My first week’s assessment of Trump’s victory for the Middle East
Normally one expects that the President-elect stay away from foreign policy until inauguration. Whether it is because Trump is excessively agile in foreign policy or because Biden was so lame, now the US has two foreign policy-making centers: one in the White House and one in Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s luxury place of residence in Palm Beach, Florida.
So, here is my initial assessment of Trump’s first week as the President-elect in the Middle East: In the wake of his victory, regional players are making themselves ready for big changes. It is no secret that the US foreign policy will shift towards far-right approaches like supporting Israel and putting more pressure on Palestinians. As a result, it obscures the future of the two-state solution. Jordan’s former foreign minister said the two-state solution is over and Arab countries need to abandon the two-state solution because Israel is forcefully transferring large numbers of Palestinians to Jordan (Source: Middle East Eye). In the second administration of Donald Trump, there will be no real pressure on Israel to stop the mass transfer of Palestinians into Jordan or Egypt, or even the US itself may help Israel to operationalize its real intentions.
There are some signals that indicate this change: Qatar suspended its mediator role in the Gaza ceasefire right after the US election results were announced (Source: Aljazeera); then Netanyahu fired his secretary of defence and his most outspoken critic, Yoav Gallant to better follow his far-right agenda; he also appointed a settler activist as Israel’s new ambassador to the US; in addition, Israel and Iran toned down their rhetoric.
Among all these developments, Saudi Arabia moved against the flow and called Israel’s attacks on Palestinians ‘Genocide’. Mohammad Bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s crown prince and de facto ruler, urged the international community to stop Israel from attacking Iran and to respect Iran’s sovereignty (Source: USNews). He even called Iran’s government “our brothers” (Source: IRNA). It sounds like he is upping the ante to obtain substantial concessions in future talks with Trump’s administration.
Again, my question is who is responsible for the US foreign policy between the election and the inauguration? Netanyahu said he had spoken with Trump three times and his Envoy met Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago to discuss Israel’s security concerns in Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran. Was it because Trump was going overboard in foreign policy or because Biden was so weak and lethargic? It seems that Trump is changing the traditional modus operandi and he will be the person behind the wheel in these two months.
