Frederick Deknatel is the Executive Editor of Democracy in Exile, the DAWN journal.
What does Donald Trump's stunning win over Vice President Kamala Harris in the U.S. presidential election mean not just for America but the wider world? At home, the chaos and upheaval of Trump's first term may quickly be eclipsed in his second, with his promises of "retribution" and near-blanket immunity granted by the Supreme Court. Abroad, Trump's "America First" agenda could be even less restrained, especially in the Middle East.
When Trump's first term ended, his administration had just brokered the Abraham Accords to normalize relations with Israel and several Arab regimes, including the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. President Joe Biden attempted to best the Abraham Accords with an elusive normalization deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia—an agreement that could now be finalized by Trump. Will Trump 2.0 make Saudi Arabia his first foreign trip as president, like he did in 2017?
A president who promotes himself as a "dealmaker" faces an ongoing Israeli war that has devastated Gaza and now Lebanon—and is being waged by an Israeli prime minister who celebrated Trump's reelection. In his first term, Trump gave Israel everything it wanted, and then some. Far-right Israeli ministers already see Trump's return to the White House as a green light for West Bank annexation.
How the Trump White House will even confront these and so many other issues in the region is another question, given the loyalists and sycophants Trump is nominating to his Cabinet so far.
DAWN's non-resident fellows, all scholars and experts, take stock of how a second Trump term will reverberate in the Middle East, a region that is once again "holding its breath."
Despite all the Biden administration's rhetoric, it enabled the same forces that will now be accelerated by Trump, and we cannot afford to pretend otherwise.
- Yara M. Asi
Nader Hashemi
Director of the Alwaleed Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding and associate professor of Middle East and Islamic politics at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University
Trump's reelection is an obvious disaster for our world. Its effect on the Middle East will also be catastrophic. A second Trump administration will double down on policies that are the key drivers of instability in the region—most of all, support for repressive regimes that oppose democratization, disdain human rights, reject accountability, squander resources and deny citizens a voice in their own government.
Some analysts have argued that Trump's Middle East policy would have a muted impact on the region, because of the bipartisan consensus that shapes American Middle East policy. I disagree. All the evidence points in the opposite direction. I predict that four years from now there will be more regional instability, chaos and more dead across the entire region. The biggest beneficiaries will be the forces of radical Islamic extremism who will gain new recruits as the region sinks further into mass misery.
Let us establish a few facts at the outset. The Republican Party is a deeply anti-Arab, Islamophobic and anti-Palestinian party. Recall that during this election campaign, Trump repeatedly used the word Palestinian as a slur to attack Biden and other top Democrats. According to Trump, Sen. Chuck Schumer was acting "like a Palestinian" because of his mild criticism of Netanyahu.
Many of the key figures that will shape American Middle East policy share this worldview. In fact, many of them are to the political right of Netanyahu. They will enthusiastically support the ethnic cleansing and expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza, Israel's annexation of the West Bank, a continuation of the war in Lebanon, the sanctioning of the International Criminal Court, more weapons sales to Israel, and punishment for any state or entity that recognizes a Palestinian state.
Recall, in January 2020, with Netanyahu by his side, when Trump announced his so-called "peace plan" for Israelis and Palestinians, which essentially gave Israel everything it wanted. While the Palestinians obviously rejected it, pro-Israel Arab dictators unsurprisingly embraced it. The Emirati ambassador to Washington, Yousef al-Otaiba, called the plan, which read as if it was written by Netanyahu himself, "a serious initiative that addresses many issues raised over the years." The House of Saud gave a more lukewarm endorsement, but still credited "the efforts of President Trump's administration to develop a comprehensive peace plan."
In 2025, we can expect the incoming Trump administration to reintroduce their plan to "end" the Israel-Palestine conflict. It will likely come in the context of reviving the Saudi-Israel normalization talks in the context of the Abraham Accords. Whether Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman will entertain this option, given the genocide in Gaza and outraged public opinion in the Arab-Islamic world, remains to be seen.
And then there is Iran. This where we will see the biggest contrast between the foreign policies of Biden and Trump. Recall, in 2018, when Trump tore up the Iran nuclear deal and imposed crippling sanctions on Iran. During Trump's first term, the U.S. and Iran almost went to war on three occasions. The last time was in January 2020 after Trump ordered the assassination of Iran's top general, Qassem Suleimani, in Baghdad. This produced an Iranian missile attack on American military bases in Iraq that injured dozens of American troops. Trump publicly identified 52 targets in Iran, including cultural sites, that he warned would be attacked if Iran's response to Suleimani's death killed any American troops. Thankfully, at the last moment, both sides de-escalated.
