On the campaign trail, Donald Trump, now U.S. president-elect, promised that “the Middle East is going to get solved” but offered few details on how he might achieve such an outcome. When he returns to the White House, his “America first” agenda will be challenged by the United States’ involvement in Israel’s war in Gaza and the unimaginable humanitarian crisis there that has yet to be relieved. The Middle East that Trump will inherit from the Biden administration has undergone tectonic shifts. Over the past year, Iran and Israel have directly attacked each other’s territory, Israel has militarily dominated Hamas and Hezbollah, and one of the Islamic Republic’s most important Arab allies, the Assad regime in Syria, crumbled in a matter of weeks after half a century in power.
Washington’s standing in the Middle East has never been so low as its complicity in Israel’s belligerence escaped neither its foes nor friends. U.S. sway with Arab governments and people has diminished with every shipment of U.S. arms to Israel and every U.S. veto to shield Israel at the UN. The Biden administration failed to safeguard even Palestinians’ most basic rights to food, water, medicine, and shelter. And Palestinians have no grounds to believe that Trump will end unwavering U.S. support for Israel, even in the face of international legal cases against the country for genocide and war crimes, because he has a track record of backing Israel and has surrounded himself with avidly pro-Israeli advisers.
Yet as the world has learned, Trump remains a wildcard. He is free from the baggage of having aided Israel’s current war, prides himself on being a dealmaker, and seems to have more influence over Israeli leaders than did U.S. President Joe Biden. Saudi Arabia could also use its good relationship with Trump to nudge him toward recognizing Palestinian needs and rights. Above all, U.S. policy will depend on the fickle balance of power in the Middle East, which is more in flux than it has been in decades. Palestinians are under no illusion that Trump is their ally, but some still hold out hope that an unpredictable president operating in a rapidly shifting region could allow for some much-needed change.
BAD OMENS
Divining the future of the Middle East has always been hazardous, and doing so becomes even harder when factoring in Trump’s capricious behavior. His first term in office offers clues as to how he might handle the Middle East today: although he initially stated he had no preference for either a two-state or one-state solution, he recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, cut aid to UNRWA and the Palestinians, and declared that Israeli settlements—that Washington and international organizations had always considered illegal—were aboveboard.
His Middle East policy culminated in the 2020 Abraham Accords, a series of bilateral agreements in which several Arab countries normalized relations with Israel. Most Arab countries had previously promised, by signing the Arab Peace Initiative of 2002, to restore full ties with Israel only in exchange for the achievement of a two-state solution. The accords, however, were premised on the idea that Israeli-Palestinian peace could be imposed from the outside once Arab-Israeli relations had been established—a reversal of the conventional wisdom. The accords largely divorced Arab-Israeli normalization from the fate of Palestine. By signing them, Bahrain, Morocco, and the United Arab Emirates made Palestine less central to their regional agendas. Biden tried to expand the policy to include Saudi Arabia but never reached a deal, as the crown prince has remained reluctant to normalize relations with Israel until his other regional concerns have been addressed, especially the future of Palestine and what the Saudis see as an Iranian threat.
Trump had hoped that the Abraham Accords would be paired with what he called “the deal of the century”: a plan for Israeli-Palestinian peace that heavily favors Israel. That plan would allow Israel to formally annex much of the West Bank and reject the return of Palestinian refugees, in exchange for regional investment and promises of a rump Palestinian state that would be demilitarized and lack sovereignty in any meaningful sense. The Palestine Liberation Organization, the recognized representative of the Palestinian people, rejected the deal for understandable reasons; it would have precluded the prospect of real statehood and forfeited legitimate Palestinian territory and rights.
The Middle East’s balance of power is more in flux than it has been in decades.
Although Trump abandoned the plan by the end of his first term, there’s good reason to think that he will try to dust it off. Trump has generally been ambivalent about Palestinian statehood, and his aid cuts to Palestinians only confirmed his lack of interest in their well-being. But he seems to believe that political agreements can be subordinated to (or eventually grow out of) common financial and economic interests. Hence, any new “deal of the century” will be premised on a trade-off between Palestinian sovereign rights and economic prosperity. It will also hinge on convincing Palestinians that no other agreement was possible.
Israel’s catastrophic war in Gaza has weakened Palestinian political groups across the board. Hamas no longer exists as an organized military movement or government in Gaza and is blamed by many Palestinians for not foreseeing how brutally Israel would respond to its attack. In the West Bank, Israeli military campaigns have decimated Hamas cells—with significant collateral damage—while Palestinian Authority security forces have tried to restore control in Jenin. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah movement are less popular than ever thanks to years of failing governance, their perceived unwillingness to intervene in Israel’s war, and their inability to relieve suffering in Gaza.
If Trump floats a version of his 2020 plan, there won’t be Palestinian political unity to effectively resist it. There would also likely be little pushback from other governments in the region, especially now that the “axis of resistance”—Iran and its proxies—has been put out of commission. Given that Arab countries have responded anemically to Israel’s war, if the moment comes, Arab leaders would likely be willing to exert whatever pressure is needed to insist that the Palestinians sign an agreement with Israel on Trump’s terms. They could get concessions in return, such as security guarantees or economic or military aid.
Trump will be influenced by the way the wind is blowing in Israel.
