A New Trump Era in the Middle East?

A New Trump Era in the Middle East?

 

By Albert Soued, journalist and writer, http://symbole.chez.com for www.nuitdorient.com

July 14, 2017

 

If the West really seeks to pacify the Middle East and to become more credible there, it should abandon its illusions and no longer wish for reality. He should think about the following facts that are hard to dodge for too long.

Israel and its Arab environment

Israel is reborn from its exile by the Balfour Declaration of 1917 which restored to it a territory lost 20 centuries ago in the Middle East. This quasi-desert territory was home to a small number of nomadic Jews, Arabs and Bedouins. (see www.nuitdorient.com/n722.htm )

The Balfour declaration will be celebrated this year by Great Britain. It was concretized by the San Remo agreements of 1920, then by the decision of the UN in 1947. This created in Mandatory Palestine, managed by Great Britain for 30 years, 2 states, one Jewish, the another Arab. Refusing the UN resolution, 5 Arab States go to war against the new Israeli state, without success. The armistice imposed by the UN in 1949 freezes the lines separating Jews and Arabs. Egypt occupies and manages a strip of territory near its borders, Gaza. Jordan occupies and manages the West Bank (Judea and Samaria for Jews). And nobody talks about an Arab Palestine.

Faced with a provocation by Nasser's Egypt in June 1967, blocking the Strait of Tiran in the Red Sea, Israel waged a 6-day preventive war and defeated 4 Arab armies, occupying all of Mandatory Palestine, the Sinai and the Golan. A peace treaty was signed in 1979 with Egypt, which recovered all of Sinai and renounced the Gaza Strip. Another peace treaty was signed in 1994 with Jordan, which renounced the West Bank.

 

From 1917 until 1964, the word Palestine designates a Jewish territory intended for the Jews, and the term Palestinian refers to a Jew from Palestine, not an Arab, called Syrian, Egyptian or simply Arab.

The Arabs never wanted to create an Arab state called Palestine. Moreover the letter P does not exist in the Arabic language, therefore no “Palestine”(1).

In 1964, Yasser Arafat, an Egyptian, created the Palestine Liberation Organization or PLO, claiming all of Mandatory Palestine to house ½ million Arabs who had left to take refuge in neighboring Arab states, and another ½ million living in the places, and often installed where the Jews offered income-generating activities. Arafat thus created from scratch a new fictitious Arab identity that claims to this day all of Mandatory Palestine., with the help of Arab states and some Western countries. Thus, through this new Arab national fiction, the Arabs can claim all the territory that they could never obtain after 3 successive wars (1948/9-1967-1973). In the PLO charter, Israel has no existence! (see www.nuitdorient.com/n726.htm )

In fact, Islam cannot tolerate a Jewish state within it. He will tolerate a tribute-paying Jewish community within a new Arab state, but not a Jewish nation.

And for 70 years, the scaffolding of various plans with 2 states, seems illusory if not unrealistic, because no so-called “Palestinian” leader will agree to sign a document of sharing and peace with a Jewish state. He will be assassinated as was Sadat in 1981. If Hussein of Jordan escaped it, it is because he is a Hashemite, a descendant of the prophet, exempt from death (see www.nuitdorient.com/n742.htm ).

However, it so happens that in nearly 70 years, the Jewish state, which has fought several times for its existence, has become a major state which contributes in a remarkable way to the good of the planet by its exemplary many areas. It even provokes the jealousy of much older and more populous nations. Israel has become in almost 70 years a country to be reckoned with and on whom we can count.

Israel fights against the Islamic doctrinal refusal which materializes by wars, “intifadas” or guerrillas of all kinds and also by a permanent Iranian nuclear threat (see table www.nuitdorient.com/n741.htm ).

By pursuing the illusion of a two-state solution and constantly demanding concessions from Israel, under the pretext that it is a strong state, the West has only exacerbated the Islamic will to do battle with the Jewish state.

Since the Oslo agreements of 1993, where a certain autonomy was granted to Arab areas of Judea and Samaria (West Bank), Palestinian terrorism has never ceased.

In 2005, Israel unilaterally withdrew from the Gaza Strip. It was immediately replaced by Hamas, a terrorist group dedicated to the destruction of its neighbor Israel. Any withdrawal from the West Bank can only have the same consequences.

Israel is no longer a candidate for suicide. Consequently, if we want to get out of the status quo, the 2 paths to explore are the attachment of part of the West Bank to Jordan or its accession to greater autonomy (zones A/B), the annexation of the zone C by Israel and the trusteeship of the Gaza Strip.

 

Moscow, the Shiite axis and the others

With the American withdrawal from the Middle East under the Obama administration, the vacuum was gradually filled by strategic needs and hegemonic desires:

- Russia seeks to perpetuate the naval bases of Lattakieh and Tartous in the eastern Mediterranean and the air bases recently created. To this end, it will keep the Alawite-Shiite Bashar al Assad in power in western Syria, and, if possible, in all of Syria. In addition to opening up potential markets, a tactical alliance with Iran allows it to eliminate or at least neutralize a dangerous enemy, the Islamic State, which it has already practiced in the past in Afghanistan, under the name “Taliban”.

But Iran is the "padrone" of many terrorist groups, the most important of which is Hezbollah, which managed to govern Lebanon (see www.nuitdorient.com/n738.htm ), and here the interests between Iran and the United States may diverge. Donald Trump does not want General Souleymani's Al Quds brigades and other foreign Shiite militias to drag on in Syria, especially in the southern part contiguous to Israel and Jordan.

