In November 2017, after a lengthy meeting with Chinese president Xi Jinping, Donald Trump boasted that he and Xi can solve “probably all” the world’s problems. Today, he believes he alone can solve all the world’s problems. That explains his boast in the company of his friend Benjamin Netanyahu that US “will take over Gaza” and “own it”. The king believes he has the right to single-handedly redraw the world map as he sees fit. Trump believes, so does Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, that the strong are destined to gobble up the weak. Redrawing the world map is very much on their agenda. The Israeli leader claims that the war has “already changed the face of the Middle East.”
The irony of Netanyahu’s pompous claim is too stark to miss. He is the first foreign dignitary to meet President Trump which is “a testimony not only to the strength of the IsraeliAmerican alliance” but also the vitality of their friendship. In fact, Netanyahu boasts that Israeli soldiers “have redrawn the map”. He is confident that together with President Trump, they “can redraw it even further, and for the better.” This is Trump’s “golden age of peace” in the Middle East! Netanyahu has his own dream of bringing about a new regional order in the Middle East.
Advertisement
Redrawing the map is a sinister game with disastrous consequences. Africa is still paying the price for the colonial carve up of the continent. During the colonial period, European powers drew up these borders according to their own interests and without much consideration for the natural or cultural landscape of the region. This resulted in many countries having straight line boundaries that do not align with the natural or ethnic divisions within Africa. The Middle East has its own share of the problem. The 1916 Sykes-Picot map of the division of territorial spoils between Britain and France of what is today the modern Middle East hasn’t fared any better.
When Sykes and Picot hammered out their agreement, the strategic interests of the British and French took precedence over the tangled sectarian and ethnic demographics of the region. The region continues to pay the price for imperial arrogance. Now there is a Trump-Netanyahu plan. Trump has his own compulsions to do the strong leader act. There will be more bluster than substance. But his acts will be disruptive. And pretty dangerous too. Trump is testing the limits of his power. Like Netan yahu, Trump too is seeking to redraw the world map as he deems fit. He is practically threatening the world leaders that those who do not “bend the knee” should be prepared to face the consequences.
He has created a febrile and unpredictable political atmosphere around his administration. Trump believes personal interventions can swiftly and permanently end long standing conflicts such as Gaza. His belief that his constant lies, exaggerations and inventions can create new realities, both reshaping the present and permanently rewriting history is delusional, to say the least. The leaders in the Middle East are wary of Trump’s unpredictability and his impulsive and reckless comportments. And hence they will be wary of playing along. Trump’s team contains quite a few hawks, even extreme hawks. The Arab leaders are aware of serious disruption in bilateral relationships. That explains a flurry of high-level confabulations.
Syrian interim president Ahmad alSharaa has undertaken his first international trip to Saudi Arabia. Earlier, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan visited Damascus in January. Riyadh is engaged in an active dialogue with Europe and the US to help lift economic sanctions imposed on Syria. There are clear indications that Trump will push for Abraham Accords 2.0. The US wants Saudi Arabia to join. Riyadh has been insisting on a Palestinian state as a precondition for any deal with Israel. US special envoy for the Middle East Steve Witkoff has said that Qatar, which along with the US and Egypt, mediated the Gaza ceasefire, is also a candidate for normalization. Trump is far more open in siding with Israel than during his first term.
Washington and Tel Aviv may also be preparing the ground for Israeli settlements in Gaza. Trump’s support for a US-Israel-Saudi axis is an open secret. Trump may see the US as the indisputable hegemon in the region, but a lot has changed in the past few years. Russia and China have gained considerable global influence. China used its economic might and global rise to gain a potent voice. Russian president Vladimir Putin will not accept any deal in Ukraine which will scuttle his gains in Ukraine. At the end of Trump’s term, China will be far more formidable. Europe will refuse to play his master’s voice. Why is Israel continuing to attack Syria? No one believes it is to eliminate Iranian military targets or to destroy Syrian military infrastructure.
Grabbing as much land as it can is part of the grandiose plan. Some experts don’t rule out Israel’s long game of breaking Syria into a series of cantons, with each free to cooperate with external actors, including Israel. Israel’s game may include the annexation of Jordan Valley. Israel has deployed military units in the buffer zone along the Golan Heights separating Syria and Israel. The terrain has been an officially designated as a demilitarised zone as part of a 1974 UN-brokered ceasefire deal. All said, whenever Trump comes out with peace plan for Palestine, he will call it a deal of the century. What it will involve will be much more than the revival of his earlier “peace plan”. The Abraham Accords marked the most important foreign policy accomplishment of President Trump’s first term. Academics and journalists generously lauded his feat.
Abraham Ben-Zvi of University of Haifa argued that President Trump had changed “the face of the Middle East”. Israeli writer Ari Shavit was even more euphoric saying “history is starting to flow in a new, secure channel.” Today, given Netanyahu’s ethnic cleansing and Trump’s global grabbing, that sense of hope is missing. Trump’s shock and awe plan will be the one that will give Israel what it wants, concede to Palestinians everything Israel does not care for. It may at best promise some financial assistance to the Palestinians that will never see the light of day. But Trump will call it peace. He may even demand a Nobel Peace Prize for it. The world will be made to believe that history has indeed begun to “flow in a new, secure channel”.
(The writer comments on global affairs)
