Trump’s Jerusalem Gambit Will Speed The Colonization Of Palestinian Land

By Nadia Hijab and Zena Agha

The United States has long been a con­tra­dic­to­ry play­er in Palestinian and Israeli affairs, attempt­ing to bro­ker “peace deals” on the one hand while pro­vid­ing Israel with bil­lions of dol­lars in mil­i­tary aid and polit­i­cal back­ing on the oth­er. Now Donald Trump has honed this dou­ble-edged US role to a dev­as­tat­ing point with his calami­tous deci­sion to rec­og­nize Jerusalem as Israel’s cap­i­tal — even as he calls for a two-state solu­tion “if agreed” by both sides.

As always, Trump has his own inter­ests at heart. In one fell swoop, he has man­aged to pla­cate his major donor Sheldon Adelson, who con­tributed near­ly $40 mil­lion to Trump’s elec­tion and inau­gu­ra­tion, and please both Israel and pro-Israel Christian evan­ge­lists, while kick­ing the can down the road for the next pres­i­dent to deal with. (White House aides say it will take at least three years for a new embassy to be built.) Most impor­tant of all for Trump, giv­en his desire to make his mark, he can boast that he has deliv­ered some­thing oth­er pres­i­dents have side­stepped for 20 years.

In shred­ding decades of estab­lished pol­i­cy, Trump doesn’t seem to care a bit that his move jeop­ar­dizes his country’s inter­ests in the region — or that it pos­es a direct threat to the Palestinians. Nor do the basic pre­cepts of inter­na­tion­al law seem to have crossed his mind. Not only is East Jerusalem con­sid­ered occu­pied ter­ri­to­ry, but the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty does not rec­og­nize West Jerusalem as Israel’s cap­i­tal. Under the 1947 United Nations par­ti­tion plan, which pro­vid­ed an inter­na­tion­al impri­matur for Israel’s cre­ation, Jerusalem is a cor­pus sep­a­ra­tum with an inter­na­tion­al sta­tus. The con­sen­sus was that this sta­tus should not be changed with­out agree­ment between the sides. As a result, no coun­try in the world main­tains an embassy in the city.

So where does this leave the Palestinians? Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has anchored his hopes to US medi­a­tion since he assumed pow­er over a decade ago. But he imme­di­ate­ly reject­ed Trump’s speech — Trump’s lip ser­vice to “peace” and promise to hold off on final-sta­tus issues were appar­ent­ly cold com­fort — and declared that the United States could no longer serve as medi­a­tor. But the real­i­ty is that Abbas has nur­tured few diplo­mat­ic alter­na­tives to the United States. When the glob­al out­rage qui­ets down, he may find him­self increas­ing­ly iso­lat­ed and weak­ened, side­lined by the machi­na­tions of the so-called Arab Quartet (Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Egypt) in tan­dem with Washington.

On the ground, Trump’s posi­tion will heav­i­ly rein­force Israel’s col­o­niza­tion dri­ve. It will ampli­fy calls from the right wing, includ­ing senior gov­ern­ment offi­cials in Israel such as Naftali Bennett, to annex Area C — an area account­ing for some 60 per­cent of the West Bank where Israel retains full con­trol over secu­ri­ty and civ­il affairs — if not the entire­ty of the occu­pied territory.

First on the list is the E1 cor­ri­dor, a strate­gi­cal­ly sig­nif­i­cant strip of land mea­sur­ing approx­i­mate­ly 12 square kilo­me­ters that is locat­ed between Jerusalem and the ille­gal Israeli set­tle­ment of Ma’ale Adumim. An ongo­ing push to annex the area has left 1,400 Palestinians fac­ing evic­tion, includ­ing all 32 fam­i­lies from the vil­lage of Khan Al-Ahmar, which is under an order for imme­di­ate demo­li­tion.

E1 is “strate­gic” because it would secure Ma’ale Adumim’s con­ti­gu­i­ty with Israel by cre­at­ing an urban Jewish block between Ma’ale Adumim and Jerusalem. This would bol­ster Israel’s grip on East Jerusalem by sur­round­ing and dwarf­ing its Palestinian dis­tricts with Jewish neigh­bor­hoods. Significantly, it would all but cut the West Bank in half, mak­ing a con­tigu­ous Palestinian state impossible.