Nizar Farsakh is a Palestinian-American political analyst with extensive experience in the Israel-Palestine conflict as well as the US’s Middle East policy. Nizar advised the last two Palestinian ambassadors to Washington D.C. (2011-2017) and had worked as a political advisor to senior Palestinian leaders (including the President, Prime Minister, and several ministries) in his capacity as member of the Palestinian negotiating team (2003 to 2008). Nizar is currently Lecturer of International Affairs at George Washington University where he teaches a graduate negotiation skills course.
Trump’s shock announcement at the press conference with Netanyahu that the US “plans to take over the war-ravaged Gaza Strip” took everyone by surprise and has drawn reactions from around the world, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Was it a tactical move or real intent? If tactical, any gain will be short-lived. But if it is actual, then it’ll most likely backfire.
We know from Trump’s first term that his modus operandi is to overwhelm his opponents with a flood of provocative, often confusing statements to keep them busy reacting rather than sparring him. It keeps him in control as he forces everyone else to play on his turf. Trump trumps with fantasies and provocative statements.
Tactically, it also spikes the threshold of what people accept as “normal”. So let’s see what could come out of his approach. For the Palestinians, the suggestion is offensive and abhorrent. His plan and statement was met with anger and disbelief by Palestinians.
Uprooting and dispossession is the essence of the Palestinian trauma spanning four generations. Palestinians are steeped in a history of trauma and it still continues. Geography is not tangential and the land is not real-estate. We saw pictures of people choosing to live on the rubble of their destroyed house rather than leave to another place. So even if some Gazans did want to leave, Trump’s statement made it less likely. Also, Gazans of today are survivors of many such attempts at uprooting them.
In 1971, Ariel Sharon ordered the demolition of some 2,000 homes in refugee camps in the Gaza Strip, uprooting 16,000 people for the second time in their lives. Sinwar and Hanieh would have been eight years old then. Those people didn’t leave. Even after the United Nations reported in 2012 that the Strip will be “unlivable” by 2020 if the situation is not remedied, the people stayed.
Gazans are not super beings and there is only so much they can endure. So probably thousands would want to relocate, even if temporarily for medical, educational, or economic reasons. Some would leave permanently simply for tranquility of their mind. That means that those who stay will be battle-hardened tenacious ones.
Those to whom Gaza took an even deeper meaning far, surviving the war gave that forsaken strip almost a mythical status that the remaining Gazans will hold on to even more fiercely. As to the Jordanians, their relationship with Palestinian refugees is a fraught one to say the least.
With 70% of the population being originally Palestinian, the monarch needs to tread carefully between appearing to support Gaza while at the same time cooperating with US and Israeli demands. The government tried to justify not severing relations with Israel as a necessary evil aimed at maintainingJordan’s ability to function as a hub for aid going to Gaza. Yet with every report on Israeli obstruction of aid, the Jordanian government’s fig leaf slips further and further.
Even with the critical dependence on Israel for water and energy, the Jordanian monarch needs to weigh that against the real possibility of losing his reign. The anger is not only coming from that majority of Palestinian origins, but also from the Jordanian tribes that form the bedrock of Hashemite rule.
There were three attacks in less than 90 days, two at the border in September and October and one at the Israeli embassy in Amman in November. One wonders whether the King allowed these attacks to slip as a reminder to the Israelis of who protects their longest border, or whether the outrage in Jordan is so intense and ubiquitous that his famed security services are unable to keep up.
Remarkably, the September attack was by truck driver from the Howeitat tribe that is famous for being a bulwark of support for the Hashemites. As to Egypt, the case is simpler. They already have a hard time taming the Sinai as is, and their economy is struggling to reduce unemployment levels or inflation. The last thing they want is catering to thousands of Palestinians, let alone a million.
Especially when these Palestinians lost most of their assets and will take years of dependence on welfare before they can start contributing a net positive to the economy. When we add the fact that a sizable portion of those sympathize with Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, one can see how the Egyptian regime would see them as a clear danger. One is hard pressed to come up with any incentive Trump can offer that would offset the downside of absorbing that human mass.
Therefore, try as he may, Trump won’t get the peace deal he’s pining for by dismissing Palestinian demands. That has been the case since the beginning of the peace process. And that’s exactly what the Arab Peace Initiative explicitly promised in 2002.
Proposed by the Saudis and adopted by the Arab League, that proposal offered wholesale normalization with all Arab states in return for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. In 2008, the offer was expanded to include Muslim majority countries bringing the total to 57 countries.
Yet, successive Israeli governments dismissed these overtures. It is therefore hard to see what incentive the Saudi crown prince has to normalize with Israel now that the stakes are much higher than they were on October 6th. Trump’s shock therapy may be his favorite tool, but it seems to have backfired this time. It hit a nerve for key allies he needed to secure a deal and pushed them into closing ranks. After all, a cornered cat turns into a tiger.
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