By Mauricio Aliskevicius.
We were little kids, so we swallowed any story that was told to us, because of our innocence. But the story of January 6th - which we copied from the Christians of the country where we lived - collapsed when they told us the phrase in the title. From that phrase onwards It is impossible for us to think that Donald Trump is one of the three wise men or Santa Claus, and that he will give us everything we need, which is impossible for us to obtain without a divine miracle, who knows at what cost.
Let's analyze the statements circulating around the world motivated by yesterday's meeting between Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu. Some are direct statements, others are - in my opinion - expressions of wishes that some journalists or politicians take as almost a given.
Trump said that Saudi Arabia does not demand a Palestinian state. We have already seen in the press that a representative of Saudi Arabia immediately denied this claim. Therefore, as long as Trump does not change his blue suit for Mandrake's black tailcoat and with his magic wand perform a miracle, Saudi Arabia will not change its position of demanding a Palestinian state prior to signing any treaty with Israel.
The current US president also said that the Palestinians have no other alternative than to leave Gaza, and that he does not support an agreement there. There is another alternative, which is that at least 90% of Gazans will not leave Gaza. Some will be able to return to live in their homes if they are habitable, others will continue to live in tents and eat off the goods delivered by humanitarian aid (600 trucks per day) and the money that some countries stupidly continue to give to UNWRA, that is, Hamas.
Suppose Trump wants his demand that Gazans leave Gaza to be fulfilled. Will he be able to convince a small part of the population by giving them something that will not be very different from the life of terrorist leaders in the luxury hotels of Qatar. Who would pay for such luxury? On the other hand, No Muslim country wants them. Where would you send them?
The most logical thing to do would be to take them to nearby places, where they would have a climate, language, and customs similar to what they are used to. But we already know that Jordan and Egypt do not want them. Jordan would run an almost immediate risk of revolution since these Gazans would stir up the 60/70% of the Jordanian population that is of Palestinian origin. Egypt does not accept even one because it would bring its greatest enemy, the Muslim Brotherhood, into its borders. Syria would remain, which for now is an unknown. But none of these countries is a guarantee for Israel, they would still be on the border, so it would be the same danger as if they stayed in Gaza.
Let us now suppose that Trump does not transfer them “in a friendly manner” and manages to get them out of Israel’s border areas. The United States would immediately be accused of war crimes, crimes against human rights, genocide, etc. We do not believe that Trump would risk that situation; he is seeking the Nobel Peace Prize and not the trial of the Hague Tribunal.
Trump said: no to a Palestinian state. He forgot to mention the alternative solution, he doesn't have one, he threw possibilities into the air.
He also said that at the moment, and perhaps for fifteen years, it is dangerous to live in Gaza, because of the number of buildings prone to collapse, collapsed buildings, and mountains of rubble, more unexploded bombs, tunnels, etc. Gazans do not care about any of that, they are used to living in whatever way, as they did for more than a thousand years as Arabs, in deserts with no fixed housing and no water other than in the few oases that exist in the deserts. In addition, they have become accustomed to living off what UNRWA gave them.
Trump said that between 1,7 and 1,8 million people will be evacuated from Gaza to Egypt, Jordan and other destinations, and that it will be a permanent exit because they will not want to return and will be living in quiet and safe places. This shows that Trump has not the slightest idea about how the mentality of the Arabs works, and of the Gazans in particular. Unless his magic wand… The Gazans showed that they are not interested in living in quiet and safe places, they could have done it in Gaza but they did the opposite.
For Israel's security, the Philadelphia corridor (Gaza-Egypt border) is the most dangerous. It is known that everything necessary to wage war against Israel was leaked through there. At the moment it is occupied by the Israeli army, but Hamas demands that in the second stage of the agreement that part be completely cleared. On the one hand, Israel cannot withdraw surveillance from there until there is a real peace situation, and on the other hand, Egypt also demands that the Israeli army withdraw because it is in breach of the Oslo treaty. Egypt is already reacting by filling the Sinai with its tanks, something that is also prohibited by the Oslo treaties.
If the Philadelphia corridor is liberated, there is no doubt that Iran will soon be able to re-arm Hezbollah and Hamas.
