Netanyahu’s arrogance pushing region to the precipice

Saudi Arabia has hit back at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s arrogant suggestion that the Kingdom should host a Palestinian state, while rejecting the premise that Palestinians must be displaced from their native land. The Kingdom’s Foreign Ministry said that it rejected “such statements that aim to divert attention from the continuous crimes committed by the Israeli occupation against the Palestinian brothers in Gaza, including the ethnic cleansing they are subjected to.”

Netanyahu’s tongue-in-cheek statement was not only reckless and in poor taste, but it also backfired, as Arab capitals rallied to condemn his position and defend the Saudi position. At the same time, world leaders expressed revulsion at the notion of uprooting the Palestinians and taking over their ancestral lands.

Netanyahu’s haughty attitude was boosted by US President Donald Trump’s shocking announcement last week, at a White House press conference with the Israeli premier, that the US would “take over” and “own” Gaza while displacing its residents so that it can turn it into the “Riviera of the Middle East.”

Netanyahu and his extremist coalition partners were quick to praise Trump’s plan, even as US officials scurried to tone down his statement by claiming that it was based on humanitarian grounds. Others said that Gazans would eventually be allowed to return. But Trump’s confusing and shocking Gaza plan presented a beleaguered Netanyahu with an opportunity to wriggle out of commitments to the ceasefire deal reached last month with Hamas.

Saudi Arabia was quick to reiterate its long-standing position on the two-state solution, rejecting the displacement of Palestinians and the illegal building of settlements as soon as Trump made his outrageous claim on Gaza.

And when Netanyahu suggested that Saudi Arabia should host a Palestinian state, Riyadh was equally resolute in denouncing the Israeli premier. “The Kingdom also points out that this extremist, occupying mentality does not understand what the Palestinian land means to the brotherly people of Palestine and their emotional, historical and legal connection to this land, and it does not think that the Palestinian people deserve to live in the first place, as it has destroyed the Gaza Strip, killed and injured more than 160,000, most of them children and women, without the slightest human feeling or moral responsibility,” the Saudi Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Sunday.

Even in Israel itself, Netanyahu has been attacked for provoking America’s closest Arab ally, one that Trump hopes to bring into the Abraham Accords while inviting Riyadh to invest billions in the US. By trying to be clever, Netanyahu has sealed the fate of any rapprochement with Saudi Arabia — at least for as long as he is in power.

But despite his diplomatic flop, the Israeli premier is looking for ways to use Trump’s surprise position on Gaza to derail the second phase of the ceasefire deal with Hamas and restart military operations. Despite the skepticism and rejection from Republican and Democratic lawmakers of the entire Trump proposal, the US president doubled down on his position when he said that Palestinians would have no right of return to Gaza under his US takeover plan, describing his proposal in excerpts of an interview released Monday as a “real estate development for the future.”

World leaders expressed revulsion at the notion of uprooting the Palestinians and taking over their ancestral lands

Osama Al-Sharif

Trump told Fox News that “I would own it” and that there could be as many as six different sites for Palestinians to live outside Gaza under the plan. He was not asked if the Palestinians would have the right to decide their future as the rightful owners of the land.

His words gave Netanyahu a fresh push to seek to topple the ceasefire deal, declaring before the Israeli Knesset on Monday that neither Hamas nor the Palestinian Authority would rule Gaza. He has described Trump’s plan as “revolutionary and creative” and reiterated that Israel is ready to finish the war.

Trump’s unrealistic, not to mention illegal, proposal to “buy Gaza” has emboldened Netanyahu, who saw in the ceasefire a threat to his coalition and his political career. On Sunday, the coalition government rejected a proposal by Israel’s attorney general to set up a probe to investigate the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks, with Netanyahu insisting that the war was not over yet.

He seems to be getting his way, as things have begun deteriorating quickly on the state of the truce. On Monday, Hamas issued a statement saying that Israel had been violating the ceasefire deal and that, in response, the movement had decided to indefinitely postpone the further release of Israeli captives.

Netanyahu called for an emergency Cabinet meeting to discuss responding to the Hamas statement. Families of Israeli captives blamed Netanyahu's “irresponsible attitude” for the Hamas decision.

Trump’s irrational Gaza statements, as well as Netanyahu’s arrogance, could now lead to the collapse of the ceasefire and the return to a horrific bombardment of Gaza. Netanyahu’s faux pas on Saudi Arabia and his support for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians will complicate Trump’s bid to revive the Abraham Accords. They should instead create much-needed momentum for a united global front to oppose Israel’s annexation of Palestinian lands.

Meanwhile, there has been a muted reaction to Israel’s month-long campaign to destroy Palestinian refugee camps in the West Bank. According to the UN, at least 40,000 Palestinians have been displaced from Jenin and other refugee camps in the West Bank. Dozens have been killed, the latest being two women, one of them a pregnant 23-year-old. Israel has also demolished tens of homes and destroyed vital infrastructure in at least two camps.

The campaign against Palestinian refugee camps — there are 19 of them in the West Bank that are home to about 300,000 Palestinians — is now part of the far-right government’s plan to change the demographic makeup of the occupied territory in preparation for a possible annexation move, likely blessed by Trump.

This, along with the financial strangulation of the PA, is aimed at encouraging what ultrareligious Jewish leader Itamar Ben-Gvir has called the “voluntary migration” of Palestinians. Trump is yet to divulge what he thinks Israel should do in the West Bank.

These are dangerous times not only for the Palestinians but for the entire region. Israeli extremists are now in control of Israel, which has gone rogue with fiery declarations about territorial ambitions in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and beyond.

An Arab summit in Cairo this month will discuss the dangerous spiral of events in the region that have been encouraged by Trump and led by Netanyahu and his fellow zealots. The message should be a resounding one, echoing around the world and heard particularly in Washington and Tel Aviv.

• Osama Al-Sharif is a journalist and political commentator based in Amman. X: @plato010