Summary
Trump plans to lift the Biden administration’s freeze on supplying 2,000-pound bombs to Israel and reverse sanctions against Israeli settlers.
Summary
Trump plans to lift the Biden administration’s freeze on supplying 2,000-pound bombs to Israel and reverse sanctions against Israeli settlers.
A slightly bigger bomb won’t change anything materially on the ground in Gaza. The only significant change recently has been a cease fire. Whether it will hold or not is as yet unknown. But at least so far, Trump has somehow actually managed to be better on Gaza than Biden. Trump has shown a willingness to actually use the carrots and sticks of US foreign policy to produce outcomes. Biden offered unconditional support to Israel, while Trump seems to have forced them to come to the peace table by threatening to withhold support. In other words, Trump did what Biden’s base had been begging him to do for a year.
It’s possible all this falls apart. And it is possible that Trump will prove far worse, for example by allowing an annexation of the West Bank. But so far at least, Trump has actually been a lot better for the Palestinians than Biden. Biden and Harris fundamentally do not accept that Israel should ever be held accountable for anything.
I don’t think Trump did the cease fire out of moral concerns; I’m sure it was purely self-serving on his part. But he was actually willing to use the US’s various carrots and sticks to force through a cease fire agreement. That is something Biden never had the balls to do.
He sold the West Bank for 100m to Adelson. The genocide won’t stop their focus is just shifting temporarily. It’s not a win, Biden could’ve got them to agree on those terms too. Just like he could’ve ended the Ukraine war if he just told Ukraine to give up and concede a chunk of land.
Trump didn’t do anything. He has no control over Israel. He did nothing for this cease fire. I’m sure he would love to take credit one day and not the next.
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He’s had people involved in backroom negotiations for months. Yes, it is a dirty tactic. This has a lot of undertones of Reagan’s deal with the Iranians. He didn’t have great intentions in negotiating a ceasefire, but he did manage to do it. And Trump has shown a willingness in the past to hold US military aid as a stick to change the behavior of allies. It’s reasonable to think he did the same thing here.
The US DOES have substantial control over Israel. Reagan for instance dramatically affected Israel’s behavior by withholding weapons. Biden was more permissive of Israel than Reagan was.
That is certainly possible, but any involvement from him would have been because he wanted to gain personal wealth or power. I’m sure you know this, but people need to remember that anything that Trump is doing to hold Israel in check has nothing to do with helping Gaza or the Palestinians. He doesn’t care. I do think that he’s very interested in developing on that land. If you recall, a while back there was something going around about Jared Kushner being involved with development in Gaza. I’m not sure what came of that and I don’t remember the exact details.