- Turkey Erdogan seeks to regain his past glory in the Ottoman Empire, through the chaos created in Syria/Iraq, and to prevent the creation of an independent Kurdish state. It is led to play a triple game, alliance with the West against the Islamic State, occupation of territories in Syria/Iraq to contain the Kurdish advance, and benevolence towards various Sunni Islamist rebel groups, financed by the Qatar, to establish its authority in Islam.

- Iran seeks to outdo Sunni Islam and create a Shiite axis linking the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean and to control the straits around the Arabian Peninsula, either directly or through a satellite in Yemen, the Shiite Houthi tribe . Moreover, the ayatollahs are threatening the new, resurgent strong state of Israel with nuclear weapons, available in the short or medium term, despite the fragile agreements signed with the West.

 

The Necessary Kurdish State

Despite the resolution of the nations to create an independent Kurdistan, the 30 million Kurds are still divided between 4 countries, Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran. They managed to have a real autonomy in Iraq, a false autonomy in Turkey and hope to have it in Syria, taking advantage of the local chaos. However, they have formed an effective, courageous and exemplary army in Iraq, the only one to defeat the Islamic State.

However, the Kurds form a secular ethnic group, with a language, customs and a particular culture, a real nation deserving of a state. The West should help to create this state necessary for the strategic balance of the Middle East, and provide it with all the weapons necessary for this purpose. Already, a referendum is planned in Iraqi Kurdistan in September to decide on independence or maintaining it as an autonomous province in Iraq.

 

Foreign Affairs of the West

Both the State Department, the Foreign Office and the Quai d'Orsay are under the influence of a pro-Arab policy, atavistic but increasingly outdated, paralyzing governments in their desire to adapt to changes strategic. It is surprising to see serious controversies within the administrations when it comes to the policy of a new government vis-à-vis the Arab states. To the point that one wonders if the chaos that has persisted in the Middle East since the 1^st World War, that is to say for a century, would not be due to this particular and suspicious attachment of “Foreign Affairs” to Arab-Islamism.

 

A New Trump Era in the Middle East?

With the coming to power in the United States of a president carried by a "popular" current and no longer only by an elitist state apparatus which has lasted too long, we should hope for a change in the policy practiced until now by America in the Middle East.

 

Recommendations and conclusion

We recommend the following 4 paths to explore, if America wants to overcome the Islamic State and stabilize the region.

– Elimination or at least neutralization of the Islamic ayatollahs who have occupied Iran for 37 years and Erdogan's Islamic thrust which has already lasted 15 years. The West should strengthen the sanctions, instead of easing them and favoring and helping the groups and ethnic groups that want the fall of the oligarchy of the ayatollahs. The West should threaten Turkey with exclusion from NATO and sanctions, to calm President Erdogan's desire for hegemony, and "his full powers", while favoring freedom-loving local groups, now muzzled or in jail.

– Stop the indirect financing of terrorism through donations and subsidies to the Palestinian authorities and a more intransigent attitude towards the Arab kingdoms and emirates such as Qatar which finance Islamic militias and terrorist groups, such as Hamas.

– Firmer attitude towards the so-called Palestinian leaders, more objective attitude towards the real goals of Fatah and Hamas (teaching of hatred in schools, war propaganda, encouragement of terror, etc.)

– Assistance in the creation of an independent state in Kurdistan and its supply of means to overcome what remains of the Islamic State.

 

If the pro-Arab-Islamic reflexes and habits of Foreign Affairs persist, the situation in the Middle East not only cannot improve, but risks worsening over time.

And it is not by constantly asking Israel for concessions, accompanied by the litany of “2 states for 2 peoples”, with a view to creating a 23^nd Arab state, potentially terrorist and dedicated to the destruction of its Jewish neighbor, that we will obtain peace in the region.

Since the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States, several signs show that we are gradually heading in the right direction.

– During his trip to Riyadh, Donald Trump signed an agreement with Sunni Arab countries to end the financing of Islamism and Islamic terrorism and to establish an alliance with Israel to contain Iran. An anti-financing agreement for terrorist groups (including Hamas and Hezbollah) has been signed with Qatar.

- During his trip to Jerusalem, Trump insisted on the unbreakable alliance with Israel, did not mention "the two-state solution", nor the settlements in Judea and Samaria and he castigated the incitement to hatred of the Palestinian Authority and its financial and moral encouragement of local terror.

– During his trip to Brussels, Trump expressed his disagreement with the Paris climate agreement and signaled the United States' exit from this agreement, in order to be free in terms of exploitation of energy resources that allow his country to have global influence and not depend on Arab, Iranian or Russian oil or gas. He also asked the European member countries of NATO to contribute more to the financing of defense needs.

– In his speech in Warsaw, he magnified Western civilization in view of the invasion of Islamist culture. He reinforced the idea of ​​an alliance between the twelve countries of Central Europe (Three Seas Initiative) to improve their position vis-à-vis Russia.

Donald Trump obtained from Putin the cessation of all military operations in southern Syria, bordering Israel and Jordan, and the creation of a buffer zone of fifty kilometers where any presence of Hezbollah and Iranian elements is prohibited.

 

Footnotes to the story

(1) No “peace” either. In Islam, peace does not exist for the infidel or the enemy. There are only temporary truces, the time that Islam regains the strength and the means necessary for the pursuit of its conquests.