The Gazan crisis continues to fester in a very enigmatic, uncertain manner. While some contours of the US-Israel Combine’s policy have started emerging—they are adamant upon cleansing Gaza of all its inhabitants and profiting massively by developing this “piece of real estate” into a playground for the rich and beautiful—the rest of the world, in particular the Arab-Muslim worlds, have yet to come up with any collective, definitive response. If it is the Gaza Strip today, it will be the West Bank tomorrow. That would squarely meet Israel’s desire of having absolute control “from the River (Jordan) to the Sea (Mediterranean)” as a prerequisite for attaining its ideal of Greater Israel!
However, President Trump has persistently expressed his intent to “own” Gaza. What does it imply? Will it be a joint US and Israeli possession? Or does the US intend to eventually elbow Israel out and take over total control of Gaza for itself, including the proposed Riviera and the bountiful maritime gas deposits just off the Gazan coastline? Such a strategic manoeuvre could leave the world aghast and the Gazans-Palestinians and Israelis high and dry, wondering what hit them. Does the US then intend to add Gaza to the list of its territories, like Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, and American Samoa, to get permanent and sole ownership of all fossil fuel and mineral deposits in the territory? It could establish potent military bases there too. Was this then the US’ underlying strategic objective in Gaza all along? Did it provide the weapon systems, munitions, and economic, political, and diplomatic support to Israel to achieve this specific objective too? Will the reconstituted Gaza Strip still contribute (in)directly to the desired end state of a Greater Israel?
The Gazans-Palestinians are being dealt with quite arbitrarily, callously, and most insensitively. All regional and global players seem to have opinions, yet no one has ever asked the Gazans-Palestinians formally about their desires, ambitions, and aspirations for their own future. Could a decisive, binding-on-all referendum on the subject be possible? President Trump thinks that providing them with good buildings alone, in alien lands, would suffice. President Trump is very materialistic in his approach and disregards the emotional attachments that a people have with their homeland. However, the foremost question remains unanswered: how will this forced exodus be planned, organised, financed, provided for, and conducted? Will they move out voluntarily, or will they be driven out? Will the IDF be tasked with restarting and reinforcing its genocide of the Gazans-Palestinians all over again? In phase one, it perhaps concentrated more on destroying the infrastructure. In phase two, it could focus on bludgeoning the Gazans-Palestinians into submission, breaking their will to resist in the process. That could make migration a lesser and much more acceptable evil. And crucially, who will fill the resultant vacuum in the Gaza Strip? Hamas remains the most critical albeit unresolved factor in this conundrum yet. It is ostensibly reinforced and reorganised and engenders serious unpredictability into the issue. It will have to be tackled. “Breaking all hell loose” might not always work! Israel has failed to achieve any of its political or military objectives in Gaza, and this has forced the US to intervene, take over control, and enforce a “solution” there. Egypt and Jordan will accept hundreds of thousands of refugees/displaced people only to their abiding peril. It will compound their social, political, and economic woes manifold. Inevitably, the new habitats of Gazans-Palestinians, if created, will gradually transform into nurseries/bases from where the Palestinian struggle for freedom and statehood will continue endlessly. This will potentially convert a localised conflict into a regional/extra-regional war.
On the geopolitical plane, President Trump is likely to coerce the leading Arab states to join him in his version of “my solution kills all ills” in the Middle East. Of most importance will be KSA and its redoubtable Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman. If KSA is somehow convinced/coerced to agree to the Trump Solution/Deal, then the rest of the Gulf Arab states and much of the normally comatose Ummah are likely to follow suit. President Trump could possibly employ numerous leverages with the Crown Prince: raise the spectre of an Arab Spring, reaffirm his support for the monarchy, offer a defence and security pact, pledge the latest military equipment, civil nuclear energy, and cutting-edge technologies like Artificial Intelligence and quantum computing. He might have made a smart diplomatic move already by agreeing to meet President Putin of Russia in KSA, thus giving the Crown Prince and KSA greater stature, respect, and recognition in regional and global affairs and circles. However, this largesse is bound to have a price in the form of some major concessions in the overall geopolitical situation in the GMER. The Crown Prince, on the other hand, is in an excellent bargaining position too. He could exploit the international price of oil, insist upon the Arab Peace Initiative of 2002, float a purported investment of USD 600 billion (or USD 1 trillion, as President Trump expects) in the US economy, agree to consider the Abraham Accords, discuss China’s BRI and its ingress in the region, and eventually get many other Arab-Muslim states to align with the US on this issue. Very intense negotiations with deep geopolitical, geostrategic, and geoeconomic implications and ramifications are thus likely to ensue!
The future is uncertain. There are limits to US power too, regardless of how President Trump might want to wield it. The Ummah should recognise those limits. It must, for once, unite and stand up in the defence of the Gazans-Palestinians—lest it becomes an ominously recurring phenomenon for it!
Imran Malik
The writer is a retired brigadier of the Pakistan Army. He can be reached at im.k846@gmail.com and tweets @K846Im.
