How much longer will Arab leaders let Trump and Netanyahu run amok? 

For the past few years, American democracy has been slowly moving towards a sort of techno-feudal financial oligarchy.

With the second Trump administration, it is making a massive jump in that direction. It increasingly resembles a constitutional monarchy, where one of the pillars of the American political system – the separation of powers among the executive, legislative and judicial branches – is ever-more blurred.

President Donald Trump is wiping out the US federal government’s employees with the supervision of his crown prince, billionaire Elon Musk.

He also controls both houses of Congress, and the Supreme Court is expected to be docile and sympathetic to his overhaul of the American political, economic and social system.

The only feeble opposition comes from a few judges who are challenging some of Trump’s executive orders.

It is a situation that resembles some Arab monarchies, and from this point of view, it is interesting to watch the political dynamics between the US and Arab states in the framework of the tense situation in the Middle East, which hangs on two fragile ceasefires in Lebanon and Gaza. Israel is accused of violating both.

Of course, Trump has said nothing about these violations – but when Hamas delayed the release of a few hostages because the ceasefire deal was not being upheld, the US president replied with a dangerous and bellicose ultimatum that expires this coming Saturday.

Embarrassing visit

Any Arab citizen with a shred of personal dignity left must have felt deeply embarrassed upon watching the interaction unfold in the Oval Office on Tuesday, when Trump received King Abdullah of Jordan.

The Hashemite king did not utter a single word as the US president outlined his vision for Gaza, which should require an update of all diplomacy handbooks to reflect this new system of “real-estate foreign policy”. 

Trump doubled and tripled down on the necessity of an ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian population in Gaza and their resettlement in neighbouring countries (except Israel). This proposal risks upending the region and destabilising the two fragile countries that are supposed to be the main recipients of the two million Palestinians: Egypt and Jordan.

It is unclear whether King Abdullah said anything to Trump after the media left the Oval Office.

But it is not surprising that an imminent visit by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to Washington has reportedly been postponed. Perhaps Sisi was not keen to receive the same humiliating treatment as the Jordanian king.

There is a golden rule to follow when Trump speaks: never take his words at face value. For him, everything and its opposite can be true; we are in a post-truth era. There is thus a thin ray of hope that he does not really mean what he says, and that his approach is purely transactional.

We are all scratching our heads trying to square Trump’s assertion that he will own Gaza, with his commitment not to deploy US troops in the Middle East.

It is also unclear as to whether what Trump says reflects his own thinking, or is the byproduct of the many Zionist advisers he selected for his foreign policy team.

A compelling clue can be found in the recent comments of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Not to be outdone by his American buddy, he said that a Palestinian state could be created in Saudi Arabia, which has a lot of free land at its disposal.

To say the least, the royal court in Riyadh did not appear pleased by this suggestion. In its forthright response to Netanyahu and Trump, the royal palace poured cold water on both last Sunday, stating: “His Royal Highness emphasised that Saudi Arabia will continue its relentless efforts to establish an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital and will not establish relations with Israel without that.”

Indeed, years of US and Israeli diplomacy towards Saudi Arabia and the expansion of the Abraham Accords may have been compromised by the clumsy statements of Trump and Netanyahu. Time will tell.

Complex dilemma

If Arab monarchies really want to influence the US decision-making process with regards to a fair and lasting peace in the Middle East, they must speak together in a coordinated fashion. The emergency Arab summit on 27 February could be one of the last opportunities for this. 

Unfortunately, history has repeatedly shown that such gatherings are marked by lofty rhetorical performances, followed by little concrete action. To be fair, the last time that the Arab League proposed something meaningful, the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, it was practically ignored by both the US and Israel.

Qatar and the UAE, two smart and bold monarchies, have shown their capabilities to interact effectively with the US and to speak inconvenient truths to Washington and Tel Aviv. Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, faces a complex dilemma: how can it promote its reform agenda, which requires US support and a peaceful regional setting, while also maintaining its legitimacy as Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques? 

In other words, how can Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman join the Abraham Accords while the US and Israel, with their incendiary rhetoric and brutal actions on the ground, are systematically undermining the minimal requirements for stability and peace in the region?

Trump did not spare the Saudi crown prince his own dose of humiliation when he said that to honour the kingdom with his first visit, he would need $500bn from the kingdom in purchases; when it committed $600bn, Trump raised the sum to $1 trillion.

And the fragile Jordanian monarchy, like Egypt, depends on western economic, military and intelligence support.

For many scholars focused on Middle East diplomacy, the behaviours of the US and Israel challenge logic and conventional wisdom – commodities that have sadly become quite rare.

The impression is that Trump is seeking to help Netanyahu achieve his goal of restarting the war in Gaza. Apparently, they learned nothing from the previous 15 months of failure. But worse could be coming: it would not be surprising if the new US administration formally recognises further Israeli annexations of Palestinian lands in the occupied West Bank, beyond East Jerusalem, alongside new annexations of Syrian land.

The Saudi response to this open support for Israeli expansionism came in another statement from the royal palace, criticising statements that “aim to divert attention from the continuous crimes committed by the Israeli occupation against the Palestinian brothers in Gaza, including the ethnic cleansing they are subjected to”.

It went further: “This extremist, occupying mentality does not understand what the Palestinian land means to the brotherly people of Palestine and their emotional, historical and legal connection to this land.”

So, given this new harsh tone in Saudi diplomacy, will the Arab monarchies continue to commit themselves to the Abraham Accords? Will Egypt and Jordan continue to commit themselves to their peace treaties with Israel, when the latter’s intentions appear anything but peaceful?

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Sunna Files Website.