Will they next time, with Iran hawks like Brian Hook and Richard Grenell soon back in power in Washington?
Looking at the next four years, the picture looks extremely grim. I'm reminded of that famous aphorism about life during difficult times. It now applies to U.S. Middle East policy. Just when you think you have hit rock bottom, and it can't get any worse, think again. It can, and it will, get worse.
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Yara M. Asi
Assistant professor of global health management and informatics at the University of Central Florida, and the author of How War Kills: The Overlooked Threats to Our Health
Not surprisingly, in this American presidential election, Palestinians and their allies did not trust a president of the United States who defunded UNRWA as famine was looming in Gaza; recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital; refused to reopen a consulate for Palestinians in East Jerusalem, as he had promised during his campaign; offered Israel complete political and diplomatic support as its military killed more than 40,000 Palestinians in Gaza, while Israeli soldiers and settlers terrorized Palestinians in the West Bank; spent $18 billion in military aid to Israel in just one year; and criticized and delegitimized the International Criminal Court and International Court of Justice when they attempted to hold Israel accountable for its actions.
That president, of course, was not Donald Trump, but Joe Biden.
The reality is that on the issue of Palestine, there was no tangible difference between the Biden administration and its predecessor. The Biden administration, in fact, continued multiple Trump initiatives in the region, including the delegitimization campaign of UNRWA and promotion of the Abraham Accords. Vice President Kamala Harris, in her bid to succeed Biden, promised no difference in her approach to foreign policy—or any policy, for that matter—and ignored the efforts of activist groups to take a different approach.
Of course, policy on Palestine is not why Harris lost the election. But can the pundits and others currently blaming Arabs, Muslims and Palestinians and their allies for Harris's loss point to what, if any, substantive change they might predict on Middle East policy now that Trump has won? Biden has stood by Israeli policies and practices, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu specifically, as Israel has blockaded aid into Gaza, bombed nearly every hospital in the besieged territory, depopulated northern Gaza, expanded settlement infrastructure in the West Bank, and extended its bombing campaign into Lebanon.
Occasional "leaks" from his administration indicate that behind the scenes, Biden was privately against Israel's behavior, perhaps in a way that Trump would not be. But Biden's private feelings, if these stories are true, did not appear to have any impact on U.S. policy. The few minor efforts at holding Israel accountable were limited to sanctioning Israeli settlers, which admittedly Trump will likely not do, but were ultimately toothless. The Biden administration was apparently shocked about Israel deliberately limiting aid into Gaza—a sentiment we probably won't see from a Trump administration. But instead of pushing its ally to allow more aid in—and comply with U.S. laws—the Biden administration spent hundreds of millions of dollars to build a pier that, in total, brought in fewer goods than could have been brought by land in a single day. It has since been dismantled.
Daily, Biden's spokespeople were telling the country that Israel was doing nothing wrong, and that events that certainly looked wrong from the outside were being investigated. Oddly, not a single one of those investigations appear to have been completed in Biden's tenure. The Trump administration might not pretend to do investigations at all, but to Palestinians, is there a meaningful difference? And not just Palestinians: Four American citizens were killed by the Israeli military in just the past year, with near silence from the U.S. government.
Israel's right-wing ministers are celebrating that with Trump in power, Israel can now explicitly annex the West Bank. But anyone with knowledge of the situation on the ground recognizes that this has, in effect, already happened. Unlike Trump, the Biden administration pretends that it is still supportive of a two-state solution. How? Unclear. When? At some point. In the meantime? They're investigating, and they'll get back to you. Is pretending to be anti-annexation while allowing it to happen materially different than supporting the annexation that's underway?
The Palestinians face an unprecedented period of difficulty under a second Trump term, one that may have existential ramifications for Palestinian rights. But despite all the Biden administration's rhetoric, it enabled the same forces that will be accelerated by Trump, and we cannot afford to pretend otherwise.
