U.S. President Donald Trump addressed Israel’s Knesset on Monday, becoming the first sitting American president to do so since George W. Bush in 2008.
The speech was mainly intended as a victory lap for Trump and an opportunity for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and opposition leader Yair Lapid, to lavish the praise on Trump that he enjoys so much. Several key points, however, emerged from the hour-long, often rambling speech.
Trump emphasized his view that “the long and difficult war has ended,” repeating a point he made before departing Washington amid questions about the feasibility of the “20-Point Plan” that brought about the current ceasefire and hostage exchange.
His assertion has been questioned due to uncertainties about the details of his plan. With the release of all the living Israeli hostages and threats from Netanyahu that he might resume Israel’s onslaught in Gaza, more questions have been raised. Ongoing violence between Hamas forces and local militias, including those that have been set up by Israel over the past months, have also cast doubt about the durability of the plan.
Trump stressed his view that this agreement represented the “dawn of a new Middle East,” among other, similar statements that promoted the vision of a Mideast largely unified around the so-called “Abraham Accords,” the agreement his son-in-law Jared Kushner pioneered during Trump’s first term that saw the united Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan, and, later Morocco, sign normalization deals with Israel.
Trump repeatedly returned to this theme, emphasizing the great economic potential for Israel in partnering with ultra-wealthy Gulf Arab monarchies through the Abraham Accords.
The Accords are viewed by many critics as a tool to sideline diplomacy in the struggle for Palestinian freedom. They fly in the face of the long-held diplomatic foundation, codified in the Arab Peace Initiative of 2002, of withholding formal recognition of Israel—and the economic, diplomatic, and military ties recognition could lead to—until Palestinian rights are realized.
Crucially, Trump avoided language that could, in any way, be interpreted as connecting an end to Israel’s occupation of Palestine with normalization of relations between Israel and the Arab world. This continues a pattern of separating those two issues that ahs long been an Israeli goal and was advanced both by Trump during his first term as well as by Joe Biden during his time in the White House.
Trump also avoided any mention of specific steps that might be taken either to realize the vision of a “region transformed and a beautiful and much brighter future,” or to fully implement a sustainable rebuilding and reorganizing plan in Gaza. While this omission could bring more attention to the questions about Trump’s plan, it also avoided increasing the heat on Netanyahu from his most extreme right-wing allies who are not happy with the end of the genocide in Gaza.
Trump told the assembled Israeli lawmakers, “Now you have peace, you have people who really like Israel… You’ve come back strong because it was getting to be a little nasty out there in the world. And ultimately the world wins, you can’t beat the world… And we don’t have to worry about that now.”
“Israel, with our help, has won all that they can by force of arms,” Trump added. “You’ve won…now it’s time to translate those victories against terrorists on the battlefield into the ultimate prize of peace and prosperity for the entire Middle East.”
This was a clear message to Israel and to Netanyahu that Trump, along with his allies in Arab world, wants to see stability returned to the region, and that rampant Israeli adventurism was no longer acceptable. It was also a warning that Israel cannot survive in isolation, a direct rebuke of Netanyahu’s recent comments about turning Israel into a “modern-day Sparta” that could be self-sufficient without cooperation with the rest of the world.
But Trump offered little to Palestinians, and made no mention of their rights, much less any notion of ending Israel’s dominance over them.
Instead, Trump echoed well-worn American talking points about the Palestinians, stating that, “The choice for Palestinians could not be more clear. This is their chance to turn forever from the path of terror and violence…And I think that’s going to happen…Now is the time to concentrate on building their people up instead of trying to tear Israel down.”
Trump said he wanted to be a partner to Palestinians’ economic development so that their children have a better life. But he said that this partnership would be embodied by his sitting as chair of the so-called “Board of Peace” that is supposed to govern Gaza as it rebuilds. This was the extent of the commitment Trump made to a Palestinian future.
His speech was briefly interrupted by two members of the Knesset from the Hadash party, Ayman Odeh and Ofer Cassif who held up a sign calling on Trump to recognize the state of Palestine. They were quickly ushered from the room, and with them, most of what little attention toward the Palestinian people there was as well.
“Israel, with our help, has won all that they can by force of arms,” Trump added.
Can anyone explain why Netanyahu couldn’t have offered the same plan as the current Trump-inspired one a year ago, and saved thousands of lives?
What’s more, any achievement that Israel can point to in Gaza, in terms of diminishing Hamas’s fighting capabilities and damaging its tunnel network, happened months ago.** In the weeks since then, thousands more Gazans, and dozens of Israeli soldiers, were killed. These lives, and the lives of more hostages, could perhaps have been saved. Israel’s international standing, too, is at a nadir. Many countries have now unilaterally recognized a Palestinian state.
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https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-lede/the-end-of-israels-hostage-ordeal