Photo courtesy of AP
It was not just flattery but a genuine confession by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when addressing a gathering after the reception accorded to him by the US president in February 2025 that Donald Trump was the “greatest friend that Israel has ever had in the White House”. But having witnessed the eroding support for Israel and President Trump’s presidency in the country Laura Loomer, a pro-Israeli activist, said – and Trump seems to have agreed with her – that he could be the last pro-Israeli president in US history.
Meanwhile, Trump’s two ceasefires, one to stop the Hamas-Israel war in Gaza and the other between Hezbollah and Israel in Southern Lebanon, are in fact Trump’s unwritten licences granted to Prime Minister Netanyahu and his IDF for continuing with their genocide mission in Gaza and annexation of the West Bank while invading Southern Lebanon. The US-Israel war with Iran and its consequent threat to peace in the Middle East and to global economic security has provided a convenient cover under which Israel is systematically extending its territorial limits.
Israel is the only country created by the UN with undefined territorial boundaries. That deliberate omission was one of the reasons why Israel’s Zionist forefathers like Arthur Balfour, Theodor Herzl and Ben Gurion canvassed among their followers to accept the UN-British division of the Mandated Territories as a tentative solution. As Ben Gurion wrote to his son, Zionists wanted the “camel to set its foot inside the tent first” before chasing out the occupants and taking over the tent completely. The 1948 war was the first episode of Arab expulsion from their villages and businesses and the 1967 war provided another opportunity to occupy territories belonged to the Arabs in Gaza and the West Bank that were later ratified by the Oslo Accords completed in 1999. The war in Gaza since October 7, 2003 is the continuation of what began in 1948.
The material destruction of Gaza has left that strip of land totally desolate and according to UN it would cost more than $70 billion to clear the rubble alone before planning for any reconstruction. To Israel’s military leaders and Zionists, Palestinians are not humans and they described the genocide and destruction as an exercise in “mowing the lawn”. President Trump declared a ceasefire in Gaza on September 29 last year but all it achieved was for Hamas to exchange all its Israeli captives (dead and alive) for a limited number of Palestinian prisoners suffering in Israeli prisons. Hamas was denied of any choice to select those prisoners. But while there was strict order for Hamas to stop violence against Israel, there was no such compulsion on the latter.
Since that ceasefire was signed on October 10, 2025 Israel has continued its bombing campaign and been reported to have killed around 700 Gazans while wounding another 2,000. Under the cover of the ceasefire Israeli settlements in the West Bank have increased and the settlers have forcibly displaced around 36,000 Palestinians from their properties. Although these are illegal measures they had the approval from Prime Minister Netanyahu’s government. Does President Trump’s ceasefire make any sense?
Just as violent resistance from Hamas and its demand for liberation from Israeli oppression initiated the invasion of Gaza, so was Hezbollah’s armed support for Hamas provoked Israeli invasion of Southern Lebanon. The military doctrine of Dahiah was invoked by Israel implying the unleashing of disproportionate force to target civilian infrastructure to cause maximum psychological impact on civilian population and create eternal darkness, meaning utter destruction as in Gaza. More than a million people have been forcibly evacuated, over 1,700 have been killed so far, dead bodies have been vaporised and most of Southern Lebanon has been laid waste. Once again President Trump declared a ceasefire with no compulsion on Israel to stop its mayhem.
The third ceasefire is in the context of the US-Israel war against Iran. To begin with, this is a war that President Trump and his cabinet cabal declared unilaterally without any constitutional backing. There was no provocation or threat from Iran and the declaration was made solely at the request of Prime Minister Netanyahu and Israel’s powerful Zionist lobby in Washington. That was made clear when Joe Kent, the Director of the National Centre of Counter Terrorism, resigned shortly after the war began. But soon President Trump realised that Iran was not a sitting duck and as Iran retaliated by regionalising the war by attacking US bases in Gulf states and closing the Strait of Hormuz, the financial and economic cost of the war started biting the US economy first before spreading to other countries. Iran, which depends heavily on the export of oil, naturally suffered due to the US blockade. However as the economic pain started emptying wallets of US consumers, President Trump’s domestic vote bank began to dry up and that was the main reason why he is desperately seeking a way out of the mess he had created. A ceasefire with some face saving advantage over the enemy is desperately needed by President Trump and his Republican cabal to face the midterm election. This is why Iran’s nuclear programme has become a key issue in negotiation.
More than the US, a nuclear free Iran is a must for Israel because it does not want any state in the Middle East to challenge the arsenal of Israel with its 800 nuclear warheads. The former Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, ElBaradei, recently stated in an interview that Iran does not have any nuclear weapons and its uranium enrichment programme is nowhere near weapon production. It was Prime Minister Netanyahu’s scare mongering at the UN that eventually led to the current war.
Currently there are nine countries – the US, Russia, China, France, the UK, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea – that have nuclear weapons and five of them – US, Russia, China, France and the UK – are permanent members of UN Security Council with veto powers. Pakistan developed its nuclear programme to counter India and to maintain a balance of power against India’s Greater India ideology. Why then should not Iran or Türkiye work towards achieving that balance of power against Israel in the Middle East? As the 4th century AD Roman military writer Vegetius said, “If you want peace prepare for war”.
The ultimate losers in this war will not be Iran but the Gulf countries that accommodated the US bases and had already faced the wrath of Iran. The resumption of war would initiate the second phase of Iran’s destructive response by attacking these bases and other US assets. UAE has unashamedly become the black sheep among them, openly aligning with Israel and urging Trump to bomb and destroy Iran. It is time Saudi Arabia and other members of the Arab League look for an alternative path for their security and development. With China rising as world’s leading economy driven by clean energy a Look East policy is increasingly becoming an attractive and sensible alternative to the oily economies in the Gulf. Will they wake up?
Ultimately, it is President Trump’s choice between continuing with the economic pain which his calamitous war has imposed worldwide or saying no to Israel that would decide the fate of his current ceasefires in the Middle East.