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Trump has int'l connections: Europe, Arab Gulf will work with US to achieve peace, reconstruct Gaza
FRANCE 24 English
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1/21/2025
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00:00
Moving on to more analysis, then, of US foreign policy under Trump 2.0 or Trump 47.
00:06
Choose your formula as you wish.
00:08
What next for Israel, then, under President Trump?
00:10
The US president calls himself the most pro-Israel US president in history.
00:15
That's what he calls himself.
00:17
And staunchly supported Israel during his first term,
00:21
even before taking office for the second term.
00:23
He proved instrumental in pushing Benjamin Netanyahu's government
00:27
into signing a ceasefire deal.
00:28
Remember, that's a deal that Joe Biden put on the table back in May.
00:32
Emerald Maxwell has this.
00:37
The self-proclaimed best friend that Israel has ever had is back in the White House.
00:42
We're going to make Israel great again and we're going to make America great again.
00:46
We're going to make them both great again, greater than ever before.
00:50
Token of affection.
00:51
Donald Trump portrays himself as Israel's steadfast protector,
00:55
and his record reflects that.
00:57
During his first term as US president, he recognised Jerusalem as Israel's capital,
01:02
and followed up by moving the United States embassy there from Tel Aviv,
01:06
thereby undermining the cause of Palestinians
01:09
who want East Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state.
01:14
Trump also recognised the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights as part of Israel,
01:19
a decision honoured by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,
01:22
who named a planned settlement there after him.
01:25
And the US president enabled illegal Israeli settlement activity
01:29
with his Middle East peace plan,
01:32
offering Israel the right to annex roughly 30% of the West Bank.
01:37
Under this vision, Jerusalem will remain Israel's undivided,
01:42
very important, undivided capital.
01:47
But all of this came at the expense of the Palestinians,
01:50
who were further marginalised.
01:52
Trump's peace plan, which they rejected,
01:54
prompting clashes between protesters and Israeli armed forces,
01:58
offered Palestinians a smaller, demilitarised state
02:01
and denied millions of refugees the right to return.
02:06
Jerusalem is not for sale.
02:11
And all our rights are not for sale, and not for bargaining.
02:17
Your conspiracy deal won't pass.
02:22
Also during his first term,
02:25
Trump facilitated the normalisation of ties between Israel
02:28
and Gulf Arab states with the Abraham Accords,
02:31
as well as with Morocco and Sudan.
02:34
Although the political landscape has changed since October 7th
02:38
and amid the devastating war in Gaza,
02:41
Trump has renewed his first-term pledge to deliver peace in the Middle East.
02:45
Meanwhile, Netanyahu, having buckled to heavy pressure from Trump
02:49
in agreeing to the ceasefire deal,
02:51
will expect US support over future control of Gaza.
03:22
Constitutionally speaking, that means he's not running again.
03:24
He's going to have a little bit more latitude in foreign policy,
03:28
and in particular in the Middle East,
03:29
which means that whatever unconditional and very strong support
03:34
that you saw for Israel in the first term,
03:36
you might not see it actually in the second term.
03:37
I know this sounds controversial or thought-provoking,
03:39
but that's my assessment, my guess.
03:43
The support is going to have to reconcile
03:45
with two priorities of the administration
03:47
in the second term in the Middle East.
03:48
The first being achieving some kind of peace between Israelis and Palestinians,
03:53
if actually you believe sincerely that the president
03:57
is going to try to go for a Nobel Peace Prize.
04:00
So that's going to require some Israeli concessions.
04:03
And then the second is the issue of Iran, obviously.
04:06
And that requires some kind of stability in the Middle East,
04:09
obviously some kind of a deal,
04:11
or at least an ultimatum to the Iranians.
04:13
And that in itself also is going to require some concessions from the Israelis.
04:17
So that support that we're all very much accustomed to
04:20
from the United States or from the administration,
04:23
it does have a ceiling.
04:25
Bilal, focusing in on the situation in Gaza,
04:29
it was only last March that Jared Kushner was talking about
04:32
a kind of development deal for the Gaza Strip,
04:35
bulldozing it, creating some kind of gated community,
04:40
bussing out Palestinian families
04:42
and putting them somewhere in the Negev Desert.
04:44
When that kind of thing is discussed,
04:47
one can understand why people perhaps are very pessimistic
04:49
or cynical about what might happen under Trump's administration.
04:55
Not necessarily.
04:56
I would have put the cart before the horse.
04:58
I think everybody very much understands that the pathway to
05:02
peace and reconciliation in that part of the world
05:05
is through the one and only two-state solution.
05:08
Even the president himself understands that.
05:10
Whatever economics discussion would happen afterwards,
05:13
that's perfectly fine.
05:14
But I don't think it has to be put at the forefront
05:16
of any Middle East item on the agenda of the administration.
05:20
So, two-state solution.
05:22
You'd say that Trump would sign up for that.
05:24
He realizes that has to happen.
05:26
How would he convince Benjamin Netanyahu to go along with that?
05:30
Well, exactly what I said before.
05:32
I mean, he does have a lot of leverage.
05:33
He does have a very strong desire
05:36
to achieve something really historic in the Middle East.
05:39
He wants to be remembered as someone who did something
05:41
that no other predecessor of his
05:43
in the entire history of US foreign policy has been able to do.
05:46
That requires Israeli concessions.
05:48
Believe it or not, there's going to be a ton of
05:52
behind-the-scenes negotiations between the American leadership
05:54
and the Israeli leadership.
05:56
Actually, it might not be Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu.
05:59
We don't even know his political future.
06:02
The stability of the cabinet itself right now is in question.
