Trump's triumph and the Palestinian disaster at the UN

Whenever the UN discusses Israel and Palestine, the US finds itself isolated. They themselves usually have no chance to get their pro-Israel ideas through, so at least they vote against the proposals of others. They veto them in the Security Council, they do not veto them in the General Assembly. To avoid being alone with Israel on the voting record in opposition to resolutions they pass, they put together a bizarre group of a dozen dissenters, consisting of Pacific Islanders and one or two states each from Latin America and Central Europe, usually with the Czech Republic and Hungary.

Kushner's business plan

In mid-November, things were different. The Security Council approved Trump's pro-Israel peace plan for Gaza. The Security Council's decision contradicts the long-standing positions of both the UN and the key powers. It comes six weeks since the start of a "ceasefire" during which Israel has killed some three hundred Palestinians and its top officials have made no secret of the fact that they do not want any Palestinians in Gaza in the future. The fact that neither Russia nor China has vetoed the decision is a diplomatic triumph for President Trump and a disaster for the Palestinians.

The real author of the peace plan is not Trump himself, but his son-in-law Kushner. Even during the Biden administration, he spoke of turning a place plagued by poverty, repression and extremism into a developer and tourist paradise.

The plan is simple: remove the Palestinians from Gaza and invite developers to build hotels and casinos on its Mediterranean coast. With the help of artificial intelligence, the Kushners produced a widely annotated video in the spring showing what Gaza could look like.

The Gaza Protectorate

The Security Council resolution creates Gaza a protectorate, to be administered by a Trump-led peace committee until at least the end of 2027. The US president will also decide on the committee's makeup, first inviting American and Arab oligarchs.

Security will be in the hands of Israel, Egypt and the international stabilisation force that will operate in coordination with them in Gaza. Hamas is to be disarmed and Israel is to begin to withdraw, but only gradually and on terms of its own choosing.

The Palestinians will not initially be allowed to govern themselves; their self-government will be subject to a peace committee. The prospect of a Palestinian state is postponed indefinitely: if the Palestinian Authority is convincingly reformed and the situation in Gaza improves, 'the conditions for a credible path to Palestinian self-determination and statehood can be created'. Such vague language crushes the previous UN language that has supported Palestinian statehood.

What has happened at the UN?

A few days before the vote, Russia put forward an alternative proposal that clearly enshrined the demand for Palestinian statehood, in line with Moscow's and Beijing's long-standing position. In the end, the Russians withdrew their proposal and, together with China, abstained in the vote on the US proposal, thus allowing it to pass.

The remaining thirteen Security Council members, including pro-Palestinian Algeria, vote in favour. After the vote, Russian Ambassador Nebenza declares that the Security Council has had a "bitter day" and that the Americans have pushed the others to the wall.

In any case, Trump's diplomacy used all the tools of the carrot and stick repertoire at its disposal. Above all, it has managed to get all the powerful states of the region on board for the plan, with the exception of an isolated Iran. Saudi Arabia and Qatar have pledged billions to the Kushner fund for construction in Gaza, and both Turkish President Erdogan, a supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood, from which Hamas stems, and their hardline suppressor, Egyptian President Sisi, have got behind the plan.

Even the leaders of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank have come to terms with the plan.

Expectations of Russia and China

The Russians and Chinese justified their abstention on the grounds that if everyone in the region supports the plan, they will not veto it themselves. However, the fact that the two powers are in a sensitive phase of negotiations with the US, the Russians over Ukraine, the Chinese in a dispute over mutual access to technology, resources and markets, may also have played a role. If they have accommodated Trump at the UN, they expect him to be accommodating elsewhere.

The plan is clearly rejected by Hamas, it will not be disarmed. On the face of it, it is up against overwhelming odds, especially when its traditional backer Iran is weakened. But in the Middle East, things are rarely this clear-cut. Hamas is so entrenched in Gaza that if the Palestinians stay there, so will Hamas. The Israelis may want to get rid of them, but they cannot count on the support of their neighbours to do so.

Turkey, Isreal and Trump

Also ambiguous is the role of Turkey, whose president is used to playing both sides. While Erdogan broke off relations with Israel last year, he accompanied his long-standing harsh anti-Israel rhetoric with intense trade with the Jewish state. They also jointly supported Azerbaijan in its conflict with Armenia.

This year, he has courted President Trump while escalating both his rhetorical attacks on Israel and his diplomatic support for Hamas. He is also the closest ally of the new Islamist regime in Syria.

If Turkey succeeds in sending its troops to the international stabilisation force, which Israel does not want to allow at any price, Hamas would have a powerful ally on the ground.

It also depends on how Israel acts. So far, its aggression in all directions has been a success. At the same time, its international isolation is deepening and its support in American society is crumbling.

Further developments will show whether Trump's diplomatic success is based on a realistic foundation on which a new arrangement will grow that denies basic Palestinian rights, or whether the opposite development will eventually take hold, in which, on the contrary, there will be no place for Israel.