Trump’s Blunt Message to the World
Pay Up or Face the Consequences
It didn’t take long to read Trump’s playbook for the rest of the world: put a price on everything – and make sure those who refuse to pay will suffer.
Just days after he took office, U.S. foreign aid programs across the world were halted without warning, causing widespread panic. The freeze included medical, food, and educational assistance. There’s still no sign of when – or even if – the vital U.S. contributions will resume. For now, the U.S. is conducting an audit of everyone it has been helping and reviewing what it gets in return. The clear implication: from now on, no one gets anything if they don’t do as they’re told.
Targeting the Middle East
In the Middle East, Jordan and Egypt have been among the first to feel the sting from this White House. U.S. aid to Jordan was abruptly canceled – creating real hardship, especially for refugees. Egypt has so far been spared the cut – but perhaps not for long. Trump’s suggestion – or veiled instruction – was for both countries to “take in” 1.5 million Palestinians from Gaza: “We just clear out that whole thing and say… you know it’s over.”
Quite apart from the staggering arrogance of a U.S. president deciding by himself that over a million Palestinians will get “cleared out” of their homes and live where he tells them, Trump appears to have underestimated the immediate and total opposition to his plan by both Cairo and Amman. Jordan’s Foreign Minister, Ayman Safadi, said his country was “firm and unwavering” in its refusal to accept the displacement of Palestinians. The Egyptian government added its own comprehensive rejection. So did a stream of Palestinians, returning to the ruins of northern Gaza, still saying they would rather die than go elsewhere.
Trump has never been known to react well to the word “no,” and for the moment, he’s pretending that neither the governments nor the people themselves are serious about turning him down. He told reporters he thought Egypt’s president would come around to the idea: “I wish he would take some (Palestinians)… we helped them a lot and I’m sure he’d help us… and I think the King of Jordan would do it too.”
That seems unlikely. With a large Palestinian population already inside its borders, and others starting to arrive with Jordanian passports from the West Bank, the king has very little room for maneuver. Jordanians have been deeply angered by Israel’s killing of more than 46,000 Gazans. Any forcible expulsion of Palestinians on top of that could cause serious instability inside the country and strain the country’s peace treaty with Israel to breaking point.
Israel’s Gain, Palestine’s Loss
While Trump’s popularity has plummeted on Arab streets, there’s no surprise that in Israel, he has become the hero of the hour. The settler movement has already voiced its claim to re-establishing a presence in Gaza, and Trump, who lifted sanctions that his predecessor imposed on violent settler groups for attacking Palestinians, now appears to have greenlighted their plan. His nominee for the next U.S. ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, has flatly ruled out a Palestinian state in Gaza or anywhere else. “The Palestinians had their chance in Gaza,” he said recently, “and look what happened there.”
Much will now depend on whether Jordan and Egypt’s rejection of the Trump plan is supported by Saudi Arabia and other Arab states. Up until now, the Saudis have insisted they won’t sign a treaty unless formal negotiations begin to set up an independent Palestinian state. But Arab unity has never been the region’s strong point – and Riyadh might well cave in if Trump offered sufficient incentives.
While the Palestinians sleep in the ruins of Gaza and under frequent settler attacks in the West Bank, Donald Trump is intent on pushing them into a future they don’t want, without reference to their human rights or their demand for self-determination. The harsh reality is that his world seems set to make the strong stronger – and kick the weak when they’re down.
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