Less than a month ago, just after taking the oath to defend the US Constitution, Donald Trump promised to measure his successes "not only by the battles we win but also by the wars that we end – and perhaps most importantly, the wars we never get into." What are we to make of this commitment after Trump declared, on February 4, that the United States "will take over" the Gaza Strip and drive Palestinians out, under the guise of reconstruction that would become a predatory real estate operation guided by the spirit of profit, from which Palestinians would be excluded?
Trump is certainly consistent on this issue: He has always blindly aligned with Israeli positions. The transfer of the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, unilaterally recognizing the city as the capital of Israel, including its eastern part conquered by force in 1967, and the equally unilateral recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Syrian Golan Heights illustrated this during his first term (2017-2021).
By advocating for the war crime of forcibly transferring the Palestinians in Gaza from an enclave ravaged by Israeli bombardment after the Hamas massacres of October 7, 2023, under the guise of vague humanitarian considerations, Trump has taken a further step in this alignment. He is now embracing the vision of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict developed by the racist and supremacist Israeli far right. All the more so as the stunning announcement concerning Gaza could, according to the Republican, soon be accompanied by a stance on possible massive annexations of the occupied West Bank.
Neo-imperialism
By denying the Palestinians their legitimate right to self-determination on the land that is now theirs, Trump is turning historical negationism into the official doctrine of the world's leading power. He must be stopped. Lasting peace can only be achieved through compromise, not by crushing a people, however weak. Such a project, obviously cataclysmic for the Palestinians, would unleash a dangerous Israeli messianism. Neither side stands to gain.
The fact that this negationism is having such an impact on the proposed normalization between Israel and the main regional power, Saudi Arabia, which has conditioned normalization on the creation of a Palestinian state, doesn't seem to faze the US president. Nor does the refusal already expressed by Egypt and Jordan to be accomplices in this ethnic cleansing by sheltering Palestinians driven from their homes. Trump is convinced that the force he has been wielding since his return to the White House takes precedence over everything else.
More than two decades ago, this belief led another Republican administration, in the wake of 9/11, to opt for warring ventures in the Middle East. The US did lasting damage to its image, lost thousands of soldiers and sunk colossal sums of money for the very opposite of the desired results. Trump entered politics a decade ago by denouncing these errors and now defends a neo-imperialism and neo-colonialism with boots on the ground. Instead of restoring America's "greatness," as he claims, he risks dragging it back into its bloody past.