Azmi Bishara: The response to Trump is to make Gaza livable, and the Arab Summit may be a historic opportunity

Arab thinker Azmi Bishara warned that US President Donald Trump's plan to displace Palestinians may become realistic, although it is not inevitable, and that the response to it would be to make the Gaza Strip habitable. He believed that the upcoming Arab summit could be a historic opportunity to change the Arab public opinion's view of Arab summits as useless.

The Director General of the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies said that what makes Trump's words serious is the weakness of the Arab nation. He warned that the American president will not stop until a practical Arab response is issued, expressing his confidence that the American-Israeli bullying of the Arabs today is the result of their position on the Gaza war.

In an interview with Al Arabiya TV, Bishara expressed his regret, saying, “We are forced to deal with Trump’s proposals seriously since he is the president of the United States of America, regardless of his intellectual level, the information he possesses, his interests, his whims, and his personality.”

Trump's ideas

He described Trump's ideas regarding the displacement of Palestinians as provocative and very bad. Although it is not a program for implementation yet, as evidenced by the fact that its owner did not have answers to questions about his project.

Bishara warned that this set of ideas could turn into a plan, just as the Israelis are currently doing, as Trump’s statement awakened their memories of the transfer they practiced twice against the Palestinians, in 1948 and 1967, noting that 72% of Israelis supported Trump’s idea regarding the Palestinians in Gaza.

The upcoming Arab summit

Regarding the Arab summit scheduled for February 27 in Cairo, Azmi Bishara said, “It may be a historic opportunity to change the Arab public opinion’s view of Arab summits as useless.”

Bishara addressed the Arab officials, saying that the response at the Arab summit, which may later become a joint Arab-Islamic summit, must be through decisions that make the Gaza Strip fit for living, and to develop and implement an Arab Marshall Plan for Gaza.

The Arab thinker seemed decisive that the Arab and Islamic summit was capable of forcing the Palestinians to unite and reorganize the Palestine Liberation Organization, not mediating between the two main Palestinian parties.

He concluded his idea on this matter by warning that under these circumstances, if the Palestinian forces do not unite, this means that there is no light at the end of the tunnel.

Not giving up on the Arab initiative

In response to a question about US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s statement asking those who reject Trump’s idea to present their alternatives, Bishara replied that the Arabs presented their project in 2002 through the Arab Peace Initiative in Beirut (a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders, the return of refugees, and withdrawal from the occupied Golan Heights, in exchange for recognition and normalization of relations between Arab countries and Israel), and they began to abandon it by normalizing relations with Israel for free.

He pointed out that the solution does not lie in giving up the Arab initiative, but in stopping giving it up through free normalization. As for the possibility that Trump's ideas about displacing the Palestinians will lead to a return to the Israeli war on Gaza, Bishara ruled that out, and pointed out that Trump does not want to return to war because he knows that its military goals have been exhausted.

As for the fears of the arrival of the migration train from Gaza to the West Bank, the author of "From the Jewish State to Sharon" explained that since 1967, migration has been accelerating in the West Bank, but steadfastness exists there. He added that for Jordan, this is a strategic issue and the kingdom may close the borders because of it.

He described the worst thing that is happening in the West Bank as making the Palestinian state impossible by moving from the settlements being cantons in the West Bank, to making the places of residence of the Palestinians cantons in their land and turning their lives into hell through oppression, displacement and checkpoints.

Source: Al-Araby Al-Jadeed