Can Trump put ‘America First’ and also achieve peace in the Middle East? | News about Donald Trump

During his inaugural address, United States President Donald Trump said the “proudest legacy” of his presidency would be to be a “peacemaker and unifier.”

“We will measure our success not only by the battles we win, but also by the wars we end,” he said on Monday before mentioning the release of the first Israeli prisoners from Gaza as part of a truce timed to give him an early political victory.

Later that day, as he was signing the rush executive orders in the Oval Office, Trump told reporters that he was “not convinced” that the deal was what it mostly was deserving with breaking through it would stick.

But Trump added: “It’s not our war. It’s their war.”

Trump has made no secret of his desire to see Israel’s war in Gaza end before he takes office, and he won a second term in part thanks to his promise to put “America first” and back off from conflicts abroad. But his first actions, as well as his first four years in office, leave little doubt about his administration’s unwavering support for Israel, analysts warn, even as Trump seeks to project an image of toughness and has succeeded in pressuring Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to agree to a deal he has resisted for months. earlier.

“All it took was a threat,” Diana Buttu, a Palestinian analyst and former negotiator, told Al Jazeera, crediting Trump with using the leverage of his position in a way former President Joe Biden never did. “Regardless, I don’t think we should give Trump all this fanfare and applause because I don’t think it was an agreement that came with no reward for Netanyahu and no price for [Palestinians].”

The prize of Israel

If a reward was promised in exchange for a deal, Trump’s first hours in office might suggest what it is, Buttu said. Trump wasted no time the lifting of sanctions against Biden on Israeli settlers accused of attacks on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, and on Tuesday his pick for ambassador to the United Nations, Elise Stefanik, said during her confirmation hearing that Israel has “biblical law” to the West Bank. Trump’s pick for ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabeehe also previously addressed the biblical theme when he said, “There is no such thing as the West Bank. These are Judea and Samaria.”

The actions and statements only build on what Trump has already done during his first term as president from 2017 to 2021, inclusive cutting funding UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestine refugees; recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel despite the occupation of its Palestinian eastern half; moving the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem; and recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the occupied Golan Heights, which is Syrian territory.

On Wednesday, the fourth day of the Gaza ceasefire, Israeli forces launched an assault on Jenin in the occupied West Bank, killing at least 10 people and raising fears that Israel will further increase its attacks there. There was no US return as the ceasefire does not include the West Coast.

“There will always be great rewards for Netanyahu,” Buttu said, noting that she also expects the president to soon crush the pro-Palestinian movement in the US, another Israeli priority. “Trump gave the Israelis almost everything they wanted, and he just told them, ‘Just don’t keep me up at night.'”

Still, Trump’s first-day hint that a ceasefire might not hold signals that even such rewards might not be enough to keep Netanyahu committed to a ceasefire he has fought for months for his own sake political survival.

HA Hellyer, a policy analyst at the Royal United Services Institute in London and the Center for American Progress in Washington, DC, suggested that Trump may already be preparing to blame others – possibly Hamas – for the potential collapse of the deal he claimed credit for brokering.

“Trump wanted a deal so he could say he got a deal,” Hellyer told Al Jazeera, adding that he would be “surprised we even got through the first phaseunless we have a lot more intervention from DC”.

He pointed to Netanyahu’s repeated claims that Israel has “right” for continued fighting in Gaza – and US support for it – as an indication that Israel is not truly committed to a ceasefire.

“Everyone calls it a ceasefire, but a ceasefire indicates that there is a commitment not to return to war. So far, we don’t have that at all,” Hellyer said. “The statements coming from various Trump administration officials, as well as Trump himself, are also not great in this regard. Will Trump use American power to ensure that the Israelis complete phase one and go all the way to phase three? The signs are not encouraging.”

‘Job of the century’

However, as much as he views the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as “not our war,” Trump may be really interested in his legacy as a mediator, some analysts said.

In his first term, Trump proposed a “peace deal” for Israel and Palestine that his administration declared the “deal of the century,” and he tried to “to normalize” relations between Israel and several Arab states, bypassing the Palestinians in the process. This time, he is expected to again seek a deal that, while cementing his legacy, would likely also benefit his business interests in the region.

But normalization requires a more inclusive political project than Abraham’s covenantthat Trump promoted in his first term, said Matt Duss, executive vice president of the progressive Center for International Policy think tank.

“If Trump is serious about achieving peace as he claims, if he is serious about winning the Nobel Peace Prize, if he is serious about doing what no other president could do in bringing peace between Israelis and Palestinians and normalization of Israel to the region in a real and sustainable way, then achieving a just and reasonable solution for the Palestinians is absolutely essential to that.”

“The way to get to Trump is to appeal to his sense of self-importance,” Duss added. “I think it needs to be explained to him that in order for a peace and normalization agreement to be real and sustainable, and not just a set of arms deals, which was the Abraham deal, he will have to have a real, just solution for the Palestinians.”

It is a difficult task. Israel has shown no interest in anything that could bring the Palestinians closer to statehood – which many analysts have argued has long been ruled out anyway – given Israel’s expansion in the occupied territory.

This week, the Israeli president Isaac Herzogwho has previously spoken out about the idea of ​​Palestinian statehood, told the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland that the October 7, 2023 attacks on southern Israel were a “wake-up call” about credibility.

And then there are Trump’s own occasionally conflicting loyalties: to a large Christian Zionist political base that is tightly aligned with Israel’s most extreme right-wing political elements; donors like an Israeli-American billionaire Miriam Adelsonwho supported his campaign to the tune of nearly $100 million; as well as partners in the Gulf such as Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who has so far indicated that the normalization of relations with Israel would be conditional on Palestinian statehood.

For a president who has said he wants to put “America first,” it’s hard to see how Trump could ever distance himself from the fray.

“I think Trump is truly an America first guy. He doesn’t want to worry about wars. He doesn’t like to think about them and he said that over and over again,” said Buttu. “But at the same time, I don’t know who’s going to pull it.”