United States president-elect Donald Trump will have to confront many conflicts in the Middle East, the number of which the US has perhaps not known since the days of former president Dwight D. Eisenhower during the Second World War, said the London-based Pan-Arab newspaper Asharq Al Awsat. “The president-elect may sit and watch the chaos like [US President Barack] Obama did, but the price will only become higher and the threats will only expand. Wars and the activity of terrorist organisations may increase and the humanitarian disaster will worsen. What is noticeable regarding the current wars in Syria, Yemen and part of Iraq is that they have one thing in common and it is Iranian military intervention. So will Trump’s administration draw limits on Iranian chaos or will it continue to adopt Obama’s policy of isolationism?”
Trump could liquidate all the goodwill the US has accrued across the world, said Lebanon’s Daily Star. “First in line is the Arab world, a place Trump has treated with astonishing contempt. He has consistently expressed a dangerous bias towards Israel, giving the state carte blanche to pursue its most racist policies, while showing only animosity toward the Palestinians. Meanwhile, America’s oldest friend in the region, Saudi Arabia, has been at the end of risky verbal attacks. If figures such as Rudy Giuliani, Newt Gingrich and John Bolton are indeed in line for high-ranking positions [in the Trump administration], then that does not bode well at all. Should their and Trump’s policies actually come to fruition, the US better brace for the shockwaves they will produce.
The first worrying signal for the Palestinians sent by Trump was in his March election campaign statement that “there’s nobody more pro-Israel than I am”, said the Jordan Times. “This could have been pure rhetoric, aiming to win the Jewish votes, but when viewed in the context of other disturbing statements, including his promise to relocate the US embassy from Tel Aviv to occupied Jerusalem, Arab anxieties can be understood. In the region, it is not only the Palestinian situation that awaits further signals from the newly-elected president. Syrian, Iraqi, Libyan and Yemeni conflicts also await clearer indicators about what the new US policies will be in their regard.”
Anxiety haunts the minds of all Palestinians over the election of Trump as US president, said UAE’s Al Khaleej. “The Palestinian National Authority must be hoping that Trump would forget ever issuing his pro-Israeli statements, but he won’t. Simply because his stance has nothing to do with his character; rather it stems from core US policies. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu must be overwhelmed with joy that he would not be under pressure regarding the matter of colonisation. Such feelings of joy will not last, because colonisation paves the way for annexation, which would lead to the creation of an apartheid state in a world where power shifts are always occurring, a fact that does not serve the Zionist entity’s interests.”
Israel has expanded its colonisation operations following Unesco’s resolution concerning occupied Jerusalem, said Qatar’s Al Sharq. “Then came the election of pro-Israeli Donald Trump, which sparked a colonisation frenzy for the Israeli leadership. Trump recently declared that he would make peace between Palestine and Israel in an ‘ultimate deal’, while the Knesset in the coming few days will be looking into a bill that will legalise colonisation! Moreover, Netanyahu has already called for banning mosques’ calls for prayers (Athan), a move that threatens freedom of religion. We are standing before a new wave of Israeli attacks that violates international laws and the Geneva Conventions, which calls for the international community and organisations, led by the United Nations, to shoulder its legal and ethical responsibilities to put a stop to Israel’s actions that make it a state that is above the law.”
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