Diana Buttu
Palestinian lawyer, writer and former adviser to the negotiating team of the Palestine Liberation Organization
During his first term, Donald Trump began the process of fulfilling Israel's ultimate wish list by erasing Palestinians. All that was left off was the complete shutting down of UNRWA, the elimination of the Palestinian Authority and the annexation of the West Bank. In his second term, Trump will undoubtedly fulfill the wish list completely.
It is important to keep in mind that none of Trump's policies—with the exception of resuming funds to UNRWA and the PA—were undone by President Joe Biden. Rather, his administration not only continued those policies but have underwritten Israel's genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. The Biden administration created the environment of permissibility—an environment that Israel and Trump together will exploit. So let's examine all of these remaining items on Israel's wish list.
UNRWA. Israel passed legislation late last month shutting down UNRWA. While there has been much international criticism, the U.S. has done nothing to stop Israel—and under Trump will definitely not do so.
Palestinian Authority. Mahmoud Abbas, who in January will be in office for 20 years (though elected to only four), may not live to see the end of Trump's second term. He turns 89 this month and has neither appointed a successor nor lay the groundwork for future elections. Without reconciliation and without elections, coupled with the measures that the current far-right Israeli finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, has put in place, the end of the Palestinian Authority is soon near.
Annexation. In the lead up to the U.S. presidential election, it was clear that Israel was planning its next moves based on a Trump victory. All over the West Bank, Israel has erected roadblocks, checkpoints and remotely controlled gates to surround Palestinian cities and towns. At the same time, Israel completed the construction of several new bypass roads. The physical outcome is clear: Israel is preparing to annex the West Bank, leaving Palestinians in ghettos, encouraged to leave, with daily attacks by the Israeli army and Israeli settlers.
Gaza. While Trump has indicated that he wants to see an end to Israel's war in Gaza—he, of course, does not call it a genocide—Trump has not defined what an "end" will be. With more than two months remaining before Trump takes office, and with so little regard from Trump and his loyalists for Palestinian life, one can only imagine what Gaza will look like in January, following Israel's plans all along: to "thin" the population of Gaza Strip "to a minimum," permanently reducing Gaza's size and forcibly displacing Palestinians, never allowing them to return. In other words, ethnic cleansing.
We are witnessing Nakba 2.0—just as Israeli politicians labeled it—with American blessing.
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Omar Dewachi
Associate professor of medical anthropology and global health at Rutgers and the author of Ungovernable Life: Mandatory Medicine and Statecraft in Iraq
During my recent travels in the Middle East, a cautious hope about the U.S. election surfaced in nearly every conversation, colored by an unmistakable sense of dissonance. For many, Joe Biden's presidency has come to feel like an empty promise—strong in words but hollow in action, especially on issues like the violence in Gaza and beyond. His administration's approach, far from balanced, seems marked by glaring double standards. From Washington, the rhetoric sounds increasingly out of touch with the brutal realities on the ground, leaving people disillusioned with what feels like selective diplomacy.
In contrast, across the region, Donald Trump's blunt and unpredictable rhetoric has a strange appeal. People speculated that his return might bring the shake-up they've been waiting for, even if the outcome remains uncertain. His "what's-in-it-for-me" approach suggests a willingness to take risks for what he sees as real change, unbound by traditional norms.
Now, with Trump back in the White House, the region is holding its breath. Some hope he'll pull back from conflicts, giving the Middle East a chance to recalibrate, while others brace for him to double down on alliances that entrench existing power dynamics. The next four years under Trump may deliver a jolt to U.S. policy in the Middle East, whether through withdrawal or by pushing diplomatic boundaries. For now, the region waits, caught between Biden's selective inaction and the disruptive promise—or perhaps threat—of Trump, as the dissonance between words and action in American policy grows louder than ever.
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Mouin Rabbani
Co-editor of Jadaliyya and non-resident fellow at the Center for Conflict and Humanitarian Studies
It is particularly difficult to make confident predictions about foreign policy when discussing leaders as erratic and unpredictable as Donald Trump. This task is further complicated by the significant differences in both the Middle East and Washington when compared to his first administration.
These contradictions are most evident with respect to Iran, which will in turn influence U.S. policy on other regional issues. During Trump's first term, the interests and positions of Israel and Washington's Arab client regimes were largely in alignment, particularly in support of the Trump administration's renunciation of the Iran nuclear deal, or JCPOA, and the policy of "maximum pressure" that replaced it.
