Trump and Netanyahu draw battlelines

 

Tom Barrack’s interview

By James M. Dorsey

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US ambassador to Turkey and special envoy to Syria Tom Barrack appeared to frame the administration’s thinking in a freewheeling interview on the eve of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's high-stakes meeting on Monday in Washington with President Donald Trump, his fourth in ten months.

The two men’s discussions will focus on a 21-point plan presented by Mr. Trump earlier in the week to Arab and Muslim leaders on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

Messrs. Trump and Netanyahu appear to have set out their positions in advance of the meeting, suggesting that harsh words could be exchanged.

Mr. Trump’s belated insistence that he will “not allow” Israel to annex the West Bank testifies to the leverage Gulf and Middle Eastern states have in countering Israeli influence in Washington.

In a defiant and belligerent address to the UN Assembly, Mr. Netanyahu pushed back, insisting that Israel needed to continue fighting in Gaza and rejecting the notion of an independent Palestinian state, but stopped short of responding to Mr. Trump’s ban on annexation or aspects of the Trump plan, details of which remain elusive.

Even so, going by his speech, Mr. Netanyahu is in no mood to compromise.

Adding fuel to the fire, Mr. Netanyahu, in advance of his visit to the White House, scheduled a meeting this weekend with Betar US, a rabid anti-Palestinian, anti-Muslim group that targets and harasses pro-Palestinian figures, as it does Jewish critics of Israel and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), an influential American Jewish organisation.

The League has included Betar US, a chapter of Betar, a right-wing global Zionist youth movement, in its extremism and hate database.

Meanwhile, Mr. Trump appeared to potentially position Mr. Netanyahu as the fall guy by suggesting after the prime minister’s speech that “it looks like we’re having a deal on Gaza.., it’s a deal that will end the war… There’s gonna be peace.”

The little detail of the Trump plan that has leaked suggests that significant implementation-related aspects could prove to be deal breakers. Those aspects include:

• n  Which countries will contribute to an international stabilisation force in Gaza that a US military officer would likely command?
• 
  
• n  How large a force is needed, and what will its mandate be?
• 
  
• n  With Hamas having yet to comment on the plan, will countries contribute to the force if the group rejects the proposal, raising the spectre of armed confrontations?
• 
  
• n  What happens if Hamas maintains its refusal to disarm and to send its leaders into exile?

• n  What role will the West Bank-based, internationally recognised Palestine Authority play?
• 
  
• n  Will Arab and Muslim states contribute without an Israeli commitment to a two-state solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?
• 
  
• n  Who will head a transitional civilian administration in post-war Gaza?
• 
  
• n  Is there a timetable for the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza?

If Mr. Netanyahu plays his cards true to form, he may want to appear to be cooperating with the plan, at the risk of alienating his ultra-nationalist coalition partners, while de facto attempting to derail its implementation.

Indeed, Mr. Netanyahu may have little choice but to appear to be accepting Mr. Trump’s plan if he does not want to risk provoking the president’s ire.

"Netanyahu's aides are trying to downplay the role the Palestinian Authority is expected to play in any future Gaza arrangement. The reason is clear: The issue contradicts everything the prime minister has promised his right-wing base, and a rapid path to ending the war could threaten his government's survival," said journalist Amos Harel.

Mr. Netanyahu’s ultra-nationalist coalition partners have called for annexation of parts of the West Bank in response to this week’s recognition of Palestine as a state by a host of US and Israel’s allies, including Britain, France, Canada, Australia, and Portugal.

Mr. Netanyahu reportedly told US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff in a meeting in New York on Friday that he wanted Hamas to disarm and Gaza to be demilitarised before ending the war, rather than as envisioned by the Trump plan after the war ends.

Mr. Netanyahu was also said to oppose putting a transitional post-war administration of Gaza under the authority of the United Nations Security Council.

US officials will have taken heart from the fact that the Arab and Muslim leaders welcomed the plan in the absence of Palestinian representatives in the meeting.

The leaders likely acquiesced to avoid getting on the wrong side of Mr. Trump and accusations that they were undermining efforts to end the war.

"We don't see anyone as able to stop (Netanyahu) except President Trump," Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani told Breitbart, a far-right media outlet favoured by the president.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was absent from the meeting because the United States barred him and other senior officials from attending in the UN General Assembly in person.

Yet, not even Riyad Mansour, Palestine’s UN ambassador, was invited to participate in the meeting.

The refusal to grant Mr. Abbas and other senior Palestinian officials US visas appeared designed to force the Palestinian leader and his Authority to bow to pressure for far-reaching reforms and acquiesce in post-war arrangements that don't guarantee the ultimate creation of an independent Palestinian state.

Mr. Abbas went a long way in bowing to the pressure in his video address to the General Assembly.

Israel rejects a role for the Authority in Gaza, a key condition for Arab and Muslim involvement in post-war arrangements.

The tone and substance of Mr. Barrack’s remarks suggested that, going into the talks with Mr. Netanyahu, Mr. Trump supports Israel's refusal to negotiate an equitable end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict while maintaining a modicum of attentiveness to Gulf and other Middle Eastern concerns.

Mr. Barrack argued that the United States shared specific interests with Middle Eastern states, including Israel, but had no regional allies, despite acknowledging the US's "special relationship" with the Jewish-majority state.

“I don’t trust any of them. Our interests are not aligned. Ally is a mistaken word... There’s things that we’re aligned with and there’s things that we are not aligned with. So, there’s no unanimity; it’s not the United States of Israel. It’s not the United States of the Gulf. It’s not the United States of Turkey," Mr. Barrack said.

Even so, Mr. Barrack appeared to support Mr. Netanyahu's forever wars and rejection of an independent Palestinian state as a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Instead, the envoy propagated depopulation of Gaza as advocated by Messrs. Trump and Netanyahu. Mr. Barrack suggested that a durable ceasefire in Gaza would not be possible.

"Ceasefire is not going to work," Mr. Barrack said, referring to a truce being a steppingstone to peace.

The envoy argued that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict could not be resolved as long as Palestinians insisted on remaining on their own land.

"This idea of everybody staying on their own land could go on forever,” Mr. Barrack said.

Mr. Witkoff appeared to share that sentiment when he announced that Mr. Trump had presented his plan to the leaders of Jordan, Turkey, Indonesia, Qatar, Pakistan, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia.

“I think (the plan) addresses Israeli concerns, as well as the concerns of all the neighbours in the region,” Mr. Witkoff said, omitting any reference to the Palestinians.

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.