Afrasianet - Oraib Al Rantawi - The United States has no overt (or implicit) interest in Israel's actions in the West Bank and Jerusalem, suggesting that there are "understandings" of some kind between the two sides on the issue.
Some call it an American green light for the Netanyahu government, while others describe it as an "orange light," even though what is happening in the West Bank is more harmful and dangerous than what has happened and is happening in the Gaza Strip, if the issue is viewed from a long-term strategic perspective, related to self-determination, the future of the Palestinian state, and the "two-state solution."
In my opinion – but not all wrongdoing – that the American "indifference" to the course of Israel's barbaric-settler behavior in the West Bank should not be a surprise of any kind.
President Donald Trump has never spoken of a two-state solution, and he – although within his 20-point initiative – talks about a long, complex and conditional path to take into account the Palestinians' aspiration for statehood and self-determination, but he did so, in response to the demand of a constellation of his Arab and Muslim allies, within the framework of the Group of Eight, whose leaders met in New York last September, to finalize his plan for Gaza, which will soon become a UN resolution (2803).
In his first term, Trump was the one who granted the Netanyahu government American recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital, and moved his country's embassy from Tel Aviv to it, as well as nearly a third of the West Bank, as part of what was known as the Deal of the Century.
In his second term, he continues what he began in an effort to undermine every chance for an independent, viable Palestinian state, taking advantage of the repercussions of the "Al-Aqsa Flood" and the developments in the war of cleansing and extermination.
West Bank vs. Gaza
Washington no longer views settlements and unbridled settlement encroachment as an illegal act that violates international law, nor does it see it as an obstacle to negotiations, a final solution and sustainable peace.
Its ambassadors in Jerusalem, and before in Tel Aviv, have long endorsed the "legitimacy" of the Israeli narrative by returning to the "ancestral homeland of Judea and Samaria," some of whom were settlers themselves, including those who received their religious studies in Jewish schools and institutes established in the occupied West Bank.
Anyone who follows Mike Huckabee's statements will find no difference between them and those of Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, as do many senior officials in the Trump administration.
If it were not for the extreme right-wing government in Israel, most reassured of the soundness of the American position in support of its colonial plans in Jerusalem and the West Bank, it would not have dared to go so far as to repeal the Jordanian Land Law, destroy the Oslo Lines, maps and classifications, trample on the Hebron Protocol, expand the administrative boundaries of the Greater Jerusalem Municipality to reach deep into the Jordan Valley, and would not have proceeded to extend its control over what it calls "absentee properties", "princely lands", heritage and religious sites, and would not have made its "occupation civil administration" An alternative reference to the PA in the registration of Palestinian lands and real estate.
Even when the occupation government, its army and its settler herds refer large areas in the West Bank, its north and the Jordan Valley in particular, to what can be described as "Little Gaza", the most that Washington's actions go to include some of the submerged names of the "hilltop youth" on the sanctions lists.
As for their instigators and leaders, both political and security-minded, they are not affected by the US sanctions, even as they kill, burn, displace, and dissipate people, trees and stones. It is a complete violation of the Palestinian land and society, in light of the complicit silence of the United States, which indicates complicity in this crime, instead of working to stop it.
What Washington asks of the "spoiled" Israeli prime minister is to avoid embarrassing it as much as possible, in order to remain able to communicate with its "Arab and Muslim allies," and to preserve the chances of resuming and developing the "Abrahamic track," always in a way that serves the occupation state's more distant strategic interests, even if this is done at the expense of Israel's narrower immediate interests.
In this sense, Washington does not mind Israel's annexation of the West Bank, provided that it is done without an official announcement, and the Trump administration's mouthpiece is telling the Netanyahu government: Go far and where the fangs of your steel bulldozers can reach, but do not embarrass the president with leaders and governments, who declare his love for them and respect for their interests.
