Afrasianet - Mohamed Halasa - The path Israel is taking now, under the influence of Trump's hoaxes, may lead it precisely to a new cycle of wars, as its "neighbors" will come to the conclusion that Israel understands only force.
Circles close to Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu expected his meeting with US President Donald Trump this week to be a "show of unity," and commentators expected a historic and fateful meeting on the implementation of the second phase of the prisoner release deal, but the summit between the two leaders exceeded the wildest expectations of those around them, and indeed in the world, and likely disappointed many.
Trump succeeded in his previous term in signing the "Abraham Normalization Accords" between Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, but in reality they were nothing but "agreements to bypass the Palestinian people and their cause", and the aim behind them was not to create peace between Israel and the United Arab Emirates or Bahrain, which were not at war with them anyway, but to create a new reality in the Middle East in which the Palestinian cause and the aspirations of the Palestinians to gain independence and end the occupation are marginalized.
But surprisingly, the four years that have passed since then have been the most resistant in the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict, as 6 months after the signing of the aforementioned agreements, the events of the May 2021 uprising, or what was known as the "Sword of Jerusalem" battle, broke out, which led to the expansion of the circle of confrontation between Israel and the Palestinians to the entire occupied Palestinian territory, including inside the Green Line, for the first time since 1948. The years 2022 and 2023 recorded record levels of guerrilla resistance action in the West Bank. The West and inside the occupied areas of Palestine in 48 until the seventh of October 2023 came, and it became clear to everyone that overcoming the Palestinian cause is like a pipe dream for delusional people.
Today, after Trump returned to the White House, at his summit this week with Netanyahu, he launched his new plan, which assumes that "if the Palestinians cannot be bypassed, let's expel them!"
If Trump's proposal is currently limited to Gaza, there is nothing to prevent it from being expanded to include Palestinians in the West Bank, and East Jerusalem or um al-Fahm may also be next on the list.
One of the most important criteria for judging Trump's proposal is its implementation: how likely is it that two million Palestinians, mostly refugees or descendants of refugees, who preferred to live in refugee camps in Gaza for 75 years and did not leave their homeland, will agree to leave the Strip now? And what is the possibility that countries such as Jordan or Egypt agree to accept even part of these two million knowing very well that this step could lead to the collapse of their regimes?
The possibility that the United States, which withdrew from Iraq and fled Afghanistan, is now willing to "take over", administer, and develop the Gaza Strip equally remote.
Although the chances of implementing the plan seem slim, it has already had a profound impact on political discourse in Israel. Perhaps it is more accurate to say that this "obsessive Trumpian" rhetoric reflects the reality of the deeper currents and trends in Israeli society, as no one was surprised that the fascist religious right treated the press conference held by Trump and Netanyahu at the White House as a "divine revelation"!
Even those seen in Israel as "moderates" like Benny Gantz said Trump's plan to deport Palestinians represented "intriguingly creative" thinking, not to mention the occupation "army," whose senior staff official was quoted as saying Trump's deportation initiative was an "excellent idea."
To be sure, Trump's statements will not pass without having "dire" consequences in the near term; Israel's sense that it has a historic opportunity to empty the Gaza Strip of its Palestinian population will give significant support to the demands of Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir to blow up the ceasefire before reaching the second phase, occupying Gaza and pushing the Palestinians out of it. Netanyahu is likely to respond to such a request, and Trump is not expected to object, contrary to the hopes I have pinned on him. Families of prisoners and some Israeli politicians.
Even if we assume for the sake of argument that the second and third phases of the deal are implemented, the prisoners are released, the occupation army withdraws from the Strip, and a permanent ceasefire is reached, the Trump plan will have a significant impact on the political orientation in Israel. What incentive would a Jewish Zionist party have to reach a political agreement with the Palestinians if the Israeli public is "excitedly" waiting for the option of "emptying this entire country of its inhabitants"?
As for the Palestinians, when the US president proposes transfer as a solution to the Palestinian problem, and when all of Israel, from its religious fascist far right to the liberal center-extreme and the Zionist left, adopts this solution, the message, even for the advocates of reconciliation with Israel among the Palestinians, becomes clear and unequivocal: "There is no possibility of a political settlement with Israel and its current American ally."
It is clear that the danger of this proposal does not end there; due to Trump's complete lack of understanding of the Middle East, its mentality and culture, he throws the Palestinian cause into the "stone" of the countries of the region and turns it from an Israeli-Palestinian conflict into an Arab-Arab conflict within these countries that affects their security and stability.
Such a demand is a direct threat to regimes in the Arab world; the Jordanian regime, for example, fears that the influx of large numbers of Palestinians into the kingdom will bring to an end, because it will change the delicate demographic balance there, and it has always feared that the Israeli right will implement the idea that "Jordan is Palestine" and treat the kingdom as a Palestinian state.
Egypt and Jordan will also not cooperate with the move, despite Trump's assurances that they will be forced to comply due to their dependence on U.S. aid and military support.
Peace agreements with Egypt and Jordan are the cornerstone of Israel's national security, and it would be unwise to support a policy that would undermine two regimes with which cooperation on security and intelligence matters is critical to Israel.
If Netanyahu continues his policy of supporting Trump's ideas of maintaining his internal alliances, he could undermine Israel's alliances with Jordan and Egypt, with nothing in return.
Certainly, this "crazy" step taken by Trump, and Israel's instinctive adoption of it, would send a message to regimes in the Middle East, even those known as "moderate", that there is no point in compromise, because Israel believes that thanks to its military power and endless American support, it can impose any solution it wants on the Middle East, including the displacement of millions from their countries and the abolition of the right of peoples to self-determination, even though almost the entire world has recognized. With this right.
In the recent war fought on several fronts, Israel not only killed en masse and destroyed infrastructure, but also occupied parts of Lebanon and refuses to withdraw from it despite the agreement it signed, and occupied parts of Syria without showing willingness to withdraw from it.
Israel's path now, under Trump's superstitions, may lead it precisely to a new cycle of wars, as its "neighbors" will come to the conclusion that Israel understands only force, and when these regimes choose between accepting coerced to absorb Palestinian refugees with the threat to their existence, or going to war, they will most likely choose war even if they lose it.
Certainly, Trump's coercive moves, and Israel's desperate attempts to exploit them, will be met with force and will be bad even for Israel itself, and new alliances may form that reject American dictates in the Middle East and around the world.