Trump has to convince Netanyahu that successful military operations won’t win peace and security for Israel. Permanent hostility with Palestinians is untenable.
New Delhi: One wonders if the Nobel Peace Prize winners such as Nelson Mandela, the Dalai Lama, Reverend Desmond Tutu or Prof Wangari Mathai ever expressed their desire to get one so publicly and so passionately as the present President of the United States, Donald J. Trump. He feels disappointed that his personal intervention, which has brought about ceasefire/peace agreements between Rwanda and DRC, India and Pakistan and now Israel and Iran, and saved thousands of lives and infrastructure is not given its due salience. He strongly feels that his contribution is good enough to be honoured with a Nobel Peace Prize. Given his persona, tendency to exaggerate and take credit and oversimplify complex issues and look for their solutions through transactional deals, his disappointment is understandable.
In less than six months in his presidency, he has stopped a lot of bloodshed using his bluster and bullying, military pressure and economic coercion and full weight of the President of the most powerful nation on earth. But he doesn’t understand that the Nobel Committee will have a tough time awarding Nobel Peace Prize to someone who authorised the dropping of 30,000 pounder GBU-57 bombs on the nuclear sites of a sovereign state, arguably more devastating than the bombs dropped at Hiroshima Nagasaki in 1945.
It’s high time Trump tries an out of the box approach to get a Nobel Peace Prize. And he doesn’t have to go too far for inspiration. President Jimmy Carter was instrumental for the meeting between the Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin at Camp David and signing of the Camp David Accord after 12-day long negotiations by the three of them on 17 September 1978; it eventually led to the first Peace Treaty between the sworn enemies—Israel and Egypt in 1979. Both Sadat and Begin were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their historic agreement.
Again, it was President Bill Clinton who witnessed the signing of the Oslo Accords on the lawns of the White House in the presence of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and the PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat on 13 September 1993; it marked a significant step in the process of a long-term peace between Israelis and Palestinians. Both Rabin and Arafat were awarded Nobel Peace Prize in1994 along with Shimon Peres “for their efforts to create peace in the Middle East.”
What’s common in these two instances? Neither side was trying to obliterate the other. On the contrary, in spite of pent-up anger, hatred and deep gulf of distrust, guided by their long-term vision of peace, cooperation and prosperity, they were willing to dump their past belligerency and give peace a chance. Arafat rightly called it the “Peace of the Brave”.
Above all, these summits succeeded because both sides trusted the US President and he remained fair and unbiased between the two sides.
Thus, President Trump has two templates to bring about peace between the Palestinians and Israelis and beyond. If he succeeds, he would rightfully deserve a Nobel Peace Prize.
But he can’t be perceived as an honest broker by shifting the American embassy to Jerusalem and allowing the annexation of the Syrian Golan Heights and expansion of settlements by Israel and turning a blind eye to Israel’s incursions in Lebanon, Gaza, the West Bank and Syria at the drop of a hat and remaining indifferent to the humanitarian tragedy in Gaza. Anyone suspected of aiding abetting and supporting the killing of 56,000 Palestinians and talking of developing a French Riviera while thousands of children are starving stands zero chance of getting a Nobel Prize. Trump will have to introspect and reset his policies.
Israel’s military superiority in the Middle East is self-evident. This only nuclear power in the region is capable of defeating the Arab/Gulf countries individually and collectively. Even in the recently halted 12-day war with Iran, while Israel has lost 26 lives, Iran has lost more than 600 including its top nuclear scientists and commanders of the IRG. However, this military superiority hasn’t achieved peace and security which ordinary Israelis crave for.
So, Trump has to convince Bibi Netanyahu that successful military operations won’t win peace and security for Israel. Permanent hostility with Palestinians is untenable. Both Begin and Rabin were great nationalists but eventually realised that this fight was futile. They gave up the path of armed conflict and dreamt of security though peace and friendship.
Netanyahu has to realise that Palestinian-Israeli conflict has no military solution. When ordinary Palestinians will see concrete dividends of peace in their day to day life, they will be less inclined to be drawn towards radicalisation and extremism.
What Hamas did on 7 October 2023 was wrong. But isn’t killing 56,000 Palestinians and reducing the entire Gaza to rubble a bigger crime? Netanyahu doesn’t realise that thanks to the hatred and anger his attacks have generated, ten times more radicalised Palestinian youth will emerge who will, ten years down the line, pick up the gun and attack Israelis even if they get killed in the process. Hate begets hate. Respect begets respect. Gandhi said “an eye for eye will make the whole world blind.”
Bibi has been opposed to the Two-State solution and sabotaged the implementation of the Oslo Accord. Only Trump can yell at Bibi and ask him to turn his planes back. He can plainly tell Netanyahu, there is no other option for Israel’s long-term security than to accept an independent and sovereign Palestinian state side by side Israel with her security fully guaranteed.
Once when such a state comes into existence and Palestinians do not face daily humiliation, that Iran and its proxies—Hezbollah, Hamas and Houthis—will see ground level support from Palestinians evaporate.
Palestinian and Israeli economies are complementary; the marriage of Israeli technology and Palestinian manpower can usher in an era of prosperity for both. It won’t be easy, but it’s possible.
Trump should use his clout and ask Israel to withdraw from Gaza completely and ask Hamas to release all the remaining hostages at one go. Israel should also release most of the 12,000 Palestinians who have been rotting in Israeli prisons for years.
Trump should invite the leaders of Israel and Palestinian Authority for direct talks, with Egyptian, Saudi Arabia, Iranian, Syrian, Lebanese, Qatari and UAE Foreign Ministers in attendance as guarantors at Camp David for two days and see to it that the Two-State solution is signed and implemented in full before his term ends.
Once Israel withdraws fully, the Arab nations led by Egypt, Saudi Arabia and UAE should step in to rebuild Gaza so that displaced persons could return to their homes. Trump can build more economical Trump Towers in Gaza and the West Bank. He can also think of creating a tourist resort along the Gazan coastline a la French Riviera.
But first things first. He must hammer out a Two-State solution. If he does and he is the only person who can do it, he must be honoured with a Nobel Peace Prize.