Trump said the US will keep Gaza and rebuild it. Will the world allow this? Will the UN accept it? Probably not.
We know that the Palestinian Authority wants to rule in Gaza, but we also know that it has already tried and was chased out, so it is not a viable solution nor one that will provide security for Israel. The Palestinian Authority and Hamas are different collars for the same dog.
It was also said about the Trump-Netanyahu meeting that in a few weeks it will be known whether Israel will annex Judea and Samaria. Another expression of desire by a part of the current Israeli government, which we do not believe the world will allow.
Trump said that Iran is close to a nuclear device and that it will not allow it. Let's hope that it can be achieved and that it is not just a way to stop Israel from bombing Iranian facilities.
As for the release of the hostages, there are reports that Hamas will demand the release of all Palestinian prisoners serving life sentences, which if true means that There will be no further agreement on the release of hostages, and force will have to be used.
Surely the two leaders have already thought about it, and the only or almost only possibility is that the US army will set up a base with many thousands of soldiers in Gaza, and that they will be the ones to corner Hamas and not Israel, so that Hamas does not kill the hostages who are still alive. That would be the fulfillment of Trump's earlier threat that if all the hostages are not released, everything would explode.
And a personal thought to finish. All this is so that Trump can achieve what matters most to him:
1) Keep Netanyahu happy, but it will be Israel that will have to solve everything, because:
2) Trump does not want more wars (for his army)
3) It will have a pretext for a US military base in the Gaza area
4) From Gaza you will have better control of Europe, the Suez Canal, Iran, Türkiye, Yemen, maritime traffic
And the main one…………
5) Join Putin and break his axis with China and other hostile countries. Poor Zelensky!
¡UNITED STATES THE FIRST!
Mauricio, you have a very mediocre way of thinking. Do you want to act progressive?
A very good opinion of Mauricio Aliskevicius, except perhaps the final part, too ominous or improbable. What has happened with the Riviera in Gaza is more of the same as his ephemeral peace plan for Palestine, which left the Palestinians with the Gruyere cheese in the Palestinian part of the West Bank, the tunnel between Gaza and the West Bank, and the exchange of the part of the Israeli settlements for the Negev desert. The sad thing is that these ideas of Trump are the ones that seem best on paper, and even the Palestinians would benefit in principle if they do not want to get worse, as has happened to them since 1.948 when they refused to allow the state of Israel to exist. Although the Palestinians were not part of a state called Palestine, they were territories claimed by Syria, Jordan and Egypt, the latter of which intended to keep the border territory that included Gaza. The Soviet bloc's interests were that Palestinian terrorists with Arafat as their leader appeared, and from then on Jordan and Egypt wanted nothing to do with the matter. Then it became much more complicated, to the point that only Trump sees a solution, or even the Western communists can act as fortune tellers, predicting the annexation of all of Palestine by Israel, another solution that even seems more likely than Trump's, although not by much.
The title of this section is “Thoughts”, which can also be “comments” on what the original article says.
When the thoughts that appear are simple insults, according to experts (psychologists or similar) it simply means that the brain of the person who wrote those insults does not work enough to detail the arguments. Either he simply does not have a single argument to oppose what the article says, or he does not have the grey matter to analyze and discuss.
It is unfortunate, but whoever hides behind a name (Roger) was wrong. This site is open to discussion, it is not a stand in a football stadium.
I appreciate the compliments. As for the disagreement about the final part, not even 24 hours later the whole world is talking about what I predicted, and not because people have read me, but because it was not difficult to understand what was hidden in what seemed to be a fantasy of the American president.
1) Making Netanyahu happy was more than easy, all he had to do was sign YES to what Biden had said NO to.
And 2,3,4,5 simple: everyone knows because Trump himself said it many times, that he is a very good friend of Putin and that we are already in Cold War No. 2, in which Trump wants to get Putin out of the other side so as not to fight with his friend and at the same time weaken his enemy, whose head is China and its poisonous tentacle but the weakest is Iran. He conquers Putin at the expense of Zelensky, he reassures Zelensky by giving him dollars, he sets up a military base in the Gaza zone and while he cleans up that zone, from there he has the East under surveillance and restrained by his enemies in this new cold war.