What the election of Donald Trump tells us about the future of the Arab-Israeli conflict

Donald J. Trump has just been sworn in office as 47th President of the United States of America. Trying to envisage how he is going to settle the Arab-Israeli conflict is not an easy matter, given how aggressive, controversial and imprudent his statements are. Nevertheless, we can get a hint about his plans for the future by investigating some key periods of very recent history: how his first administration and the administrations of his predecessors dealt with the Middle East, because I believe there is some sort of resemblance in the foreign policies of the Republican Presidents towards the Middle East that make them distinct from those of the Democrats.

The Clinton administration (1993-2001) and the Oslo peace process

Bill Clinton, a democrat, served as U.S. President from 1993 to 2001. I would like to start our analysis in these years because during his presidency it was reached the most concrete possibility of settling an enduring peace agreement between the Israeli and the Palestinians: the Oslo peace process. The first Oslo agreement (Oslo I), signed on 20 August 1993, consisted of a Declaration of Principles and letters of mutual recognition. Although the types of recognition were unequal, the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization) had recognized ‘the right of the state of Israel to exist in peace and security’ while Israel didn’t accept the Palestinians’ right to a state. Oslo I was a prelude to further talks that would lead to Oslo II. This latter accord was signed in Washington by Rabin, the Israeli prime minister, and Arafat, the leader of the PLO, in the presence of president Clinton. Oslo II consisted in the gradual withdrawal of the Israeli military from major centres of the Palestinian population, ultimately returning to the Arab authority eighty percent of the West Bank. Since the beginning of the talks, the politicians of the Likud party, the Israeli right wing party, organized major opposition to any further talks with the PLO, and Benjamin Netanyahu, one of the most prominent figures of the Likud party, accused Rabin of betraying Zionism. Following Rabin’s assassination in 1995, Netanyahu won the 1996 elections and during his mandate he strove to undermine the Oslo Accords and rejected the idea of withdrawing from the West Bank. Eventually, the break out of the second intifada in 2000 would put an end to the Oslo Accords forever.

The Bush administration (2001-2009) and the ‘new realities’

As the republican George W. Bush became the 43rd U.S. president, Ariel Sharon, the Likud candidate, became the Israeli prime minister in March 2001. Sharon ordered the retaking of all lands granted to the Palestinians during the Oslo process and the construction of a security barrier in the West Bank that cut through Palestinians towns, blocking tens of thousands of Palestinians from their places of work. Bush, who greatly admired Ariel Sharon, refused to meet with Arafat and promised that any future peace agreement would have to take into account ‘new realities’, that is, large Israeli centres of population within the West Bank would remain under Israeli rule, without respecting the 1967 borders. (Israel’s 1967 borders don’t include the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and the Golan Heights, this is why the Palestinians claim that Israel has to withdraw from these territories that are currently ‘occupied’).

The Obama administration (2009-2017) and its contradictions

Barack Obama, the democratic candidate of the 2008 U.S. presidential elections, took office on 20 January 2009, two months before Netanyahu had regained the Israeli premiership. He tried to revive the moribund Palestinian-Israeli ‘peace process’ by calling bluntly for a halt in the expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. He also called for new negotiations based on the 1967 borders. This effort, however, did not bear fruit. Netanyahu strongly opposed Obama’s stances to the degree that he criticized the US president for his lack of understanding of Middle East realities. However, despite the declared intentions, Obama sided with Israel when in September 2011 the United States vetoed the recognition of a Palestinian state at the UN Security Council. Even more contradicting was the US administration’s reaction to the ‘Arab Spring’: in principle Washington supported transitions to democracy, in practice prudence was the watchword.

The Trump administration (2017-2021) and the ‘Abraham Accords’

A former reality TV star and a real estate mogul, Donald J.Trump became the 45th president of the United States. Trump’s warm embrace of Netanyahu stood in stark contrast with the far rockier relationship the Israeli leader had maintained with Obama. In the Israeli-Palestinian conflict he abandoned the traditional international position on Jerusalem’s special status by approving to move the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and to close the Palestinian embassy in Washington. Moreover, he declared that the “occupied territories” of the Golan Heights are part of Israel and are no more open to negotiation. He also proposed a plan for a two states solution called ‘Vision of peace’ in January 2020, though the proposal was immediately rejected by the Palestinians insofar as it was a ‘one-sided’ plan: the Palestinian state would have neither continuity nor total control over its lands.

Nevertheless, Trump’s top foreign policy accomplishments were the Abraham Accords, which consisted in a series of normalization agreements between Israel and several Arab countries, including UAE and Bahrain. These agreements had a more economic aim rather than political. For example, the UAE granted Israel only diplomatic recognition and denied its territorial aspirations as outlined in the ‘Vision of peace’.

The Biden administration (2021-2025) and the war in Gaza

Joe Biden surrounded himself with several holdovers from the Obama administration in which he had served as vice president, like Anthony Blinken, Jake Sullivan and Bill Burns. Of course, during his period in office the war between Hamas and Israel broke out and the administration had to navigate a complex domestic political environment, balancing pressures from progressive Democrats calling for more accountability of Israel, and strong bipartisan support for Israel’s security in Congress.

On one hand, Biden affirmed his support for a two states solution and reinstated over $250 million of aid for the Palestinians which had been cut under Trump. But, on the other hand, the administration upheld the U.S. commitment to providing military assistance to Israel, including the Iron Dome missile defense system, and refused the ruling of the International Court of Justice that suggested the conclusion of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Conclusions

From this analysis I believe it is possible to single out two different treads that the Republican and the Democratic parties are respectively following in their foreign policy towards the Arab-Israeli conflict. This reflection helps us to envisage the doctrine that Donald Trump will follow during his second term as U.S. president. I personally don’t think that Trump will bring a durable and just peace in the area, given that he doesn’t really seem interested in delivering justice and well-being to the Palestinians. Nevertheless, his constituency elected him because of his promise to bring change and peace in the world so it's in his interest to do so, at least partially. Whether it is his or Biden’s merit still remains to be seen, but the peace plan that has recently been accepted by both Hamas and Israel is a great accomplishment, even though it is still too fragile and insufficient to bring a perpetual prosperity in the area.