As results of Donald J. Trump’s victory in the presidential race were announced on Tuesday night marking an earth-shattering moment in which several Democratic Senate candidates backfired and Republicans retained their lion’s share in the House of Representatives one basic question emerges in the minds of the Palestinians: Would Trump reshape the U.S. political map as regards Palestine?
“Nobody expected that Trump would win. There is no reason then why we shouldn’t think that he will turn the U.S. political map upside down. The ballot day showed that nothing is impossible” an observer told the PIC. “We should get ready for an overturn in conventional expectations. Trump’s era will set the stage for a drastic reordering of politics in the White House.”
Political Sciences teacher at An-Najah University Abdul Sattar Qasem said Trump’s non-interference approach is very likely to affect his policy towards the Palestinian cause.
“We do not expect Trump or any other U.S. president no matter his/her approach to be Palestinians’ knight in shining armor. However a deliberate detachment is very likely to take place at least at the early stages of his four-year reign until he handles other urgent affairs” said a Tunisian analyst.
“What makes the U.S. what it is is its long-standing ties with the Israeli lobby. America’s foreign policy largely hinges on this bond” she added.
Political analyst Hussam al-Dajani went through a similar line of reasoning when he said that “Israel never Palestine has occupied a key position in Trump’s campaign.”
Prior to Trump’s landslide victory as the 45th president-elect of the United States his electoral campaign was plainly pro-Israel oriented. In one of his earlier occurrences he vowed to capsize decades of US foreign policy and reckon Occupied Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv.
One of Trump’s advisers on Israel and the Middle East David Friedman told the Jerusalem Post that Trump would follow through on his promise.
‘It was a campaign promise and there is every intention to keep it” Friedman said. ‘We are going to see a very different relationship between America and Israel in a positive way.”
During the campaign Trump also promised to be Israel’s “closest friend” and has confessed that he would opt for a different attitude to Israel’s illegal settlement activity in the occupied territories.
“In Trump’s era there will be no more of U.S. pressure on Israel. The Palestinians will remain grappling with an Israeli military colonization of their land. Israel’s settlement policy meanwhile will be given a carte blanche” Qasem told the PIC.
“The Trump administration will not bring about an emphatic change in the U.S. foreign policy. The best Trump can do is to create halfway solutions” he added.
“There is an unquestionable agreement that Israel is the master of the game and the Palestinians are the terrorists. That’s how American politicians see the world—through a biased monolithic lens” Qasem further stated.
Other analysts believed that Trump’s election heralds the demise of the two-state solution and Palestinians’ aspirations for an internationally-recognized independent state.
Trump’s election was jovially received by the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who passed on good wishes for Trump calling him a “true friend” of Israel.
“President-elect Trump is a true friend of the state of Israel” said Netanyahu in a statement. “We will work together to advance the security stability and peace in our region. The strong connection between the United States and Israel is based on shared values shared interests and a shared destiny. I’m certain that President-elect Trump and I will continue to strengthen the unique alliance between Israel and the United States and bring it to new heights” he added.
Shmuel Rosner a senior fellow at the Jewish People Policy Institute also said a Trump administration is likely to be “much more understanding if Israel has to use force in order to tamp down Palestinian violence”.
Despite the divergences in forecast about the fallout of Trump’s reign most of those interviewed by PIC manifested an unenthusiastic attitude as regards the policies to be opted for by the Trump administration which they said will be far more favorable to Israel than the Palestinians.
Although many went as far as stating that the idea of an independent Palestinian state was now over in Americans’ and Israelis’ minds there is a tacit belief among the Palestinians that their dream shall see the day soon very soon.
