By Michael Karadjis

There may seem an obvious contradiction between Trump’s calls for Israel to be allowed to “finish the job” in Gaza, and his statements that he wants Israel “end the war quickly,” both of which he has made over the last year or so. The easiest way to explain it is simply that he is a liar, simply says what his audience wants to hear, and is smart enough to word these statements vaguely enough so that they are open to interpretation. In that sense, the circle is easy to square: Trump wants to allow Israel to go even harder, as hard as humanly possible, in order to “finish the job” (ie genocide), and that way, he can “end the war quickly.” “Peace through strength” and all that.

However, there is another way of looking at this. Israel has already won the war in Gaza, we must regretfully admit, notwithstanding many illusions to the contrary. A recent UN report showed that Gaza had been set back 7 decades, while another claimed that it would take 350 years to rebuild to what was there before. It would take at least 14 years just to clear the 42 million tonnes of rubble. Everything necessary for human existence has been destroyed. Probably several hundred thousand over time, “by hook or by crook,” have crossed over into Egypt, and from there “to some other corner of the world,” according to Professor Norman Finkelstein, and can never return; the numbers of dead are estimated to be many times the official 43,000 count. Sure, Netanyahu has not been able to drive all 2.3 million Palestinians into Egypt as initially hoped because the Egyptian al-Sisi dictatorship hates Palestinians as much as Israel does, and so shows … “resistance” to the new Nakbah. And sure, the second plan, the currently under-implementation ‘Generals’ Plan’, to push everyone remaining in northern Gaza into the absurdly crowded south, across the Netzarim Corridor which cuts across the middle of Gaza that will remain occupied by Israeli troops, and hence annex the norther half, is not complete, but has been in operation for the last 6 weeks and there are only estimated to be 75-95,000 Palestinians remaining in the north, and they are under immediate threat of mass starvation; Israel now admits it will not allow anyone to return.

Just to clarify, we often hear that Israel has not achieved any of its “stated aims,” namely to “destroy Hamas” and get the hostages home, “all it has achieved is genocide.” Genocide, however, has been precisely Israel’s aim all along; the “stated aims” are just smokescreens. It never had anything to do with the absurd idea of “destroying Hamas”, because everyone, especially Israeli leaders, knows that a resistance movement cannot be “destroyed” as long as people are under brutal occupation; one might claim therefore that Israel is removing the people themselves in order to destroy the resistance movement based among them, but even that is putting things in reverse: the aim is to remove the people, and having a “stated aim” that is absurd and unachievable allows Israel to just keep on carrying out the actual aim. Though of course a resistance movement like Hamas can be drastically weakened, and this has been achieved, alongside its leadership being wiped out. As for the hostages, if returning them alive was the goal, Israel would have agreed to a ceasefire and hostage exchange long ago; no rational person thinks this can be achieved via genocidal bombing, which has already killed plenty of Israeli hostages.

Why then has Netanyahu resisted calls by a host of Israeli political leaders of the Zionist “centre” (who would not be “centre” anywhere else in the world, eg, hard war criminals like former prime minister Ehud Olmert), and, toothlessly, by Biden, to wind up the war – as Olmert assessed back in May that “we have seen a genuine, impressive and unprecedented victory” – and do a deal to get Israeli hostages back? Seems to me it has a lot to do with Netanyahu wanting to get Trump back into power. Keep the war and killing going, know that Biden/Harris will do nothing except issue statements of concern, Trump returns. Indeed, Trump even asked Netanyahu to not sign any ceasefire/hostage exchange deal before the US elections as it might ruin his election chances.

So, now that Trump has returned, well, kill a while longer, especially to complete the Generals Plan in northern Gaza, so by the time Trump assumes full office in late January, he will be able to say “OK Bibi, that’s enough for now,” and Bibi will (perhaps) be in a position to finally sign on to a ceasefire as he has “finished the job,” and Americans and the world see that Trump “ends the war”.

