Winners And Losers In Trump’s Peace Plan
Saeed Naqvi
What is the urgency driving Donald Trump to push his Gaza peace plan, even by dishonest means if necessary. In his eagerness to bid for the Nobel Peace Prize, Trump resorted to subterfuge, straight forward knavery. Even more compelling than his yen for the Nobel was the pressure of global public opinion which chastises the US collaborating with Israel’s unspeakable brutality, the genocide of Gaza, frame by frame on live TV.
A peace plan developed with representatives of Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Egypt, Turkey, Pakistan attending the UN General Assembly, was further discussed by Trump and Netanyahu in the White House.
At a parallel meeting in Doha, Qatari Prime Minister Mohammad bin Abdulrahman, Al Thani and Hamas leaders were perusing the 20 points under the microscope. At this point the text of the 20 point plan with Netanyahu in the White House and the Qataris was the same.
Then Netanyahu, Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner, a Zionist trio, got into a huddle. The text was radically altered in favour of Netanyahu, enabling him to boast in a video on the journey back to Israel. In a statement in Hebrew for Israeli television viewers, he said.
“Who would have believed this.?” Says he triumphantly. “After all the
people constantly saying – you must accept Hamas’s terms, get everyone (IDF)
out (of Gaza). The IDF should withdraw, Hamas can recover and it can also reoccupy
the strip.” He then exploded, “No way. That’s not happening.”
He was asked if he agreed to a Palestinian state? “Absolutely not. It’s not written into the statement, but there is one thing we did say – we would strongly oppose a Palestinian state.”
This diplomacy by deception is for a singular purpose. The pariah status that is sticking to Israel and the US in equal measure has to be shuffled off somehow. The mainstream media will be required to build the narrative that Netanyahu is trying to implement the 20 point but Hamas is obstructing. A follow up meeting, one of many expected is going on in Egypt.
Fortunately for the Palestinian, this media’s credibility is at its lowest for having been consistently in the service of establishments.
In the plan is an idea to have a “Board of Peace”, with Trump as its Chairman and President. In an aside he said he may not have the time to be hands-on all the time. It was for this reason that former British Prime Minister, Tony Blair will be on the “Board”.
There is no guarantee that the Trump plan will fly, but it does provide a clue to the plan having been tailored for right wing Zionist acceptability. The response from the Iran Supreme leader’s office hits the nail on the head: the plan gives to Netanyahu what he could not achieve on the battlefield: return of the hostages and an end to Hamas.
The irony is that the plan, even with this interpretation, is unacceptable to the Ben Gwir-Smotherick duet who want the Palestinians to disappear or live in other countries. Even though the plan gives to Netanyahu all that he could have hoped for, there remains a vast stretch on Israel’s Right, Far Right and Far Far Right capable of throwing a ginger fit if anything short of the Biblical plan for greater Israel is accepted.
Palestinians may be forgiven for being shocked at Tony Blair being inserted in matters concerning their future. Trump would have to search all corners of the globe to find a western leader more despised by Palestinians than Tony Blair, an exceptional favourite with Zionists.
Blair’s other claim to fame is the way he was chastised by the Chilcot report. Sir James Chilcot, after a six year investigation, shamed Blair for having misled the British public for joining the Iraq war in 2003. I remember him crying with copious tears for having been caught cheating.
The idea of privatizing the administration of Gaza at some later date is not without precedent. A plan to privatize the war in Afghanistan was drawn up in 2017 by Eric Prince, founder of Blackwater, the world’s biggest outlet for mercenary troops. Steve Bannon, Trump’s Chief of Staff, in Trump’s first administration forwarded a 100 page project to the White House suggesting that the US should hand the Afghan responsibility to private hands.
The British Raj’s administration was in the hands of the Viceroy. That precisely was the model offered by Prince. The project would cost 5 trillion, after which, in the hands of merry capitalism, the investment would start showing returns.
Astonishing though it may seem, this over-the-top plan had acquired life in the corridors of the White House until Secretary of Defence Gen. Jim Mattis shot it down.
If Hamas returns the hostages, what leverage will be left with it to deal with unreliable adversaries? The next hand has to be played in such a way as to retain global sympathy that Palestinians have earned by suffering genocide for two years.
It is a tough gamble. If Hamas returns the hostages, it loses leverage against a heartless opponent. If it does not return the hostages at this sensitive moment, it begins to lose global sympathy accumulated over two years of suffering.
When Yahya Sinwar and other Hamas commanders shook the world by their audacity on October 7, 2023, what were they looking for? Surely they were not embarked on a quest for quick victory over the region’s most powerful nation.
They had with clever deliberation provoked Israel expecting retaliation on a massive scale. If this indeed was their calculation they have succeeded in igniting world public opinion against Israel and its material, moral and political supporter – the US.
An opiated world has been woken up by Israeli genocide, non stop for two years. Even a Zionist supporter, Secretary of State Marco Rubio had to blurt out the truth, unpalatable to the Zionists surrounding Trump. “Israel is no longer liked in America.” The great Israel lobby in the US will probably get into a huddle and sink in the deepest layers of thought.
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