In 2024, by contrast, these interests and positions have significantly diverged. Israel is an open advocate of military escalation against Iran, while the Gulf states are promoting de-escalation. The latter see an Israel they once viewed as a reliable security partner determined to set the region aflame and, with memories of the first Trump administration's failure to defend them from attack by Iran and its allies still fresh, are keen to avoid being consumed by the resultant fires. The just-concluded joint summit in Riyadh of the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, which was much more hostile to Israel and more supportive of Iran than its 2023 edition, provides a good indication of this shift in regional priorities.
Another part of the puzzle concerns the respective levels of influence Israel and the Arab states are willing to exercise in Washington. Will Israel once again take the lead in translating Trump's instincts on the Middle East into concrete policy, or will Arab governments this time push the White House in a different direction because it directly affects their core interests? Israel may well succeed in putting "maximum pressure" against Tehran on steroids, while getting U.S. approval to annex all Israeli settlements if not the entire West Bank. Yet one can also envisage the Saudis and others persuading the new administration that if Israel gets its way, Trump can forget about additional normalization agreements with Israel and also won't see any limits placed on Gulf relations with China.
The names emerging for Trump's national security and foreign policy team are all certified Iran hawks and Israel flunkies. That said, they're hardly a radical break with their predecessors, and feigned earnestness notwithstanding, there's precious little to distinguish, for example, Marco Rubio from Antony Blinken. Trump's inclinations, his appointments and the influence-peddling by Israel and Arab governments will shape the second Trump administration's policies. But the regional realities that both Biden and Netanyahu will bequeath to the new administration come January will also play a central role.
Trump's reelection is an obvious disaster for our world. Its effect on the Middle East will also be catastrophic.
- Nader Hashemi
Michael Lynk
Former United Nations Special Rapporteur for human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory, from 2016 to 2022, and associate professor of law, Western University
To understand where the incoming Trump administration may be heading regarding the intertwined issues of Palestine and Israel, let's first recall three decisive features of the first Trump presidency.
First, Trump surrounded himself with advisers on Israel and Palestine who were all diplomatic dilettantes but, more importantly, were rabid members of the Potomac branch of the Likud. Trump, of course, knew very little himself about Palestine and the Israeli occupation, and allowed these advisers to shape much of his policy.
Second, their policy accomplishments were significant, from cutting off U.S. funding to the Palestinian Authority to moving the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem to recognizing Israel's unlawful annexation of the Syrian Golan Heights. Trump was the first president since Gerald Ford to not allow any resolutions critical of Israel to be adopted by the United Nations Security Council.
And third, Trump released a lopsided peace proposal in January 2020 that would have allowed Israel to annex East Jerusalem and much of the West Bank in exchange for a non-contiguous Palestinian Bantustan in Gaza and parts of the West Bank. This so-called "peace for prosperity" plan was abandoned when Trump encouraged Bahrain and the UAE to establish diplomatic relations with Israel in exchange for a four-year commitment that Israel would not formally annex any parts of the West Bank. Several months later, Morocco also joined the Abraham Accords in exchange for American recognition of its claim to most of Western Sahara.
Four years later, the situation in Palestine is immeasurably worse. Gaza is in ruins after one of the most horrific wars of the 21st century. In the face of a plausible genocide, none of the three Arab members of the Abraham Accords have broken diplomatic relations with Israel. The settler population in East Jerusalem and the West Bank has grown from 670,000 to 740,000. And, astonishingly, as destructive as the Trump 1.0 policies were toward the Palestinians and the prospects for actual peace, most of these policies have been kept in place by the Biden administration.
What can we expect of Trump 2.0? His advisers on Israel and Palestine will likely include a mixture of old and new faces, but they will uniformly share a Likudnik worldview. They will face three major challenges in the coming 12 to 18 months.
First, on Gaza, the Trump administration will likely push for an end to Israel's military campaign, if Biden has not finally ended the war in the last two months of his presidency. But Trump will also support Israel's quest to cripple UNRWA, allow Netanyahu a free hand to "sterilize" and control the north of Gaza, and push for Arab states to fund the humanitarian support for the 2 million forcibly displaced Palestinians in Gaza.
Second, should Israel be allowed to formally annex parts of the West Bank? Netanyahu is dependent upon the support of far-right ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich for his government to survive until the end of 2026. They will demand that the Israeli government formally request American permission to proceed with de jure annexation. The debate within the Trump administration will be whether giving a green light to this request will adversely impact other regional policy goals, including the continuation of the Abraham Accords and Arab support for containing Iran.
