Trumpeting a solution
Nearly three weeks ago when the U.S. President Donald Trump resumed his second White House four-year term as the 47th President, he lost little time in coming into action. On the very first day of his swearing in on January 20, he cleared nearly 250 executive orders to honour his umpteen promises.
One of the most outstanding, among his many commitments, was ending the 15-month-long conflict in the Middle East that he had called as ‘his proudest legacy of a peacemaker’: the ‘beginning of a ceasefire in Gaza as an emblem of a theme for his second presidency.’ And, therefore, unequivocally, he had said in no certain terms, he announced that he wanted to ‘take over’ the Gaza Strip, adding ‘we’ll own it, level it out, create an economic development and make it ‘Riviera of the Middle East,’ an enchanting tourist spot, open to the ‘people of the world’ to settle down. Being an instinctively intrepid real estate developer Trump himself that could be the Trump family’s covetous Mammon bonanza in the years to come. And, simultaneously also a side-elbow support for his son Donald Trump Jr.’s expanding global business enterprises. For daughter Ivanka and her husband, Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner – a swiftly accelerating worldwide real estate venturist.
He added: “We will measure our success not only the battles we end but also by the wars we end.” Israelis and their ardent supporters hailed President Trump’s this extraordinarily amazing halt-war-and build-for-prosperity offer. While the Gazans demurred, their Arab adherents were first skeptical but immediately soon later rejected it.
The Trump proposal was termed as the ‘death-knell for the two-state solution,’ as it was deemed to ‘sound like Trump’s dig in on take-over but Palestinian settlement.’ Meanwhile, it was branded as Israel’s hidden agenda to “destroy the Hamas’s military and its governing capabilities, to secure the release of all the Israeli hostages, and ensure that Gaza never again poses a threat to Israel.’’ And The New York Times described it as ‘the prospect for creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel could vanish altogether if the United States takes over Gaza and displaces the population’ which President Trump has suggested. And if it’s translated, it will bring an earthquake in the Middle East.
Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority also has ‘categorically rejected’ US President Donald Trump’s proposal to relocate the residents of the Gaza Strip. Authority’s statement adds, “The Palestinian leadership affirms its position that the two-nation solution, in accordance with international legitimacy and international law, is the guarantee of security, stability and peace,’’ according to the secretary general of the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Hussein al-Sheikh. The two-state solution provides for Israel and a Palestine state to co-exist as independent states.
Also, that’s why almost all Arab countries vehemently rejected the Trump proposal. And it’s well known that Saudi Arabia has expressed its firm opposition to this alternative, affirming that a Palestinian state has to be created to be able to establish diplomatic relations with Israel for a lasting peace in the region. Trump’s recent post on his Social Media platform, Truth-Social, has threatened that the U.S. could take over Gaza without sending in soldiers and that Palestinians would be resettled elsewhere in the region with new and modern homes, and would have a chance to be happy, safe and free.’
On the contrary, joining Saudi Arabia, many other severe opponents joined in. Egypt is learned to have already ‘launched a diplomatic blitz, against the Trump proposal. The Arabs’ opposition to the proposal has also received unprecedented backing fearing that if the area is vacated, it will ‘never allow refugees to return,’ saying that the Trump administration has not provided adequate details about how or when the plan would be carried out. Only a generalized announcement has been made that the rebuilding process will likely take ten/fifteen years. After all that, the situation will suddenly become normal and Jordan followed closely in rejecting the Trump proposal.
Be that as it may, President Trump’s loyalist Republican Congressmen have also raised serious flaws: A news outlet, ‘The Hill’, has averred, ‘Trump’s Gaza plans fall flat with GOP lawmakers.’ The plan has been dismissed as ‘unrealistic,’ albeit some pointing out the need for ‘fresh ideas’ to address ‘a bloody conflict spanning decades that has defied years of efforts to broker peace.’
The fact is that quite a few ranking Republican Senators have opined against the proposal: The Republican Party’s Rand Paul of Kentucky says: “I think it’s really a dumb idea to talk of having U.S troops in Gaza. It’s the last place on earth I would send U.S. troops, and I won’t support it.” He added that ‘the idea of Americans going in on the ground in Gaza is a non-starter for every senator.’
Another very senior Republican, Senator Lindsey Graham (South Carolina), who is deemed to be the strongest Trump supporter has warned that the U.S.-led attempt to remove the Palestinians from Gaza would be ‘very problematic.” Hardly has any international think tank or peace-making organization spoken about it approvingly or amiably. In any case, the fact is that the Trump proposal has also not found any watershed support among senior political opinion makers or commentators. The New York Times alluded to as ‘a plan put forward without details or consultation.’ ‘President’s Gaza plan may torpedo the two-state solution.’
Finally, what a senior fellow at the Middle East Programme at the American Think Tank, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Natasha Hall, has said probably sums up the current unsettled and uncommitted global view on this very knotty enigma that has yet to be sorted out even after decades of wrangling among the world’s best brains and ace thinkers for the loss of hundreds of lives, uncalculated property destructions, unaccounted multiple plans to wrestle wit it.
Prof. M. R. Dua, former professor-head, journalism department, Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC), New Delhi, and an ex-faculty Journalism, California State University, US
