Is Donald Trump On The Brink Of Middle East Peace?
No one in the Middle East likes Trump’s plan to “own” Gaza. That may be the whole point.
President Donald J. Trump shocked audiences in the last two weeks when, standing before the press and alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he informed the world of his intention to have the United States “own” the decimated Gaza Strip.
The plan, according to Trump, would involve removing the Palestinian Arab population of Gaza, initiating a massive rebuild (making it the “Riviera of the Mideast” in his description), and having the U.S. maintain some degree of nominal control over the area.
Trump’s Comments Set the Hair of Arab and Israeli Leaders On Fire
Of course, the collective heads of the regional players—including the Israelis—caught fire over these pronouncements. Especially because the pronouncements by Trump lacked any specificity. It was the lack of specificity, though, that galvanized many people. As he says it, no one in the region likes what Trump is saying.
While visiting the White House immediately after the stunning Trump-Netanyahu press conference, Jordan’s King Abdullah II met with Trump at the White House and consented to taking in 2,000 sick Palestinian children immediately. However, the Jordanian king punted on a longer-term solution—deferring instead to Egypt, whose leadership he claimed was making a longer-term plan for the region that was forthcoming.
Yet all that has occurred since the Abdullah-Trump meeting has been an unprecedented military buildup of Egyptian forces along their border with Israel.
Interestingly, shortly after the press conference, the ambassador from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to the United States, Yousef al-Otaiba, discussed Trump’s comments with a reporter from the Middle East Eye. He was asked point-blank by the reporter as to whether he and the other Arab leaders were satisfied with the Trump proposal to “own” Gaza and if an alternative plan was being developed by the leaders of the Arab world. Al-Otaiba’s response was twofold, and surprisingly blunt: the ambassador said that no one in the Arab world liked Trump’s proposal, yet no one had a better plan.
This admission is startling, especially since the Arab leaders castigated Trump’s proposal as soon as it was stated. It’s hard to understand how the Arab world, after having dealt with the rise of Israel since 1947 have oscillated over that time between seeking the annihilation of Israel to demanding a two-state solution, are completely unprepared with an alternative policy to what Trump is proposing (if the UAE official is to be believed).
This lends credence to the question: is it at all possible that President Trump might actually get some semblance of a resolution to the Mideast conflict?
Trump is Making Arab Powers Work Toward Peace by Offering Them an Awful Alternative
The idea for America to “own” Gaza is the least “America First”-sounding policy in the world. But the collective distaste among the region’s power players for Trump’s plan might be enough to galvanize those regional powers into action. After all, no one knows the Middle East better than those who actually live there.
“Egypt is putting together a comprehensive, phased plan that seeks to rehabilitate Gaza,” Tamim Khallaf, the spokesman for the Egyptian Foreign Ministry, told CBS News on Wednesday. Khallaf explained that the Egyptian proposal, which will be officially endorsed at an Arab summit in Cairo, Egypt, on March 4, will take “several years that would entail sequential phases of removing rubble and reconstruction.”
The key point is that, unlike the Trump proposal, which demands the removal of 2.3 million Palestinian Arabs from Gaza, the Egyptian plan will keep Palestinian Arabs in the Gaza Strip while reconstruction occurs. It preserves the interests of the Arabs while forcing them to take a more proactive role in checking the violence of Hamas. Indeed, though Egypt and Jordan have long punted the Hamas problem to Israel and the United States, both governments are themselves opposed to Hamas—as they are opposed to all Islamist organizations.
In short, by getting the Arabs to more thoroughly buy into stabilization of Gaza, Trump might be able to push whatever vestiges of Iranian influence remain without setting the stage for further violence—because it would be fellow Arabs bringing aid and security. More importantly, the Egyptian plan will be financed by the Gulf Arab states and other regional actors rather than the Americans. Thus, a key plank of Trump’s proposed peace plan for Gaza—that American money will not be used for reconstruction—is already an accepted fact in this ongoing discussion.
So, in effect, Trump has already moved the diplomatic ball forward. He’s gotten the Arabs to agree to act and to fund that action.
Trump’s Moves are Chaotic—But Could Lead to Order
Of course, history remains firmly against Trump on this issue. But the fact that there is real movement happening that might entail a more equitable resolution to the seemingly endless conflict—or at least would lead to a long-term quieting of the conflict—might be just what Trump’s team needs to claim, “peace in the Middle East.”
There remain many unknown aspects of this process. Skepticism is key for any observer of this uneven, unpredictable, and unconventional approach to a long-term problem set. But Trump is already slowly defying expectations. Indeed, unnamed, high-level sources within Egypt’s diplomatic corps told the Middle East Eye that both Jordanian and Egyptian leaders have convinced Trump to “ditch his plan to empty Gaza of Palestinians.”
For his part, though, Trump says he “has not seen” the Egyptian plan. Until he does, the forty-seventh president has declined to make any decisions on whether or not he supports it. Nevertheless, the Arab leaders are already working together. They’re moving toward changing some element of the status quo in Gaza.
Maybe that’s enough. After all, nothing generates success like momentum.
About the Author: Brandon J. Weichert
Brandon J. Weichert, a Senior National Security Editor at The National Interest as well as a Senior Fellow at the Center for the National Interest, and a contributor at Popular Mechanics, consults regularly with various government institutions and private organizations on geopolitical issues. Weichert’s writings have appeared in multiple publications, including the Washington Times, National Review, The American Spectator, MSN, the Asia Times, and countless others. His books include Winning Space: How America Remains a Superpower, Biohacked: China’s Race to Control Life, and The Shadow War: Iran’s Quest for Supremacy. His newest book, A Disaster of Our Own Making: How the West Lost Ukraine is available for purchase wherever books are sold. He can be followed via Twitter @WeTheBrandon.
Image: Shutterstock.