Trump Says He's Not Confident Ceasefire in Gaza Will Be Kept

 

Trump Says He's Not Confident Ceasefire in Gaza Will Be Kept

US President plans to lift pause on 2,000-pound bomb supply to Israel. Thinks Saudi Arabia will normalize relations with Israel.

President Donald Trump, while signing a slew of executive orders in the Oval Office on Monday night following his inaugural parade event, was asked if he was confident he could keep the ceasefire in Gaza and complete the three phases of the deal.

"I'm not confident," Trump replied. "It's not our war. It's their war. I'm not confident, but they're very weakened on the other side."

Trump said he looked at a picture of Gaza and said it's like a "massive demolition site" and that it's "really got to be rebuilt in a different way."

The President said Gaza is a "phenomenal location on the sea" with the best weather. — The Jerusalem Post

Our Take: President Donald Trump, while signing a slew of executive orders in the Oval Office on Monday night following his inaugural parade event, was asked if he was confident he could keep the ceasefire in Gaza and complete the three phases of the deal.

"I'm not confident," Trump replied. "It's not our war. It's their war. I'm not confident, but they're very weakened on the other side."

Trump said he looked at a picture of Gaza, and said it's like a "massive demolition site" and that it's "really got to be rebuilt in a different way."

"You know, everything's good," he said. "Some beautiful things could be done with it, but it's very interesting, but some fantastic things could be done with Gaza."

Yesterday, we documented why the hostage deal was unlikely to reach the second phase of the deal: Itamar Ben-Gvir and the Jewish Power party has already left the government, if Bezalel Smotrich and Religious Zionism follow, then the political coalition that makes up the Israeli government collapses and new elections are scheduled.

We'll have to see what happens, but you already have escalating violence in the West Bank.

Israeli youth from the Settler Movement have been escalating this violence against Palestinians for a while now. Biden actually did issue Executive Order 14115, which imposed sanctions on Settlers who engaged in this type of violence. It was revoked by President Trump, along with many other EO's.

On the surface, this appears to be in support of Netanyahu's radical cabinet — and perhaps it is — but ultimately, what the EO did was empower the federal government to control the transfer of property between US citizens, if the government suspected that person of being guilty of specific action. (From what it seems, no conviction or due process required.)

There are better ways to solve this problem than granting the federal government expanded powers. For starters, you can stop giving a blank check to the Israeli government — as Middle East Envoy Steve Witkoff explicitly expressed during his address yesterday. If we are going to provide any form of aid or trade to Israel, then that carrot should come with a caveat. That's how you negotiate.

Then there was this little nugget:

However, Trump said that he thinks Saudi Arabia will end up joining the Abraham Accords, a series of normalization agreements between Israel and Arab nations.

"I think Saudi Arabia will end up being in the Abraham Accords," Trump told reporters.

My instincts tell me that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan played a significant role in piecing together the original Abraham Accords, and keeping Saudi out of the original deal was a strategic play.

Normalization with Saudi — which represents normalization with the Islamic homeland — is the carrot that gets Israel to accept a Two-State Solution. Self-governance is the carrot that gets Palestine to agree. The Arabs can leverage their position to keep the Palestinians from breaking the peace, and the West can do the same for Israel. This is a deal that is very achievable, if not for some zealots on both sides. But until you pull the IDF out of the West Bank, you can't expect to build the level of trust necessary to achieve a lasting peace.

But we know well that this isn't about keeping the peace; this is about annexing more territory — something that the Arabs and their partners (Sovereign Alliance) are not going to tolerate. Trump, himself, has said in the past that he wouldn't tolerate it.

The Settler Movement, and how it is dealt with, will become the centerpiece of this entire conflict. — GhostofBasedPatrickHenry