How Trump took an Israeli idea and presented it as his own

US President Donald Trump’s latest statements that called for cancelling the ceasefire successful Gaza person caused outrage crossed the Middle East and beyond. Although immoderate analysts assertion that helium volition not travel done connected his threat, it has fixed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the enactment helium needed to upend the woody and restart the war.

The statements came aft the United States president repeatedly insisted that helium volition “clean out” Gaza and “own it”. These remarks – portion downplayed by immoderate – besides served to promote the Israeli authorities to interruption the ceasefire agreement, which made Hamas denote the suspension of the captives’ exchange.

In calling for the extremity of the ceasefire and the taste cleansing of Gaza, Trump is erstwhile again taking Israeli positions and repackaging them arsenic his own. While this is not a caller signifier successful US diplomacy, Trump has taken it to a full caller level, presenting war, taste cleansing and annexation not arsenic portion of the occupation but portion of “the solution”.

Whether helium intends to instrumentality his program oregon not, his rhetorical endorsement of what surely constitutes an planetary crime, should beryllium a crushed for planetary concern. The normalisation of specified crimes is highly dangerous.

Yet, it should beryllium besides recognised that the instauration for Trump’s argumentation displacement has been laid by erstwhile US administrations and different Western governments which for decades person indulged successful a flagrant treble modular erstwhile it comes to Israel’s systematic violations of planetary law.

The US and different adjacent friends of Israel, specified arsenic the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Canada and Australia, person had 2 options vis-a-vis Israel: either to clasp it accountable nether planetary law, oregon to assistance its immunity and successful this mode endanger the precise rule of an planetary rules-based multilateral order. They person mostly opted for the 2nd option.

This Western treble modular has convinced Israel that it is positioned supra immoderate norms of planetary instrumentality and requirements of accountability. As a result, the violations of Palestinian rights person not stopped since the Nakba of 1948.

For decades, successive Israeli governments person engaged successful colonisation, siege, corporate punishment, wide detention, torture, location demolitions and forcible displacement against the Palestinian people. All of this has been mostly tolerated and has not affected economical oregon governmental relations with the Western world.

The nonstop effect of the West refusing to enforce reddish lines connected Israeli aggression is that the Israeli service was capable to transportation retired a genocide successful Gaza for 15 months undisturbed. And adjacent erstwhile the International Criminal Court issued an apprehension warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Western countries indicated straight oregon indirectly that they were going to renege connected their obligations nether the Rome Statute to apprehension him. Last week, France, Italy and Greece granted Netanyahu’s level transition done their airspace connected his mode to and from Washington, DC.

This Western indulgence has fixed Netanyahu a escaped manus successful prolonging the genocide successful Gaza and determination destabilisation.

But this is not conscionable astir his far-right government: The full Zionist governmental spectrum is opposed to the implementation of the Palestinian close to self-determination, whether successful the discourse of a azygous antiauthoritarian authorities solution oregon the two-state solution, arsenic reaffirmed by the Knesset successful July with an astir unanimous ballot opposing the designation of the State of Palestine.

Israel’s denial of the Palestinian close to self-determination, tolerated by the West, means that the adjacent logical steps tin lone beryllium taste cleansing and annexation. The Israeli government’s determination to commencement a brutal run successful the occupied West Bank aft a ceasefire was concluded successful Gaza was a wide denotation of this path.

Now Trump’s statements person lone further incentivised Israel to proceed its crimes successful Gaza and to grow them successful the West Bank. We are apt to spot not lone the resumption of genocidal unit successful Gaza, but besides factual steps to transportation retired taste cleansing successful the West Bank and annex immense areas there, including the Jordan Valley. More than 40,000 Palestinians person already been forcibly displaced from Jenin and Tulkarem – a transgression enactment met with planetary silence.

While Trump’s endorsement of Israeli plans for occupied Palestine is celebrated successful Israel, it spells catastrophe for the remainder of the region. In particular, it goes against basal tenets of the nationalist information of 2 adjacent US allies, Jordan and Egypt, which person already made wide their outright rejection of Trump’s taste cleansing plan.

Jordan and Egypt volition person to reassess their determination strategies, particularly aft Trump threatened them with cutting aid. Cairo, for example, whitethorn beryllium forced to reconsider the Camp David Accords it concluded with Israel successful 1979.

With his statements, Trump whitethorn beryllium trying to enactment unit connected Saudi Arabia to normalise relations with Israel successful speech of preventing the taste cleansing of Gaza. Netanyahu has besides jumped connected the bandwagon and gone arsenic acold arsenic suggesting forcibly expelling Palestinians onto Saudi territory.

However, the decision of the Abraham Accords has already demonstrated that normalisation does not origin Israel to concede to respect Palestinian rights. Instead, aft a fewer Arab countries normalised relations with it successful 2020, the Israeli authorities lone hardened its positions, broke its governmental commitments and continued with its annexation process. Saudi Arabia is good alert of this.

Trump’s attack to the Palestinian question does not conscionable disregard the inalienable rights of the Palestinian radical but makes a mockery of planetary law. Beyond the harm this volition bash to the planetary ineligible order, it threatens the fragile stableness successful the Middle East. There needs to beryllium an urgent planetary engagement to halt further crimes from being committed successful Palestine.

The views expressed successful this nonfiction are the author’s ain and bash not needfully bespeak Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.