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Your guide on what the US elections of 2024 mean for Washington and Le Monde
Donald Trump got along. After a tumultuous return to the White House, the American president Mercurial undoubtedly revealed his most reckless plan to date. Having threatened to grasp the Greenland and the Panama canal, Trump now has Gaza, the Palestinian territory broke the war, in its towers. Its proposal to move the population of 2.2 million Gaza elsewhere, the United States taking control of the band in a “long-term property position”, is as morally reprehensible as it is dangerous.
It would be easy to reject Trump’s comments as another performative declaration. The plan is so absurd that it is unlikely to see the light of day. But the president’s very act revealing him in front of the world media, with the Israeli Prime Minister visiting, Benjamin Netanyahu, by his side, underlines the irresponsible way in which the most powerful leader in the world carries out his foreign policy.
The self -proclaimed deal seems to consider the world as a giant bazaar in which everything is to be won to be used as negotiation chips, with little consideration for the repercussions. It is not a game that American allies around the world can allow themselves to let it play. He generates fear and uncertainty, damaging Washington’s global position and weakening his network of alliances.
An American takeover of Gaza would violate all international standards. Any American military action in the strip, which has been controlled by Hamas since 2007, would contradict Trump’s own promise to keep American troops outside the combat zones in the Middle East. He would bring echoes of the Disastrous Invasion of 2003 of Iraq, and would derail all hope that Trump has to conclude a great case which would lead to Saudi Arabia to normalize relations with Israel.
The forced mass expulsion of gas would be equivalent to ethnic cleaning. He would relaunch the memories of 1948, when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were moved during the war which accompanied the declaration of independence of Israel. Trump seems to think that he can empty the Palestinians on Egypt and Jordan. But they, like other Arab states, vehemently rejected the idea.
He spoke of transforming Gaza – sprayed by more than a year of Israeli bombing after the horrible attack on the horrible October 7, 2023 – in the “Riviera du Middle East” in which “representatives from the whole world” could live. The idea that some Palestinians could also live there seemed only one reflection after the fact. As in his first mandate, the American president seems to be unable to humanize the Palestinians, considering them rather as consumable pawns in a broader game.
If Trump can offer to take control of Gaza, moreover, than then? Many will fear that he could give the far right government of Netanyahu the green light to annex the occupied West Bank. In his first mandate, he canceled decades of American policy by recognizing Jerusalem – whose status is challenged – as the capital of Israel and the demand for the sovereignty of the Jewish State on the heights of occupied Golan.
The Arab and Western allies of America hope that Trump’s performance on Tuesday has been boastful – a cynical negotiation scheme in his quest to conclude an agreement between Saudi Arabia and Israel, while putting pressure on regional states to assume The responsibility of the Gaza controlled by Hamas. But they cannot count on this hypothesis.
Trump has repeatedly committed to bring peace to the Middle East. Peace to him seems to signify an agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia. It seems to ignore, however, that the Riyadh road requires a peaceful resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict. He cannot involve emptying Gaza from its inhabitants to build stations on the Mediterranean coast of the strip.