https://arab.news/m8k9g
It is quite hard to know where to begin with the news that the US president has had a revelation that the way forward in the Middle East is to move not those who are occupying land illegally, but to evict those who have been bombed to destruction in Gaza so as to redevelop it for hotels and apartments.
However, let us unpick the headline. Behind the breathtaking absurdity of the proposed solution — rightly denounced by Arab states including Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan — lies a land of catastrophic destruction, people in need and a political minefield across an entire region that demands urgent attention. There are now no voices claiming that the situation between Israel and the Palestinians can be “managed.”
There was a sharp contrast in power at the press conference where President Donald Trump made his remarks. On the one hand was a president, flushed with electoral success, in complete political command of all branches of government and possessing a belief that he can now do exactly what he wants. On the other was a weakened Israeli prime minister, not in full control of his Cabinet, who could fairly claim that his actions against Hezbollah and Iran had changed the dynamics in the region, but at huge cost and without either defeating Hamas or freeing the cruelly taken hostages.
There is a logic to the new US position if you see the whole region as one vast real estate plot and believe that business and money can overcome everything. If you are not a politician, and have seen politics fail time and again, why would you not think that something different is worth a try? Gaza is indeed now a wasteland, where the condition of the people is desperate and will be for some time. Who would not want the prospect of living in the same location, but one which was safe, thriving and bustling, and making a good living? After all, he would say, barely 300 km away is Beirut, once truly the Riviera of the Mediterranean.
A moment’s reflection would remind you of the reality behind the comparison. As Lebanon and the suffering of Beirut has illustrated, the region is not real estate and it is not a new land. It is history, as well as both current and past politics.
If you have seen politics fail time and again, why would you not think that something different is worth a try?
Alistair Burt
The removal of Palestinians in Gaza as some form of logistical challenge was presented like cleaning up a landslip before construction can begin. This is reminiscent of the carelessness with the displacement of Palestinians in the past. Almost everything in the current-day understanding of the issues between Israel and its neighbor demands an awareness of the Nakba and its influence. Israel itself is a response to the historic Jewish diaspora of centuries, and the region is filled with memory, poetry and story of home, exile, the longing for return and the misery of enforced movement.
That is why, at the beginning of this round of conflict, Egypt and Jordan were clear that they would not take refugees from Gaza. They knew that Palestinians would rightly fear that, once they left Gaza, there would be little chance of a return and that their own populations would likely be violently opposed to any collusion in such a plan. They still are.
This fear is rightly bolstered by the development of hard-line Israeli politics. The racism represented by Meir Kahane and his followers, which would once never have been countenanced by a decent Israeli leadership, is now a potent force in the government itself, to the dismay of many other Israelis. Extremist settlers, too often protected by the Israeli state, terrorize Palestinian villagers in the West Bank and make no secret of their intention to push them out for the exclusive use of the territory by Jewish Israelis. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who can still make or break Benjamin Netanyahu’s Cabinet, openly calls for Israeli sovereignty and annexation.
Is it any wonder that the idea of the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in Gaza, whatever the excuse given, looks exactly like what it is: the delivery of the most carefully-thought-out, hard-line, extremist Israeli political agenda?
The tragedy of what has happened will be compounded if the possibility of a better option is lost
Alistair Burt
The tragedy of what has happened will be compounded if the possibility of a better option is lost. Saudi Arabia’s rapid response to the president’s suggestion was “to reaffirm its unequivocal rejection of any infringement on the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people, through … attempts to displace the Palestinian people from their land.” It has reinforced its commitment to a Palestinian state as part of any normalization with Israel.
And there lies the better option. President Trump is right to say that, if we keep trying the same things, then there will be conflict everlasting. Something different is worth a try. It is called a Palestinian state and a normalized Israel, based on the Global Alliance for Implementation of the Two-State Solution.
Could it possibly be that he has, unwittingly or not, thrown out the challenge: if you do not like what I am suggesting, what have you got instead?
It is time to deliver the better option.
Alistair Burt is a former UK member of Parliament who has twice held ministerial positions in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office; as parliamentary undersecretary of state from 2010 to 2013 and as minister of state for the Middle East from 2017 to 2019. X: @AlistairBurtUK