By Ameer Ali –

Dr. Ameer Ali

It was not just flattery but a genuine confession by Benjamin Netanyahu when addressing a gathering after the reception accorded to him by the US President on 4^th February 2025 that Donald Trump is the “greatest friend that Israel has ever had in the White House”. But, having witnessed the eroding support to Israel and Trump’s presidency in the country, Laura Loomer, a pro-Israeli activist opined, 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 Netanyahu and his IDF for continuing with their genocide mission in Gaza and annexation of the West Bank while invading Southern Lebanon. 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 later, 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 which 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 rabble 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”.  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 had increased and the settlers had forcibly displaced around 36,000 Palestinians from their properties. Although these are illegal measures they had the approval from Netanyahu’s government. Does 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 had been forcibly evacuated, over 1700 had been killed so far, dead bodies had been vaporized and most of Southern Lebanon has been laid waste. Once again 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 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 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 Trump realized that Iran was not a sitting duck and as Iran retaliated by regionalizing 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 with the US blockade. However, as the economic pain started emptying the wallets US consumers Trump’s domestic vote bank began to dry 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 Trump and his Republican cabal to face the midterm election. This is why Iran’s nuclear program has become a key issue in negotiation.

More than 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 according to one report. 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 program is nowhere near weapon production. It was Netanyahu’s scare mongering at the UN that eventually led to the current war.

Currently there are nine countries US, Russia, China, France, UK, India, Pakistan Israel and N. Korea that have nuclear weapons and five of them US, Russia, China, France and UK are permanent members of UN Security Council with veto powers. Pakistan developed its nuclear program to counter India and to maintain a balance of power against India’s Akan Bharat ideology. Why then should not Iran or Turky work towards achieving that balance of power against Israel in the Middle East? As the 4^th century AD Roman military writer Vegetius said, “si vis pacem para bellum” (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 those bases and other US assets. UAE has unashamedly become the black sheep among them and 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 Trump’s own choice between continuing with the economic pain which his “calamitous” war has imposed worldwide or saying NO to Israel which would decide the fate of his current ceasefires in the Middle East.