OK, but in that case, if Israel has indeed finished the job, why would it need to continue it just to help get Trump elected, because in that case, why would it even need Trump? Since Biden/Harris already quite happily let Israel “finish the job” as Trump requested of them, without even needing his requests?

Yes, absolutely, but Gaza is not the prize. For Israel, the prize is the West Bank, which is about 17 times the size of Gaza, despite having an almost similar number of people. Gaza needed to be destroyed, because it is a giant refugee camp from 1948 Israel; a living embodiment of the first Nakbah. In itself though, its value is limited, though of course Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, has stated that once the population is removed from Gaza by driving them into Egypt or the desert, it will be prime real estate as its “waterfront property could be very valuable.” But the West Bank is the real deal.

Last time in office, the Trump government reversed long term official US policy by declaring it no longer considered Israeli “settlements” in the West Bank to be in violation of international law, in violation of countless UN resolutions according to which “settling” (ie colonising) occupied territory is considered a war crime. While the Biden government, outrageously, did not reverse some of Trump’s illegal moves, such as the recognition of Israeli annexation of East Jerusalem and moving the US embassy there, it did reverse this particular ruling and restore the view that the settlements are illegal, and even imposed sanctions on some settlers it deems “violent”, as if the entire settlement program were not violent land theft by definition.

Netanyahu therefore has good reason to believe that Trump and his far-right team (and on the issue of Israel/Palestine, there is no difference between the Trumpist/nativist far-right and the neoconservative far-right in the Republican Party) will allow Israel to outright annex the West Bank, or at least annex about half of it, where the Israeli “settlers” and their settler-only highways, cutting up the Palestinian population centres, are located. Indeed, as soon as Trump’s election victory was announced, Netanyahu appointed an extreme right-wing supporter of West Bank “settlement,” Yechiel Leiter, as new Israeli ambassador to the US. Leiter has called for Israeli ‘sovereignty’ over the West Bank, and is a former member of the extreme right-wing Jewish Defense League, founded by Rabbi Meir Kahane, which was designated a terrorist organisation by the US and even by Israel in the 1990s; now Itamar Ben-Gvir, another Kahanist, is Netanyahu’s Minister of National Security.

Outright annexation of the West Bank, or the parts colonised by Israel, would leave the major Palestinian population centres as mere reservations, towns with no economy and no land, to rot, its people merely cheap labour at best for Israeli bosses. Of course, that is already the de facto situation, but if Netanyahu were to formally annex the region and Trump were to recognise it, then perhaps Trump and even Netanyahu may be happy to call these disconnected towns a “Palestinian state” and demand Palestinians accept this as the “deal of the century” if they really want “peace.”

Not that Biden, Harris and the Democrats would have done a thing to stop Netanyahu if his regime did go ahead an annex all or half the West Bank; but it is very unlikely that they would give it formal recognition. Throughout the past year, even while continuing to arm the genocide and allow Israel to cross every ‘red line’, Biden and his ministers have continually said that after Israel was done “defending itself,” there would need to be a settlement based on the “two-state solution,” that Palestinians also have some rights and so on. Of course, Biden’s “two-state solution” is not the international consensus two states, ie, based on a Palestinian state in all of the territory occupied by Israel in 1967 with Jerusalem as its capital; but nevertheless, any idea of “two states” with at least enough basis for the reactionary Arab states to sign on to is still based on the international legality of UN resolutions, rather than by formalising the violation of them as Netanyahu and Trump prefer. Even on Gaza, while allowing Israel to do everything, the Biden government has still said there can be no annexation or re-settlement of Gaza or part of it.

So, while it would do nothing if Israel formally annexed the West Bank, and would probably continue to arm Israel to the teeth anyway, a Harris-led government would however express a lot of “concern” about the move, declare that it does not help the “peace process,” tut-tut a lot about it, keep talking about the need for a half-baked “two state solution,” talk about “diplomacy” and “international law,” refuse to give it formal recognition. With Trump, Netanyahu doesn’t need to listen to such sermons; he gets full recognition of the annexation of the West Bank, and then everyone can blame the Palestinians for rejecting “the best ever offer.”