Commentary
In the Trump-Putin-Bibi, Palestine is irrelevant and Europe is absent
It’s not that surprising that a kind of Abraham Accord from hell is connecting the fate of the Middle East with that of Eastern Europe. On both fronts, the U.S. is legitimizing the occupation of other people's territories (by the Russians and Israelis), as it itself intends to take at least Greenland.
Will the Arab-Egyptian plan for Gaza work? Will the truce between Hamas and Israel hold? That’s not where the proverbial winds are blowing: “In the Middle East, we are bringing back our hostages from Gaza,” said Trump before Congress. It is becoming increasingly clear that in the Israeli-American military-industrial complex, Israel always prevails, or rather “Great Israel,” which goes together with – and maybe even comes before – MAGA (Make America Great Again). Putin, who saw the U.S. and Israel voting in his favor at the UN, is de facto on board with that, and is being rewarded by Trump accordingly. After all, both the Israeli and Russian leaders had been anointed by the U.S. tycoon as something like the old “grand electors.”
And the winds seem to be blowing towards new wars rather than peace. Trump's envoys came to Netanyahu with $4 billion in military aid and dozens of tons of high-penetration bombs. The message is clear: if the Palestinians and Hamas don’t bow down, Trump, with Netanyahu, is ready to “unleash hell.”
It’s not that surprising that a kind of Abraham Accord from hell is connecting the fate of the Middle East with that of Eastern Europe. On both fronts, the U.S. is legitimizing the occupation of other people's territories (by the Russians and Israelis), as it itself intends to take at least Greenland, as Trump has reiterated, as well as the Ukrainian rare earths. We are once again under 19th-century colonialism, where peoples vanish from view and there is only the exploitation of resources. Israel has no more limits, because in Trump's world, where there are no more friends and allies, the Jewish state is dictating the American president's agenda. In addition to the Palestinian territories, Israel is occupying pieces of Lebanon and Syria; and not only does it have no intention to withdraw, but aims to expand its influence by taking up the mantle of the protector of the Druze. As expected, the partition of Syria between the Israelis and Turks is ongoing, as the new leadership in Damascus is unable to control the territory.
But there is more. Something is happening that is unprecedented in Israeli history, writes Gideon Levy in Haaretz. While one war has not yet completely died down, Tel Aviv is already provoking the next. Israel's “diplomatic” horizon, Levy writes, now consists only of one war after another, without considering any alternatives. It has at least three wars on its agenda: resuming the one in Gaza, bombing Iran, and unleashing a conflict in the West Bank that it has been fueling as early as Oct. 7, 2023. The Israeli occupation of the West Bank has become more brutal than ever. The day after the Hamas attacks, it effectively locked the West Bank's three million inhabitants in a prison: with around 900 permanent and temporary checkpoints, being able to move around has become a roll of the dice. The settlers are gaining ground every day. Israel's only plan for the Palestinians is mass expulsion, which applies to both Gaza and the West Bank, where refugee camps are being emptied, water and electricity networks destroyed, until there is nothing and no one left and Trump will be able to recognize the Israeli annexation of the West Bank, as he promised during his first term, when he already gave his approval to the plans for Jerusalem as the capital and the occupied Syrian Golan Heights.
The Arabs gathered in Cairo, led by Egyptian President al-Sisi, did come up with a plan for Gaza, with the aim of keeping the two-state solution alive: this envisages the establishment of a Gaza committee, under the auspices of the PNA government, to manage the territory during a six-month transitional phase, followed by a two-stage reconstruction worth more than $50 billion.
However, as Michele Giorgio pointed out in il manifesto on Wednesday, none of the summit participants have pledged a single dollar.
The Gaza ceasefire is itself at great risk. Israel wants the release of the last hostages soon, and the extension of the first phase of the ceasefire, proposed by the U.S., appears highly uncertain. If Tel Aviv's agenda is not acquiesced to, Netanyahu's government will go back to war, with more weapons and more U.S. money to pulverize Hamas.
In all this, Europe is absent. Frightened and stunned by the U.S. abandonment, it is allocating hundreds of billions for its defense, doing nothing but slashing resources for the one thing that distinguishes it from the rest of the world: the welfare state, public health, pensions, education, and assistance to the most vulnerable. But this is also the price one must pay for having accepted decades of occupation and the genocide of a people at our doorstep without lifting a finger – indeed, being complicit in it. We are sinking in the Mediterranean, trapped between Trump, Netanyahu and Putin as in the fateful Bermuda Triangle.
Originally published at https://ilmanifesto.it/la-palestina-affonda-nel-triangolo-trump-putin-bibi on 2025-03-06