In exchange for this "free hand" given to Israel in the West Bank and Jerusalem, Washington asks it to facilitate Trump's mission and his initiative in Gaza, and in a way that does not neglect Israel's interests in the Gaza Strip as well, and guarantees the American president the completion of an initiative that bears his name, the importance (and greatness of which he has always overestimated), how can it not be an initiative that will bring peace that has been missing for 3,000 years, and will continue forever?!
The "West Bank vs. Gaza" equation, which seems to govern the behavior of the American and Israeli sides in the occupied Palestinian territories, does not mean that Washington will ignore Tel Aviv's pressing priorities in Gaza, including the issues of arms and administration in particular, but it will control the rhythm of Israeli unbridled behavior in the wake of American steps that are "considered" to some extent the positions and interests of the Arab and Islamic partner parties.
In contrast to the "free hand" policy in the West Bank, it can be said that the Israeli hand in Gaza will be bound by the terms of the Trump initiative, the requirements of the post-war phases, and the "next day" calculations of the United States.
This means, among other things, that every talk in the initiative and the UN resolution about a meaningful horizon, or irreversible path, for self-determination and a Palestinian state, becomes an empty nonsense, intended to distract and enable Israel to have the time it needs to swallow the West Bank and "Israelize" Jerusalem, and to numb and hypnotize Arab positions, or at least avoid falling into "extreme embarrassment" in front of its people and Arab and Islamic public opinion. Trump's latest initiative contradicts the first of them, the first of which is to swallow the West Bank and pluck out Gaza's fangs and claws.
What Washington asks of the "spoiled" Israeli prime minister is to avoid embarrassing Washington as much as possible, in order to remain able to communicate with its "Arab and Muslim allies," and to preserve the chances of resuming and developing the "Abrahamic Process".
On the settlement table, not negotiation
In the time of the extreme right, supported by the American right, no less extremist, Israel is moving from the circle of talking about "disputed territories" or "negotiated about them", to the square of taking these areas out of the circles of negotiation and conflict, as it is completely Israeli territory, there is no such thing as the West Bank, there is only "Judea and Samaria".
By virtue of the "Nation-State Law," which was passed by the Knesset five years before October 7, it is an integral part of the Promised Land for God's chosen people, in a provocative embodiment of religious ideology when it becomes an engine of politics, or replaces it.
In a time of religious-nationalist extremism, and with the unspoken support of the American right, which is made of the same fabric, Israel is succeeding in erasing the phrase that has been raised on the Arab consensus: an irreversible path to the two-state solution, which has replaced the "Arab Peace Initiative" that has been the operative part of the official Arab discourse for a quarter of a century, and replaced it with irreversible behavior in aggressive settlement encroachment targeting the land and its original owners.
Israel, which openly declares its rejection of the Palestinian entity, in the absence of any balanced group within it, that speaks of "two states for two peoples", or even in the language of "separation" from the Palestinian demography, is accelerating its steps to swallow the territory and territory of the state, and is making an effort to force the people to emigrate or submit and submit to the bastions and bantustans, while the "political system", the third pillar of the state project, has reached a point of fragility and "bone thinning", to the point that it surprises observers with each additional day in the life of the PA Palestinian.
All this is taking place under the watchful eye of Washington, which does not move a finger under the pretext that Gaza is now the priority. An "army of American spokesmen," including former officials, generals and current experts, is defending Israeli policy on various Arab and international screens, as a legitimate right to preserve Israel's security, and to prevent a repeat of the October 7 scenario.
The truth is that no one should be surprised and surprised by this American behavior, not only from the point of view of the absolute and blind American bias towards Israel, which is inherited from one administration to another, but also from the fact of a careful reading of Trump's 20-point initiative, which was said to open the horizon for a comprehensive, lasting and just peace, while it was detailed to the size of Gaza, and did not go beyond its narrow geography, and everything that was added to it or attached to it was nothing but ashes in the eyes and a "game of deception."
In essence, it is a two-pronged reconstruction: reconstruction by the standards of the Trump Riviera, and Tel Aviv's condition to disarm Gaza, not the weapon of resistance alone, so that it does not pose a threat to Israel forever.
