Loading ...Can Trump Keep His Promises for the Middle East?
By: Ghassan Rubeiz / Arab American Contributing Writer
President Trump is doing business and promising peace. Meanwhile, the Israeli Prime Minister is expanding the war and promising victory. In a four-day visit to three Arab Gulf states (Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates) last week, President Trump made business deals worth at least 700 billion dollars, and quite possibly much more. The deals included the sale of big items in defense, aviation, and artificial intelligence.
To sweeten the deals, the president made two huge political promises to the heads of state in the Arab Gulf: he said he was willing to strike a new nuclear deal with Iran, and to lift longstanding, comprehensive US sanctions on Syria. During the trip, growing tension between Israel and the Arab world compelled Trump to sideline Israel, his closest ally in the region.
But the lack of attention Trump or his hosts paid to the gruesome conditions in Gaza and the West Bank was notable. While Trump was talking about reviving Syria and Iran, Israel was busy wiping Palestine off the map. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ignored Trump’s visit to the Gulf, proceeding largely unopposed with his own plan to deal a final blow to Hamas by widening the ground occupation of Gaza. Over the weekend, Israel launched a massive air and land assault on the enclave, with plans to push a sizable portion of its population outside the border, possibly to Libya.
With the prospects for war and peace in the Middle East hanging in the balance, how realistic are the promises Trump made during this visit? Trump, on his own, does not have the authority to conclude a treaty with Iran: the US Congress has to ratify any new treaty with a foreign country. Israel’s powerful lobby in Washington will strongly oppose giving Iran a chance to recover its political status in the region unless Tehran agrees to dismantle its nuclear program and to terminate its military aid to the various militant resistance movements in the region.
With Syria, the situation is even more complicated. Congress would have to pass legislation to annul the sanctions on Damascus. And again, Israel is likely to oppose lifting those sanctions. To be freed from sanctions, Damascus may be asked to recognize the state of Israel and renounce any claims to the Golan Heights, lost to Israel in the 1967 war and unilaterally annexed in 1983. Israel is fundamentally opposed to helping any Arab state recover politically or economically, especially a neighboring Arab state.
Jerusalem is questioning the credibility of the Syrian president, who is a former Al Qaeda fighter; for Israel, Syria is now led by a terrorist. Netanyahu argues that the sanctions on Syria should not be lifted until its leadership becomes credible. Of course, Netanyahu himself has been on trial in his own country since 2020 for fraud and accepting bribes, not to mention the accusations of Israeli human rights abuses by international human rights organizations.
If Israel conquers Gaza, displaces its population, and proceeds with the annexation of a significant section of the West Bank, the focus of world attention will shift away from Iran and Syria and back to Palestine. The international community has yet to act decisively to stop the suffering of Palestinians. Trump may have too much on his hands to be able to follow up on the promises he made last week. Moreover, Trump is not in the habit of spending any political capital in the service of social justice, whether for Palestine or any other cause. He is, in the most charitable analysis, a businessman. Ignoring Palestine and sidelining Israel may have helped him with his deals in the Arab Gulf, but time will tell if such political compartmentalization was effective or prudent.
Ghassan Rubeiz is the former Middle East Secretary of the World Council of Churches. Earlier, he taught psychology and social work in his country of birth, Lebanon, and later in the United States, where he currently lives. He has contributed to political commentary for the past twenty years and delivered occasional public talks on peace, justice, and interfaith subjects. You can reach him at rubeizg@gmail.com
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Arab America. The reproduction of this article is permissible with proper credit to Arab America and the author.
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