President Trump’s instinct to disrupt established pathways and his lack of deep engagement in international affairs is what allows the idea that “the US will take over the Gaza Strip, and we will do a job with it too”.
In his first term, Trump stunned the foreign policy establishment by deciding to meet personally with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un.
He wanted to persuade Kim to abandon the North’s advanced nuclear weapons program by offering investment to bring the country’s economy up to par with Seoul.
Flying to Singapore for the March 2018 summit, Trump put aside his briefing papers.
He would wing it with Kim by showing a four-minute action-movie style trailer the President had the White House make.
The video is online and worth watching. The voiceover says it’s time to “change the course” of history, there are moments “when only a few are called on to make a difference”.
“Destiny pictures presents: A story of opportunity. A new story. A new beginning. One of peace. Two men, two leaders, one destiny.”
It didn’t work.
Given a choice between disarmed peace and prosperity or nuclear weapons and poverty, Kim Jong-un took the path that assured he remained in control.
Hamas would make the same choice in Gaza. The idea of turning the Strip into “the Riviera of the Middle East” is anathema to everything the terror group stands for, including the idea that Gazans might be released from the living hell of Hamas control by being allowed to pick up their lives in a different location.
Trump’s idea has about as much chance as a snowball in Khan Younis, but the President should be admired for wanting to break the cycle of history that is endlessly delivering conflict for Palestinians.
The most likely point of failure for Trump’s idea is the Hamas and Fatah leadership and the left international consensus supporting them, including the United Nations. These groups are frankly not interested in Palestinians as individuals.
Had such an interest existed, the idea of resettling Palestinians into a viable state outside of Gaza and the West Bank might have been tried decades ago.
After World War II, tens of millions of people, most prominently the Jews, were relocated from existing homes to other locations. This movement of millions of refugees continues today.
It is only the Palestinians who are burdened by an ideology – driven by those who will never live in Gaza – which demands that they, their children and grandchildren will forever be refugees and that displacing Jews in Israel is the only solution to their plight.
Some Arab countries pay lip service to that ideology – mostly to escape any sense of obligation that they might offer space for a Palestinian homeland.
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu looked like a man who couldn’t believe what he was hearing at the same time as he said that Trump’s vision “of a different future” was something the President was “taking to a much higher level”. It should at least be explored as a possibility.
Whether any of this is deliverable depends on how deeply Trump wants to invest money and effort into his plan. Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan are key. They need to agree an outcome that accommodates a Palestinian political entity somewhere.
That won’t happen without many billions of US dollars changing hands. But look at the trillion-dollar costs of American wars in the Middle East. Perhaps there is a deal to shape. Note that on February 4, Trump signed a national security presidential memorandum to
impose “Maximum Pressure on the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Denying Iran All Paths to a Nuclear Weapon, and Countering Iran’s Malign Influence”.
For a normal US administration that would be major global news. For Trump it has been hidden behind the Gaza gambit. Perhaps the memorandum shows a wider plan developing for a new security order in the Middle East.
Saudi Arabia and the Sunni Arab world may see a new approach to Gaza as worth entertaining in return for a permanently cowed Iran. An important way to shape Iran’s behaviour might be to build a deterring, large scale US military presence in Gaza.
Already there are Republicans saying they would rather the money was spent at home. A key challenge for Trump will be to persuade Americans that the best way to avoid losing lives and money in the Middle East is for the US to strengthen its military presence there.
The biggest losers are Hamas and those who want to keep Palestinians suffering in pursuit of the unobtainable goal of statehood “from the river to the sea”. And we have to acknowledge that many Palestinians clearly share that Islamist ideology.
That means the left in Australia will hate Trump’s burst of unlikely Middle East creativity.
It means also that the Israel-Hamas ceasefire may soon collapse.
Hamas will try to rally its international backers with more violence.
In Australia, that means more protests and more anti-Jewish hatred.
The “progressive” left will be outraged, in most cases I suspect without really knowing why – are they defending the right for a two-state solution never to materialise?
In reality, that’s a core Hamas goal – they want a one-state solution, their state.
We should gear for more attempts at domestic terrorism. It’s plain to see this is coming.
Anthony Albanese has one last chance to get ahead of this risk by upping the counter-terrorism threat level and preparing our response capabilities.
Peter Jennings is director, Strategic Analysis Australia.
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