Trump 2.0 and Mideast crisis

Trump's new Middle East strategy must prioritize ceasefire, end settlements, and advocate for Palestinian justice.

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The cycle of the US relationship with Saudi Arabia is an interesting one. The US has used the benefits of its relationship with Saudi Arabia to try and find a resolution to the Arab-Israel conflict. Both countries established full diplomatic relations in the year 1940 but the US impetus to the relationship was provided by the Carter Doctrine which came on the heels of the beginning of the Iranian revolution and the end of Reza Shah Pehlevi's US-backed regime. Unveiled on 23 January 1980, the Carter Doctrine was a policy proclaimed by President Jimmy Carter who in his State of Union Address stated that the US would use military force, if necessary, to defend its national interests in the Persian Gulf. Since then Saudi Arabia has stood out as the leader of Sunni Arab states in the Middle East and the crown jewel in the US policy in the Middle East. This article attempts to throw light on the most important Middle Eastern question that the world asks today - what would be the new Trump administration's strategy to deal with the Middle East crisis?

Many scholars of international relations consider 'Abraham Accords' as Trump's the most significant foreign policy achievement during his previous tenure in power. That policy, besides being designed to achieve many other goals, was specifically designed to redirect world attention away from Israeli military occupation and splinter the Arab unity on the Palestinian cause.

The policy failed when the Palestinian issue was brought back on the global radar with the Hamas's October 7 2023 attack on Israel. That attack came when Saudi Arabia was only weeks away from joining the Abraham Accords. Now, even before the new Trump administration has come to power, an explicit message of Arab and Muslim unity has been delivered to the US through the just concluded OIC-Arab League Joint Summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The Summit has called for building international support for Israel's expulsion from the UN in the coming days and reiterated the long-standing Arab countries demand for the formation of an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital. The most resounding feature of the Summit is its endorsement of 'Arab Peace Initiative' also known as 'Saudi Initiative' adopted during the Arab League Summit in Beirut in 2002. A 10-sentence proposal, it is the most conclusive document in suggesting how to end this conflict.

The big failure of the previous Trump administration's Middle Eastern policy was the big let-down of his 'Peace to Prosperity Plan'. The $50 billion aid as a measure of prosperity that the US offered to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was rejected putting cold water on President Trump's efforts to buy his way to end the crisis. The Arab world in general and the Palestinians in particular have experienced American appeasement, buying, bullying, and now its outright diplomatic and military support to Israel to unleash this brutal war on them. All these American strategies have been tried and tested and have come to deliver nothing. President Trump's peace and prosperity plan recommended offering permanent control of West Bank to Israel; no prospects for return of Palestinian refugees; and Israel's complete control over its settlements that would fall in the new Palestinian state border and have Jerusalem in entirety as its capital. What can change now with Trump's new Middle Eastern strategy, specially considering the ones he tried in vain.

The very pro-Israel Trump that we saw in his last tenure is a memory that not only Trump himself but the world will have to forget. As an anti-war President, the first task of President Trump should be to ensure that there is a ceasefire in the Middle East. The second important aspect through which the Trump administration's future intentions will be judged will be an American call for a suspension of the annexation of Palestinian land and an end to the construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and the occupied Palestinian territories. Trump must accept that the Israeli response to the Oct 7 Hamas attack on Israel is not proportionate and the devastation of war and the consequent displacement of Palestinian people is a tragedy that his administration doesn't support. He would need to clarify that as much as he wants to end the Ukraine war as soon as possible, he would also be no longer willing to support any nation that fights wars. Diplomacy and economic means, and not the military ones, he will employ as his instrument of policy. Such a strategy can never be employed by an American status quo regime like the one that the Biden administration headed. This would not mean Arab appeasement but would only signify an anti-status quo American President's willingness to address the long-standing Arab world's concerns and lay down the foundation and create the enabling environment to promote peace in the region. Henry Kissinger, the greatest diplomat to work on the Middle East, always propagated that the first prerequisite of peace in the Middle East is creation of order. The Palestinian problem is neither military nor economic, but political; and it stems from the illegal Israeli occupation of Arab land. The Arab Peace Initiative, spanning 10 sentences, is what Trump must read and re-read before he formulates a reformed Middle Eastern strategy. The joint OIC-Arab League Summit has also tried to convey the same unified Arab desire to the incoming US president.

There cannot be two moral worlds for the American President to lead. There is only one that America under President Donald Trump must lead with complete fairness and justice for all. The Palestinian crisis has almost reached a dead end and pulling it back from there will be very difficult. But with the change of American regime and Trump coming into power, the hopes and expectations of the people around the world have risen. Telling Palestinians to continue to fend for themselves and that they are at the mercy of the Israeli military is a recipe for disaster and an invitation to the militant groups and those that support them to continue to believe in violent resolution of this conflict. The people of Palestine deserve an American leadership that thinks otherwise and treats them as human beings and not as a fodder that feeds the growth of a militarised American foreign policy - the policy that generates revenue from its military industrial complex that provides continuous military aid to Israel and supports its continued aggression against the people of Palestine and Lebanon.