And third, how will the United States defend Israel at the United Nations? The 12-month deadline set by the U.N. General Assembly this past September for Israel to completely end its occupation of the Palestinian territory, in accordance with the July advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice, will ring its diplomatic alarm bell next September. Given the strong support for the ICJ opinion by states in the Global South, the Trump administration may well threaten to reduce or end its funding for the U.N. if the General Assembly takes any significant steps to impose costs on Israel for ignoring the Court and its deadline.
Four years from now, the Israeli public mood will likely be more nationalistic than ever, the Palestinians will likely be even more despairing yet militant than ever, and the region will likely be even more unsettled than ever.
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Kholood Khair
Sudanese policy analyst and founding director of Confluence Advisory
Unlike in Africa, where U.S. foreign policy under Trump may shift very little overall across the continent, the Middle East looks set to be very different. Not because Trump is likely to break with Biden's policy and put an end to the wars there—if anything, there are signs that his administration will be battling more internal hawks than four years ago—but because Trump's singular Middle East policy, the Abraham Accords, is the only lens through which he sees the region and beyond. In the post-October 7 Middle East, this is myopia that is unlikely to prove constructive.
For countries like Sudan, the site of the world's biggest humanitarian crisis by scale, bridging the Middle East and Africa usually leaves it in a no-man's land at the State Department. But, like four years ago, Sudan is likely to yet again fall prey to this Trumpian lens.
Sudan's relationship with the Abraham Accords faces a particularly complication today. The main belligerents in Sudan's war are the Sudanese Armed Forces under Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, who first met with Netanyahu in 2020, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) under Gen. Mohamad Hamdan Dagalo, better known as "Hemedti," who maintains close ties to Mossad. Burhan and Hemedti also have their own rival benefactors in the Gulf—Saudi Arabia and the UAE, respectively—that are deeply embroiled in the future of the Abraham Accords.
Saudi Arabia could well reign supreme in the first months of Trump's presidency, as the prospect for Saudi normalization with Israel occupies the new administration. Following his reelection, Trump allegedly called Saudi Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman before even Netanyahu. But despite this early favor, MBS may find it difficult to balance pressure from Washington for Israeli normalization with the internal pressure from a young Saudi population horrified by Israeli's violence from Gaza to Lebanon. No amount of job creation and music concerts may be enough to stave off potential political unrest in the kingdom, and MBS's favor with Trump may only last as long as he's able to keep Trump happy. Saudi Arabia's condition for normalization—Palestinian statehood—may not survive pressure from a Trump White House, but Trump may offer new concessions, like lending support to Saudi allies in the region, say in Sudan's war.
The UAE will be ready to take advantage of their primary position in the Abraham Accords and their decade-long diplomatic investments in Washington, on both sides of the aisle. The Emiratis will try to quietly exploit MBS's impossible balancing act however they can, in order to win Trump's favor and perhaps elevate their own proxy in Sudan, the RSF.
In short, the price of admission in Trump's foreign policy—normalization with Israel—will ramp up the regional competition between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi, with far-reaching implications for the Middle East, the Gulf, the Horn of Africa and further afield. In Trump's world of pay-to-play, the region's three biggest economies—Saudi Arabia, Israel and the UAE—will in all likelihood take center stage as they compete for Trump's attention, creating a centrifugal pull and swallowing other regional priorities whole.
Juan Cole
Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History at the University of Michigan and non-resident fellow at the Center for Conflict and Humanitarian Studies in Doha
U.S. policy in the Middle East has shown a good deal of continuity since 2016, so in many ways Trump's reelection likely does not change its trajectory except at the margins. But it is a dangerous trajectory.
Trump's destruction of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, otherwise known as the Iran nuclear deal, was blessed by Biden—who also maintained most of Trump's "maximum pressure" sanctions on Iran's economy. Trump may be tempted to up the ante with Iran, but there are now few further economic sanctions he could impose on Tehran.
Given the severity of the invisible U.S. blockade on the Iranian economy, and the U.S. approval of Israel's bombing raids on Iranian military facilities in late October, the possibility that U.S.-Iran tensions could inadvertently spiral into a war cannot be ruled out. It won't be a new possibility in a second Trump term, however. Trump set the U.S. and Iran on a war footing in 2018, and the Biden team maintained that stance.
