Trump's Middle East Peace Plan
Not much has been disclosed about Trump's peace plan for the Middle East. The U.S. administration has kept fairly mute on the subject with only saying it does not involve a two-state solution.
We know Trump has declared that the Golan Heights that Israel seized during the 1973 war from Syria, should be annexed by Israel. Why not? They have occupied much it since 1973 and Syria is in such disarray that why should Israel return it now?
We also know that the PM of Israel has said that a two-state solution will not work. He has a point. The Gaza strip is home to millions of Palestinians. Many of them work in Israel daily. But Gaza is more like a city internment province with its own local government. In a sense, a small country dominated by Israel. Since its inception, it has not worked very well due to space limitations and Hamas, the militant group that is popular there. Trump's plan calls for billion dollar boosts to the Palestinian economy from Gulf Arab states who prefer Palestinian autonomy rather than statehood, and the cementing of Israel's military dominance of the West Bank.
If the two-state solution is not in Trump's plan (because it is not what Israel wants) then it must be a one state solution. This is never going to work either because the Palestinians do not want it. They want their own sovereign country carved out of what is not called Israel and we know Israel will never let that happen. Why should they? Trump could offer all the incentives to the Palestinians and still be rejected if they do not end with being their own sovereign country independent of Israel.
Meanwhile, Russia's only real interest in the region is their naval port and keeping Assad head of the Syrian government. They have done this with a minimum of military assets. The Russian-Iran alliance is a weak one at best. Iran wants Syria for its Hezbollah base to destroy Israel. This is not what Putin wants for Russia (many of the relocated Jews came from Russia) and has allowed the Israeli airforce to attack Iranian assets in Syria. The Russian S-400 missile system used to take out enemy aircraft has been taken offline at the request of Trump, which allows the IAF to conduct bombing raids on Iranian assets built in Syria. This has greatly upset the Iranians that are powerless.
One of the more ironic things is that NATO's Turkey very well may opt to get out of NATO. It's huge army could easily roll down into Syria with little opposition. There is an Iranian-Turk alliance also in dealing with the Kurds, but also, Turkey relies heavily on Iranian natural gas, second to Russian. Turkey wants to buy the Russian S-300\400 system. The U.S. has said that if they do that, Turkey will not get any F-35's because it may reveal secrets that would enable the S-300\400 to detect them. Trump offered them the Patriot system, but so far, Turkey seems to be drifting away from NATO in subtle ways in pursuit of being a great empire again. History shows that Turkey's empire was vast in the Middle East.
One can see that a Turk-Russian-Iranian alliance could be a dangerous configuration for the Mideast and Israel.
Whatever peace plan Trump has in mind probably will be DOA upon its announcement because there is no solution to the 1948 creation of Israel out of Arab land. It seems peace plans in that region never last for long after the euphoric historic announcement.
