November 13, 2024

The stunning comeback of Mr. Trump as President-elect has triggered speculation about the future of US foreign policy, particularly regarding the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East. The latter’s past decade might offer some clues into the future.

On December 6, 2017, President Donald J. Trump recognized Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Israel. On May 14, 2018, the US officially opened its Embassy there, making the US the first nation to do so.

Then came the Abraham Accords.  UAE and Bahrain were the first Arab countries to sign the Accords on September 15, 2020, normalizing relations with Israel. Later, Sudan, and Morocco followed suit. Washington started encouraging Saudi Arabia to join the group.

On January 28, 2020, Prime Minister Netanyahu met President Trump at the White House. Their remarks were all about President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu and their being family. Mr. Netanyahu mentioned President Truman as the first world leader to recognize the State of Israel after it declared independence in 1948 but called Mr. Trump “the greatest friend that Israel has ever had in the White House”.

Summing up the unveiling of the “deal of the century”, officially called “Peace to Prosperity”, the Jerusalem Post editorial of January 31 echoed Prime Minister Netanyahu:

“The “Deal of the Century” is the biggest diplomatic gift an American administration has ever given to the Jewish state since its founding.

“Even without reading its contents, one could see during the unveiling at the White House on Tuesday that this plan was orchestrated in tight cooperation with Israel. President Donald Trump’s gestures and comments during the announcement said it all: This is a pro-Israel plan.”

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is essentially about territory, the status of Jerusalem, and refugees. The return of the refugees has been out of the question for long. As for the rest, this was what David M. Halbfinger and Isabel Kershner of The New York Times wrote on January 29:

“President Trump’s Middle East plan deprives the Palestinians of nearly everything they had been fighting for, East Jerusalem as their national capital, the removal of Jewish settlements on the West Bank, and territorial contiguity and control over their own borders and security that a sovereign state normally enjoys.”

Looking at President Trump’s first term in office, one cannot but conclude that this was a period of success for Mr. Netanyahu.  While US allies, let alone adversaries, experienced problems with the Trump White House, he was the exception. Moreover, Mr. Trump withdrew the US from the JCPOA, an agreement Israel strongly opposed.

In January 2021, President Biden assumed office.

In July 2022,  Riyadh announced that it would open its airspace to all airlines, paving the way for more overflights to and from Israel. The normalization of Israel-Saudi Arabia relations appeared close. What led these countries to seek better relations with Israel was their desire to benefit from its advanced technological achievements in multiple fields and broaden the front against Iran and its Axis of Resistance. Thus, the question of Palestine was swept under the carpet.

The Hamas onslaught of October 7, 2023, dramatically changed the picture marking the beginning of Israel’s longest war. Lately, the war has also engulfed Lebanon.

During the past fifteen months, the Biden administration only expressed “concern”, “grave concern”, and “deep concern” over the plight of Gazans and ironclad support for Israel. Secretary Blinken constantly said that Israel had accepted America’s framework for a cease-fire and it was up to Hamas to take it. However, it became clear finally that both sides were adding new conditions to the ceasefire proposals. In a nutshell, Mr. Netanyahu successfully downgraded Washington’s Gaza policy to one of observation.

On January 20, 2025, Mr. Trump will start his second term at the White House. Thus, leaders determined to make history will be in office both in the US and Israel. The question will be how much their ambitions would overlap.

Last week Israel’s Finance Minister Smotrich said that Donald Trump’s election as the 47th president of the United States provides Israel with an “important opportunity” to “apply Israeli sovereignty to the settlements in Judea and Samaria”, the West Bank.

The Gaza death toll is now over 43,000. The Strip has been reduced to rubble. It is inhabitable. The question is, “What is Prime Minister Netanyahu’s endgame?” Could it be that he wishes to send the Palestinian inhabitants of the West Bank to Gaza and then say that they can have their Palestinian state there? If that is his plan, Mr. Trump would do his best to have the wealthy Arab countries contribute to Gaza’s reconstruction. Or, could it be that Mr. Netanyahu might try sending most of the Gazans elsewhere, beyond the borders of Israel, and let the problem of the West Bank be resolved later? If so, where would the Gazans go? Mr. Trump may also help him find a destination and offer incentives to those who would open their doors to Gazans.

Then there is the question of Iran and its Axis of Resistance. Last Sunday Mr. Netanyahu said that he has spoken three times with Trump since the election and that they “see eye to eye on the Iranian threat.” Nonetheless, President Trump may initially try to reach a deal with Iran. The regime has never appealed to him but, looking for a deal, he felt no inhibition to shake hands with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un. Moreover, he must know that if Israel’s confrontation with Iran were to turn into a direct military conflict between the two countries with the US getting involved, Russia and China would step in. Iran may see a deal with the US as an opportunity to forget about responding to Israel’s attack of October 26.

As for Türkiye, Ankara’s relationship with the first Trump administration had a roller-coaster pattern, to say the least. On October 9, 2019, President Trump sent President Erdogan the most undiplomatic letter of the century.[i] A month later, after a White House meeting on November 13, 2019, he declared himself a “big fan” of Mr. Erdogan. He said, “You’re doing a fantastic job for the people of Turkey.”[ii]

Türkiye, at present, is once again the stage for agenda games designed to divert attention away from our economic difficulties. One day it is the investigation of some murder, the next day the release of Abdullah Öcalan, and the day after the removal from office of an elected mayor on terrorism charges. It is not AI, climate change, or technological progress. The last few days’ topic is a looming military operation against the YPG in Syria, a Kurdish separatist group supported by Washington. The questions people focus on are, “How deep the operation will go into Syria?”, “How Washington and president-elect Mr. Trump may react?”, “What will be Moscow’s response?”, “What are links to be secured along the border with Syria?”

As a result of our economic woes and distracting national agenda, we Turks suffer from memory loss. We understandably speculate on the potential operation against the YPG, its likely consequences, Mike Waltz’s appointment as Mr. Trump’s National Security advisor and his having called the PKK/YPG “America’s best regional ally after Israel”, but we no longer remember how we got here in the first place.

Today we have a Syria and PYD problem because the AKP government assumed a leadership role in the regime change project of the West and Israel in Syria that led to the country’s destruction. Until then, our cooperation with the Assad regime was shown by Türkiye’s leadership as a unique example of a mutually beneficial relationship between two neighboring countries. In other words, every discussion about Syria must start by admitting our mistakes and only then turn to today’s challenges. That, however, is not the case.

Today, the AKP government is the number two enemy of Israel in the world after Iran. Yet, it has done a great service to Israel by helping knock out Syria from the regional power equilibrium. That indisputably shows how inconsistent AKP’s Middle East policy has been and how much it has harmed our national interests. But we have not learned our lesson. Now, as the number two supporter of Hamas in the world after Iran we have opened new avenues of confrontation.

According to the UNHCR, Türkiye is already one of the largest refugee-hosting countries worldwide with millions of Syrians and others. This, at least, is a major challenge we must remain conscious of as Mr. Trump’s regional policies start taking shape.

[i] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/10/16/us/politics/trump-letter-turkey.html

[ii] https://edition.cnn.com/2019/11/13/politics/donald-trump-recep-tayyip-erdogan-turkey-impeachment/index.html