The crisis has been exacerbated by the total war waged on Gaza by the extremist government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In his first term, Trump had unleashed Netanyahu, recognizing the illegal Israeli annexation of the Syrian Golan Heights and relocating the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to disputed Jerusalem. If Trump presses for an end to the fighting in Gaza and Lebanon, it will only be because he perceives the Israeli campaign to be bad for his image, making him look as though he is not in control. Trump could well acquiesce in a complete Israeli annexation of the West Bank, just as the Israeli parliament illegally annexed East Jerusalem and its environs in 1980.
On both fronts, Iran and Palestine, Trump's faux macho posturing and eagerness to please his evangelical base are likely to outweigh his transactional instincts, of looking for any advantage to himself. Palestine has nothing to offer him at all, and Iran does not want his business.
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Joel Beinin
Donald J. McLachlan Professor of History and professor of Middle East history, emeritus at Stanford University.
During the presidential election campaign, those inclined not to vote for Vice President Kamala Harris because of the Biden-Harris administration's complicity in Israel's genocidal assault on the Gaza Strip were repeatedly scolded that a Trump presidency would be much worse for Palestinians than a Harris one. Donald Trump is notoriously unpredictable, narcissistic and fickle.
President Biden, in contrast, has touted his Zionist identity for his entire political career. His hawkish foreign policy positions, including support for the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq and his decision not to restore the Iran nuclear deal, despite his campaign promise to do so, are a product of the Washington foreign policy consensus colloquially known as "the blob." During his years in the Senate, Biden was a top recipient of funds from the Israel lobby. Biden's ideological, political-electoral and strategic commitment to Israel was evident in his response to the Hamas's October 7 attack on Israel. He eagerly repeated Israeli propaganda points, exaggerating the extent of Hamas atrocities. He asserted against all evidence that Israel was in accord with international law, as it was conducting its massive bombing campaign on Gaza, whose effects could only be massive deaths of noncombatant civilians. The Biden administration imposed no costs on Israel for all the needless death and destruction it has wrought in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran.
Could Trump be worse? What is worse than genocide?
Trump has family ties through his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to extremist elements of the Israeli settler movement. The recently published book of Trump's previous ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, One Jewish State: The Last, Best Hope to Resolve the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, argues that the Israeli assertion of sovereignty over the occupied West Bank offers the best prospect for peace. So the Trump administration may offer no resistance to Israel consolidating its annexation of the West Bank. Yet that project has been steadily advancing for two decades. Trump may not oppose the drive of messianist-fascists to settle the northern Gaza Strip, which may only encourage Israel to pursue settlement and annexation as it sees fit.
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Dalia Fahmy
Associate professor of political science at Long Island University and a visiting scholar at the Center for the Study of Genocide and Human Rights at Rutgers University
While on the campaign trail, Donald Trump vowed to bring his version of "peace" to the Middle East, implying he would end the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza and the Israel-Hezbollah war in Lebanon, and would also punish Iran. Although he has not said what all that entails, except to return to his "maximum pressure" policy on Iran, Trump's previous time in office sheds light on what the next few years could bring.
The next Trump term will see a focus on ending Israeli's wars on Gaza and Lebanon through a reengagement of the Abraham Accords, but it is not clear that Palestinians will be part of these negotiations, now that Qatar has reduced its role as a mediator between Hamas and Israel. With the division of Gaza into separate Israeli-controlled zones, we can expect an agreement under Trump that allows for Israel's annexation of the West Bank and even northern Gaza, as well as an Israeli-administered authority over the rest of Gaza. The rebuilding of Gaza is likely to be a part of an economic deal with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, with Egypt absorbing more Palestinian refugees. This plan, absent Palestinian voices in the negotiations, will likely usher in a Trump "peace plan," as well as reorganize interests in the region at the expense of the Palestinians.
For Lebanon and Iran, it is not clear that Trump will allow his administration to be drawn into a war with Iran, as Netanyahu would like. If Trump draws this line, he will be seen as taming Netanyahu and holding fast to his supposedly "anti-war" position. The question remains as to how Iran will respond to an emboldened Netanyahu. Moving forward, we can expect more of the same: U.S. policy in the region that does not create long-term stability in the Middle East, but fosters more instability by marginalizing those that have been most victimized by wars.
