No matter what else is happening in Europe, US President Donald Trump should be satisfied that things are moving in the right direction in the Gaza Strip. The Bun Security Council has approved a resolution that calls for the setting up of an International Stabilization Force and a Board of Peace to supervise it. On the same day, he hosted Saudi Prime Minister and Crown Prince Muhammad ibn Salman at the White House, where he agreed to let Saudi Arabia buy F35 stealth fighters. MBS also signed a deal on civilian nuclear cooperation, which would allow the USA to sell it nuclear fuels. That was probably why the Crown Prince expansively said that Saudi Arabia wanted to be part of the Abraham Accords (through which initially Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, and then Morocco and Sudan, recognized Israel. It was to prevent Saudi Arabia from acceding to these Accords that Hamas carried out the 7 October 2023 attack on Israel. However, as a sop to the Arab Street, he laid down as a condition that there be a two-state solution.
Both the Trump Peace Plan and the Abraham Accords are problematic. The proposed ISF would be mandated to disarm ‘non state actors’ (read Hamas) in cooperation with Egypt and Israel. It seems to have slipped notice that the Gaza Strip is still on the UN’s books as an occupied territory. The domestic turmoil Saudi Arabia would face in joining the Abraham Accords has been enough for the USA to accept promises. However, the two-state solution mentioned by the Crown Prince has been taken firmly off the table both by its explicit statements, as well as by the recent settlements in the West Bank, which make it impossible for the West Bank to remain contiguous. To expect Mr Trump to propose or support anything that remotely diabetes from the Zionist wish list is unrealistic.
Though Saudi Arabia has great respect within the Islamic world, and has been a firm friend of Pakistan in its most trying times, blindly doing what is in the interest of Saudi Arabia, even if it harms Pakistan’s own interests, is problematic. Israel and India have been cooperating for over half a century now, and recognizing Israel would mean being a tacit accomplice in its occupation of Palestine, and of its role in the Indian occupation of Kashmir, which has been one of moral and diplomatic support, apart from the example it has set.
