Trump focuses Middle Eastern minds with potentially unintended consequences

 

By James M. Dorsey

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US President Donald J. Trump’s call for the permanent resettlement of Gazan Palestinians has focused regional minds, even if the White House and senior officials have walked back key elements of the president’s proposal.

Regardless of his intentions, Mr. Trump's proposal risks legitimizing long-touted ethnic cleansing that potentially could ignite a regional powder keg.

Speaking to Fox News’s Sean Hannity, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu embraced Mr. Trump’s plan as “the first good idea that I’ve heard. It’s a remarkable idea, and I think it should be really pursued, examined, pursued, and done because I think it will create a different future for everyone.”

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz, ignoring the White House’s walk back, ordered the military to plan to enable “a wide swath of the population in Gaza to leave to various places around the world.”

Mr. Trump appeared to empower Messrs. Netanyahu and Katz by seemingly undermining negotiations of the Gaze ceasefire’s second phase scheduled to start this week. US, Qatari, and Egyptian mediators designed the talks to decide the terms of a permanent truce, end to the war, Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza, and the post-war administration of the Strip.

Mr. Trump’s assertion that the United States will take ownership of Gaza would resolve the governance issue in Mr. Netanyahu’s mind. In a posting on Truth Soclal, Mr. Trump’s social media platform, the president appeared to question the need for a ceasefire and implicitly supported Mr. Netanyahu’s insistence that the war will only end with the destruction of Hamas.

“The Gaza Strip would be turned over to the United States by Israel at the conclusion of fighting. The Palestinians…would have already been resettled in far safer and more beautiful communities, with new and modern homes, in the region. … No soldiers by the US would be needed! Stability for the region would reign,” Mr. Trump said.

At the other end of the political spectrum, Algeria, acting on the principle that Israel often serves as a gateway for Arab access in Washington and following in Saudi Arabia’s footsteps, said this week for the first time it would recognise Israel if Israel accepted the creation of an independent Palestinian state.

Although minor in the larger scheme of things, the Algerian move responded to Mr. Trump’s shock therapy in which the president plays the unpredictable madman who changes the rules and shifts discourse by intimidating his interlocutors and rivals.

Mike Waltz, Mr. Trump’s national security advisor, described the president’s Gaza proposal as an incentive for others to propose formulas or take steps to further regional stability rather than an initiative he wants to implement.

"The fact that nobody has a realistic solution, and he puts some very bold, fresh, new ideas out on the table, I don't think should be criticized in any way; I think it’s going to bring the entire region to come with their own solutions," Mr. Waltz said.

That same principle applies even if, as some analysts believe, Mr. Trump designed his announcement to shore up Mr. Netanyahu’s domestic Israeli standing. In doing so, Mr. Trump may have wanted to set off alarm bells in Riyadh and Tehran that would persuade the Saudis to establish diplomatic relations with Israel sooner rather than later and prompt the Iranians to be more forthcoming in future nuclear talks.

Saudi Arabia’s quick and unambiguously worded rejection of Mr. Trump’s assertion that the kingdom would demand less than a Palestinian state as the price of diplomatic relations with Israel may not be the kingdom’s last word.

Saudi Arabia is the one Middle Eastern state, except for Israel, with leverage in Mr. Trump’s Washington.

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was dangling hundreds of billions of dollars in investment in the United States, which Mr. Trump wanted to raise to US$1 trillion, in front of the president in the days before he announced his plan.

Mr. Trump coupled his boosting of Mr. Netanyahu, a proponent of military attacks on Iran's nuclear facilities and critical infrastructure, with an executive order increasing his maximum sanctions pressure campaign to reduce the Islamic Republic's oil exports to zero potentially.

At the same time, Mr. Trump insisted he wanted to pursue a “verified nuclear peace agreement” with Iran “immediately.”

Earlier, senior Iranian officials said they were eager to start nuclear talks, stressing that Iran had no plans to develop a nuclear weapon. "The clerical establishment's will is to give diplomacy with Trump another chance, but Tehran is deeply concerned about Israel's sabotage," one official said.

Algerian President Abdelmajid Tebboune hopes his willingness to recognise Israel will put his country on Mr. Trump’s radar on par with Morocco, Algeria’s regional nemesis, as the president seeks to persuade Saudi Arabia, an Arab crown jewel, and other Arab and Muslim countries to establish diplomatic relations with Israel.

Mr. Tebboune’s move stood out amid a wave of regional and international condemnation of the Trump plan.

Mr. Trump’s first-term recognition of Moroccan sovereignty in the disputed Western Sahara in exchange for Morocco,, alongside the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, recognising Israel has strained Algeria’s relations with the United States and the UAE.

Algeria has long supported Frente Polisario, the Saharan liberation movement that operates from southern Algeria.

Amar Bendjama, Algeria’s United Nations ambassador, has been careful not to provoke Israel’s ire beyond its par-for-the-course rhetoric, as he used his country’s two-year membership of the Security Council to advance efforts to end the Gaza war.

Similarly, Mr. Tebboune has refused to exempt manifestations in support of Palestine from a de facto blanket ban on demonstrations.

Mr. Tebboune’s gesture has symbolic value given that Algeria, a one-time symbol of Africa’s liberation struggle and staunch supporter of Palestinian militants, has been touted as one of three countries that would take in Palestinians serving life or long-term sentences in Israeli prisons who were freed and deported in exchange for Hamas-held hostages in Gaza.

A first litmus test of whether and how Mr. Trump’s takeover plan may impact the Gaza ceasefire is whether Hamas goes ahead with a fifth prisoner exchange scheduled for Saturday.

The exchanges are part of the ceasefire’s 42-day first phase, in which 33 Hamas and Islamic Jihad-held hostages are slated to be swapped in stages for some 1,900 Palestinians incarcerated in Israel.

So far, Hamas has condemned Mr. Trump’s call for Palestinian resettlement but refrained from halting the prisoner swaps. Israeli officials feared that Hamas may see no advantage in releasing more hostages as long as Mr. Trump’s plan is on the table.

“Neither Hamas nor Israel wants to disrupt the ceasefire’s first phase. Agreeing on the modalities of the second phase is a different question. Trump’s plan may have put that beyond reach,” said a source briefed on efforts to kickstart second phase negotiations.

Dr. James M. Dorsey is an Adjunct Senior Fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, and the author of the syndicated column and podcast, The Turbulent World with James M. Dorsey.