark from Trump, maybe it may very well be dismissed as a nothing-burger. But it surely isn’t. Trump has referenced this concept on earlier events, first on Jan, 28, when he name-dropped Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and Jordanian King Abdullah for assist in taking Gaza’s inhabitants in, and once more on Jan. 31, when he was signing govt orders within the Oval Workplace. Requested by a reporter about Egypt and Jordan’s refusal to play alongside, Trump matter-of-factly acknowledged that they didn’t have a alternative: “They are going to do it. They are going to do it. They’re gonna do it, OK? We do rather a lot for them, and so they’re gonna do it.”
Trump’s pretensions apart, Egypt and Jordan have their very own causes for not wanting to show themselves into Trump’s enforcers. The obvious, after all, is that such a proposition is awfully unpopular within the Arab world. International locations all through the Center East disagree on numerous issues, however dislocating greater than 2 million Palestinians from their properties in Gaza and opening the door to Israeli annexation of the coastal enclave — a fantasy ultranationalist Israeli ministers like Bezalel Smotrich absolutely dream about — actually isn’t considered one of them. If there was any dispute about that, the Arab League put it to relaxation over the weekend, when it launched a press release that such plans “threaten the area’s stability, threat increasing the battle, and undermine prospects for peace and coexistence amongst its peoples.”
Egypt and Jordan even have self-interested causes for dismissing any Gazan relocation effort. Jordan, for one, is already internet hosting greater than 2 million Palestinians who’re registered as refugees, making roughly half of the dominion’s inhabitants of Palestinian origin. As a resource-poor nation, Jordan doesn’t have the posh of sustaining a brand new inflow of recent refugees and wouldn’t wish to, even when Washington or its Gulf allies picked up the tab (the U.S. already offers Jordan with $1.45 billion in overseas assist yearly). For Egyptian President Sisi, the problem is much less about economics and extra about safety. This is similar man, in spite of everything, who led a 2013 navy coup towards a democratically elected Muslim Brotherhood-led authorities (Hamas was established in 1987 as an affiliate of the Muslim Brotherhood), killed greater than 800 folks within the course of and jailed tens of hundreds extra in an try and snuff out any resistance. If Sisi wasn’t prepared to let Palestinians into Egypt when Israeli navy operations in Gaza had been at its top, he’s unlikely to take action when the weapons have fallen silent (in the interim).
Encouraging or compelling Palestinian civilians to go away Gaza, even when it’s ostensibly to speed up reconstruction, is liable to kill Trump’s diplomatic agenda within the Center East.
Encouraging or compelling Palestinian civilians to go away Gaza, even when it’s ostensibly to speed up reconstruction, is liable to kill Trump’s diplomatic agenda within the Center East. On the high of the want record is an Israeli-Saudi normalization accord, one thing his predecessor Joe Biden couldn’t finalize earlier than his time period ended, regardless of a year-and-a-half of talks with Israeli and Saudi officers. Such a deal can be a groundbreaking accomplishment for Washington in a area typically related to sunk prices, self-defeating insurance policies and missed alternatives. And simply as necessary for Trump, it will be a particularly spectacular achievement he may rightfully brag about.
But none of it’s going to occur if Palestinians are compelled to go away their very own lands. It will snuff out an growth of the Abraham Accords earlier than the Trump administration even obtained the ball rolling. Though the Saudi authorities might have been open to a normalization cope with Israel earlier than the battle in Gaza, it’s now not content material with token Israeli concessions on behalf of the Palestinians. The Saudis now desire a concrete pathway towards the institution of a Palestinian state. As Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman stated in September, “The [Saudi] kingdom is not going to cease its tireless work in the direction of the institution of an unbiased Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital. We affirm that the dominion is not going to set up diplomatic relations with Israel with out that.” The Saudi overseas minister reiterated that place in November, and it’s about as clear as it may well get: Normalization and not using a Palestinian state (or at the least a tangible course of that results in one) is not possible.
Trump, subsequently, must ask a basic query: What’s extra necessary to him? Doing one thing all of his predecessors couldn’t do — shepherding formal diplomatic relations between Israel and the Arab world’s most necessary state — or catering to the whims of Israel’s ultranationalists by proposing a cockamamie scheme that equates to deporting greater than 2 million Palestinians from their very own properties? The primary is troublesome to realize however nonetheless doable; the second would trigger extra issues than they’re value by compromising Washington’s diplomatic relationships within the Center East, pushing his dream deal additional away, and even risking the collapse of a ceasefire deal in Gaza he helped usher into being. And on this state of affairs, Trump can neglect about seeing his title within the annals of Nobel historical past.
Daniel R. DePetris
Daniel R. DePetris is a fellow at Protection Priorities and a syndicated overseas affairs columnist on the Chicago Tribune.