“What is past is prologue.”
William Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act 2, Scene I
US President Biden’s shrinking approval rates led many pundits to consider Trump’s return to the White House. What this return means for the US foreign policy is subject to wide speculations.
From NATO to East Asia, from reinforcing the Mexican border to ‘Muslim travel bans’, Donald Trump is again the talk of the town. While Trump promises to swiftly solve the ongoing war in Ukraine ‘in one day‘, his fictitious foreign policy wizardry may not be the panacea to solve the Palestinian conundrum. In fact, the prequel of this movie sets the scene for the sequel’s worsening plot.
From 2017 to 2021, the Trump administration, which claimed to foster a Pax Americana in the Middle East, subtly shifted the dynamics from those left by the Obama administration towards a scenario more advantageous to Israel, dimming the prospects for a two-state solution.
The Prequel
Trump administration’s inauspicious story began with the recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in December 2017. Several months later, in May 2018, the US embassy was relocated from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, accompanied by the appointment of Trump’s lawyer David M. Friedman to the mission. Friedman, a staunch Zionist, supported the illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank and vehemently opposed the two-state solution.
During the 2018-19 Great March of Return, a series of peaceful protests that were forcibly repressed, in which Israeli forces killed a total of 223 Palestinians, Trump’s UN Ambassador, Nikki Haley, portrayed the incident as Hamas using civilians as shields, and blaming ‘terrorist proxies’ for causing the violence.
Later on, the Trump administration left the UN Human Rights Council, citing “chronic bias against Israel” as the rationale behind the decision. Additionally, in 2018, aid to the United Nations Relief and Work Agency (UNRWA) was slashed by the Trump administration, aiming to coerce Palestinians into acquiescing to the envisioned regional peace plan and, consequently, recognising Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
Subsequently, in September 2020, the master stroke of the Trump administration consisted of circumventing the Palestinians and signing the so-called Abraham Accords. These agreements were signed with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, initially followed by Sudan and Morocco, and aimed to normalise officially the relations, irrespective of the Palestinian Cause, which essentially bolstered Israel’s position in the region.
The Sequel
Trump’s speeches or interviews on foreign policy operate on a binary discourse. Firstly, there’s the approach of “If it were me, these things would not have happened,” which often leads him to cite examples from his tenure. Secondly, there’s the magical touch narrative: “When I come in, I will instantly solve XYZ issue in foreign policy.”
When examining Israel’s war on Gaza, both these approaches are nothing but classic Trump populism. This reality doesn’t mean he is not going to make things worse for Gaza if re-elected.
In this scenario, the second Trump administration would likely follow a threefold approach: First, provide unconditional and full support to Israel. Second, continuing the cementing of Israel’s legitimacy in the region. And third, compelling the Palestinian resistance to capitulate.
From this perspective, a second Trump term would endorse the hard-liners in Israel and endeavour to destroy the Gazan resistance and enable the deportation of the Palestinians from Gaza.
Trump’s transactional approach leaves little room for dialogue or compromise, using more sticks than carrots. Hence, one can expect maximum pressure to be exerted on Iran, which is perceived as the funder of Hamas and an increased American military presence in the region to counter Iranian proxies, such as the Houthis. Qatar, which is currently mediating the release of Israeli captives, could also bear the brunt of an upcoming Republican administration.
This trajectory could set the scene for a war between Hezbollah and Israel, described by the Foreign Policy magazine as ‘inevitable.’
Trump could also accelerate the normalisation drive prompted by the Abraham Accords. Riyadh could be key in this strategy. It is worth noting that a Saudi-Israeli normalisation under Trump’s leadership would not pick up from where Biden left off. Instead, Riyadh might demand a far higher price, such as top-level security guarantees for the Kingdom (akin to NATO).
This price is not as cheap as the previous concessions like the removal of Sudan from the list of terrorist states or acceptance of Morocco’s territorial claims in Western Sahara. In American diplomacy, the use of incentives and penalties is crucial, yet under Trump, any agreement involving Israel would largely hinge on conditions set by the US. Furthermore, it’s unlikely for a leader with a distaste for NATO to extend additional security umbrellas.
In essence, if Trump makes a comeback to the Oval Office, unencumbered by the pressures of re-election, unlike Biden, prospects for addressing the Israeli-Palestinian conundrum—be it curtailing Israel’s broad-scale assaults on civilians or considering pathways to a two-state resolution—seem dim. The actions from his initial term suggest a similar trajectory for a potential second term.
This article originally appeared in the website of South China Morning Post.
