US President Donald Trump’s latest statements that called for cancelling the ceasefire in Gaza have caused outrage across the Middle East and beyond. Although some analysts claim that he will not follow through on his threat, it has given Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the support he needed to upend the deal and restart the war.
The statements came after the United States president repeatedly insisted that he will “clean out” Gaza and “own it”. These remarks – while downplayed by some – also served to encourage the Israeli government to violate the ceasefire agreement, which made Hamas announce the suspension of the captives’ exchange.
In calling for the end of the ceasefire and the ethnic cleansing of Gaza, Trump is once again taking Israeli positions and repackaging them as his own. While this is not a new practice in US diplomacy, Trump has taken it to a whole new level, presenting war, ethnic cleansing and annexation not as part of the problem but part of “the solution”.
Whether he intends to implement his plan or not, his rhetorical endorsement of what certainly constitutes an international crime, should be a reason for global concern. The normalisation of such crimes is extremely dangerous.
Yet, it should be also recognised that the foundation for Trump’s policy shift has been laid by previous US administrations and other Western governments which for decades have indulged in a flagrant double standard when it comes to Israel’s systematic violations of international law.
The US and other close friends of Israel, such as the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Canada and Australia, have had two options vis-a-vis Israel: either to hold it accountable under international law, or to grant its immunity and in this way threaten the very principle of an international rules-based multilateral order. They have largely opted for the second option.
This Western double standard has convinced Israel that it is positioned above any norms of international law and requirements of accountability. As a result, the violations of Palestinian rights have not stopped since the Nakba of 1948.
For decades, successive Israeli governments have engaged in colonisation, siege, collective punishment, mass detention, torture, home demolitions and forcible displacement against the Palestinian people. All of this has been largely tolerated and has not affected economic or political relations with the Western world.
The direct consequence of the West refusing to impose red lines on Israeli aggression is that the Israeli army was able to carry out a genocide in Gaza for 15 months undisturbed. And even when the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Western countries indicated directly or indirectly that they were going to renege on their obligations under the Rome Statute to arrest him. Last week, France, Italy and Greece granted Netanyahu’s plane passage through their airspace on his way to and from Washington, DC.
This Western indulgence has given Netanyahu a free hand in prolonging the genocide in Gaza and regional destabilisation.
But this is not just about his far-right government: The whole Zionist political spectrum is opposed to the implementation of the Palestinian right to self-determination, whether in the context of a single democratic state solution or the two-state solution, as reaffirmed by the Knesset in July with an almost unanimous vote opposing the recognition of the State of Palestine.
Israel’s denial of the Palestinian right to self-determination, tolerated by the West, means that the next logical steps can only be ethnic cleansing and annexation. The Israeli government’s move to start a brutal campaign in the occupied West Bank after a ceasefire was concluded in Gaza was a clear indication of this path.
Now Trump’s statements have only further incentivised Israel to continue its crimes in Gaza and to expand them in the West Bank. We are likely to see not only the resumption of genocidal violence in Gaza, but also concrete steps to carry out ethnic cleansing in the West Bank and annex vast areas there, including the Jordan Valley. More than 40,000 Palestinians have already been forcibly displaced from Jenin and Tulkarem – a criminal act met with international silence.
While Trump’s endorsement of Israeli plans for occupied Palestine is celebrated in Israel, it spells disaster for the rest of the region. In particular, it goes against basic tenets of the national security of two close US allies, Jordan and Egypt, which have already made clear their outright rejection of Trump’s ethnic cleansing plan.
Jordan and Egypt will have to reassess their regional strategies, especially after Trump threatened them with cutting aid. Cairo, for example, may be forced to reconsider the Camp David Accords it concluded with Israel in 1979.
With his statements, Trump may be trying to put pressure on Saudi Arabia to normalise relations with Israel in exchange of preventing the ethnic cleansing of Gaza. Netanyahu has also jumped on the bandwagon and gone as far as suggesting forcibly expelling Palestinians onto Saudi territory.
However, the conclusion of the Abraham Accords has already demonstrated that normalisation does not cause Israel to concede to respect Palestinian rights. Instead, after a few Arab countries normalised relations with it in 2020, the Israeli government only hardened its positions, broke its political commitments and continued with its annexation process. Saudi Arabia is well aware of this.
Trump’s approach to the Palestinian question does not just ignore the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people but makes a mockery of international law. Beyond the damage this will do to the international legal order, it threatens the fragile stability in the Middle East. There needs to be an urgent international engagement to stop further crimes from being committed in Palestine.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