06:06
But assuming he survives, given the controversial deal
06:12
that he just signed with Hamas,
06:13
controversial, of course, in the eyes of his extremist colleagues
06:16
in the cabinet, assuming he survives,
06:18
boy, he's going to have some kind of a tough negotiations
06:21
and conversation with President Trump,
06:23
who I believe has no problem using his leverage.
06:26
So Trump will do what needs to be done
06:28
in order to get the result that he wants.
06:32
Is the result that he wants exactly what the result
06:35
that the Palestinians would want?
06:36
I suppose that becomes the question too,
06:37
because they're going to want things on their terms.
06:40
They want things to be the way they would like them to be.
06:43
And perhaps they will not correspond with what Israel wants.
06:47
Yeah, I mean, obviously, the details are always going to be
06:49
very important in here.
06:50
And we've been trying to solve this conflict,
06:52
as you very well know, for decades.
06:53
So I'm not saying any of this is going to be easy.
06:56
But all I'm saying is that there's a little bit more latitude
06:58
on the part of this administration to push for things
07:00
that previous presidents were not able to do
07:03
because of certain influences on US policy.
07:06
I think the president has an enough independent base,
07:09
enough, I would say, autonomous action on foreign policy,
07:13
especially in the Middle East,
07:14
a very strong mandate, remember, with Congress.
07:18
I mean, he's pretty much got a free hand.
07:19
And so it really is up to him, personally speaking,
07:23
giving the order to his senior associates
07:26
working on the Middle East.
07:27
And he's got some heavy hitters.
07:29
Why didn't Joe Biden make as much progress?
07:32
Joe Biden, friend of Israel,
07:34
someone who supported Israel to the nth degree
07:38
over what was happening in Gaza, perhaps,
07:40
tried to get Netanyahu to make his troops cease and desist
07:44
in some way, shape or form.
07:45
But that was never followed up by Israel, of course.
07:48
Why did Biden not make the progress
07:49
that perhaps he would have wanted?
07:52
I don't want to sit here and oversimplify it, obviously.
07:55
But I think it comes down to one thing, one thing only,
07:58
the inability or lack of desire of the former president
08:02
to use his leverage and use the entire might
08:05
of the United States to really push things forward.
08:12
I also don't want to completely discredit the administration.
08:14
I mean, the reason why we're here now with the deal
08:19
is that they've done some work themselves.
08:21
But I also don't want to discredit
08:23
the indirect or psychological influence
08:27
of the incoming administration.
08:29
Because you got to remember, I mean,
08:30
the Israelis knew that President Trump was coming to power.
08:33
And so I bet you that they obviously made concessions
08:37
with that in mind, recognising that whatever
08:39
they put on the table is going to be nicely received,
08:42
positively received by the administration.
08:44
But to your point, my friend, look, I don't know.
08:47
I mean, it's entirely disappointing, obviously,
08:50
very much embarrassing, the fact that we were not
08:52
willing or able to use our leverage.
08:54
But things are going to change with this administration.
08:56
I promise you that.
08:57
Indeed, one hopes there is peace.
08:58
One hopes there are no more deaths.
09:00
And one hopes there's some kind of way
09:01
that these wounds can be healed.
09:04
But of course, it's going to take a lot of time.
09:06
And as part of that, a lot of literal rebuilding.
09:09
Is that something where you think Trump's influence
09:12
will come into play?
09:13
Will there be a kind of a Trump stamp on what is built?
09:16
I'm not suggesting we revisit the Kushner plan,
09:18
but some kind of influence happening there.
09:22
Oh, sure.
09:23
Oh, absolutely.
09:24
And this is someone who has no problem discussing
09:26
economics, investments, reconstruction.
09:28
This is his sort of comfort zone.
09:30
He's got the international connections.
09:32
Everybody's going to want to work with him,
09:34
be it the Europeans, be it the Arab Gulf powers.
09:37
Everybody who's got money, who has a vested interest
09:39
in achieving peace and reconstructing Gaza
09:42
and obviously Lebanon as well,
09:46
is going to work with the president.
09:49
And how important will it be for Donald Trump
09:52
to basically shore up Israel as it is,
09:54
to look further east, of course,
09:56
to what's happening in Syria,
09:57
what's happening in Iran?
09:59
How important is it for Trump to make sure
10:01
that he maintains what he needs there?
10:05
Well, look, let's start with personnel, OK?
10:08
I mean, we still don't have a full picture
10:10
of who's going to be occupying the National Security Council
10:13
in terms of Middle East portfolios, right?
10:14
We do know that he has some personnel there,
10:17
but the team is not ready yet.
10:18
And so these details that you just asked me about right now,
10:21
they're still going to have to be hammered by the new team
10:24
that's going to assume positions
10:26
in the National Security Council
10:27
and also how they're going to find their counterparts
10:30
in the entire interagency in the United States government.
10:33
So that's in the Pentagon, that's in the State Department.
10:35
A lot of people are leaving, right?
10:37
But we still don't have everybody coming in.
10:40
And so that's why you call the transition, obviously.
10:42
A lot of these details that you're asking me about,
10:44
they're going to have to be formulated and coordinated
10:47
with all of these people,
10:48
many of whom are still not in the building.
10:51
So many questions, the answer's yet to come,
10:55
but we sense there is something positive
10:57
moving across the Middle East,
10:58
and perhaps that could be because of the leverage Trump has.
11:01
Bill Al, thank you for joining us
11:03
and giving us this sense of what is to come.
11:05
Pleasure to have you on the programme.
11:07
That's Bill Al Saab,
11:08
Director of Trends Research and Advisory Centre,
11:11
Associate Fellow at Chatham House.
11:12
Thank you for joining us, sir.
11:13
Thank you very much for sharing your analysis with us.
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