Trump’s donors, advisers, and nominees offer other indications of how he might approach the Middle East—and are grounds for trepidation among Palestinians. Miriam Adelson, a pro-Israel billionaire, donated over $100 million to Trump’s campaign. Mike Huckabee, Trump’s designated ambassador to Israel, has said that “there is no such thing as the West Bank—it’s Judea and Samaria,” implying that the territory belongs to Israel. Pete Hegseth, Trump’s nominee for secretary of defense, maintains that “if you love America, you should love Israel” and has dismissed the idea of a two-state solution as mere “lip service.” And Mike Waltz, the nominee for national security adviser, has said the administration will support another Israeli offensive into Gaza if the cease-fire, announced on January 15, does not hold.
More important, Trump’s next steps will be influenced by the way the wind is blowing in Israel. Since Hamas’s attack, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has succeeded in keeping Israel suspended in a mood of blind revenge. According to a Gallup poll, 64 percent of Israelis now oppose a two-state solution, up from 30 percent in 2012. Israel’s government is keen to dismantle any pretense of Palestinian nationhood, institutions, and government. Indeed, some Israelis are hell-bent on something worse than Trump’s deal of the century. Members of the government, such as Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, have proposed restoring Israeli settlements in Gaza, relocating hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from Gaza, annexing parts of the occupied West Bank, and collapsing the Palestinian Authority. Palestinians on their own clearly cannot prevent such an onslaught.
At the same time, however, fractures in Israeli society and within the Jewish diaspora have been widening—between secular and religious Israelis, between those who demand accountability for October 7 and those who are trying to shift the blame or simply move on, between Israelis who appear willing to compromise with Palestinians and those who don’t, between the interests of the settler movement and of the state of Israel, and between people who prioritize the state’s Jewishness and those who believe democracy should be Israel’s guiding force. At some point in 2025, Netanyahu and his government will have to face a reckoning with their people over these tensions. The likelihood that he can continue to avoid accountability and hold together his vulnerable right-wing coalition diminishes with the closing of each war front.
THE X FACTOR
Personal chemistry between the Israeli and American leaders will also shape U.S. policy toward Israel. Trump can oblige Netanyahu to do things, such as allowing desperately needed humanitarian aid into Gaza, in ways that Biden couldn’t or wouldn’t. During negotiations for a cease-fire, Steven Witkoff, Trump’s Middle East envoy, read Netanyahu the riot act, potentially pushing the deal over the line—even before Trump took office. The current Israeli government has openly declared its opposition to any form of Palestinian statehood and national governance and continues to impose financial and political sanctions on the enfeebled Palestinian Authority. But if Trump sets his sights on deviating from Biden’s Israel policy, he should have no problem meddling in Israeli politics to promote a leader willing to make the compromises Israel has so far escaped. Netanyahu may yet discover some truth to a popular Arabic adage, “A reasonable enemy is better than a deranged friend.”
As grim as the short-term future looks for Palestinians, other unknowns will influence what Trump does in the Middle East. Chief among them is changing regional dynamics. Tehran is on the defensive, and the struggle for Syria has entered a new phase as regional powers scramble for influence. Israel has taken advantage of the vacuum by occupying Syrian territory and bombing weapons stockpiles and military installations around the country.
Another X factor is Trump’s ego: he craves the glory of securing a grand bargain between Israelis and Palestinians and may have learned from his first term that a deal cannot be made without Palestinian consent and Arab buy-in. Trump’s willingness to involve himself could be worth something depending on Saudi and Palestinian engagement. Saudi Arabia has said that normalization with Israel is “off the table” until there is a pathway to Palestinian statehood (a lesser demand than establishing a state—what it had promised in 2002). Riyadh also wants a security pact with the United States and help with its civilian nuclear program in exchange for renewing its relationship with Israel. If Riyadh is enthusiastic in pursuing normalization and serious about progress toward Palestine, Trump might be compelled to offer a better agreement than his 2020 plan.
Chemistry between Israeli and American leaders will shape policy.
After all the suffering Palestinians have experienced, their most likely future is one of “no war, no peace”: low-level resistance and repression, confrontations with encroaching Israeli settlements, minimal humanitarian relief and recovery, and an apartheid-like one-state reality. The fallout from October 7 seems to have exhausted the potential and justification for the sort of armed struggle once advocated by the Palestine Liberation Organization and now Hamas. But the belief in the Palestinian right to resistance to secure national and human rights is not dead by any means in Palestinian, Arab, and global public opinion. So in the near term, as long as Israel blocks the agenda of Palestinian national rights, the goal of a state will likely give way to increasing demands from Palestinians under occupation and minority citizens in Israel for equality, representation, resources, judicial intervention, and political liberty.
To have a fighting chance at a better future, Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, Israel, and the diaspora will have to unite around a common mission. They must be willing to shed obsolete institutions and modalities of resistance for a renewed project of national self-determination that conditions Palestinian relations with Israel on a just peace and real sovereignty for the Palestinian people in their homeland. But these rights should not be conditional on endless technicalities, such as governance reform. Rather, Palestinians need to establish their new institutions within the framework of the putative state of Palestine, as the unified address for their nationhood and agency, while relieving the misery in Gaza. For the moment, actual statehood may not be an immediate option for achieving Palestinian rights. If there is any chance for a real pathway to a Palestinian state, as conceived by the Palestine Liberation Organization in 1988 and endorsed by the international community, the U.S. government will need to push back against the brand of Zionism espoused by those at the helm of Israel’s government today.
Palestinian unity and renewal, in tandem with a Saudi posture that advances Palestinian statehood, could yet put Israel and Trump on the defensive and provide a last chance to reach a fair two-state deal in the region, if one still exists. But if Riyadh deserts the Palestinians, as most of the world has, their best option may be to simply survive Israel’s carnage as best they can, with the support of courageous allies, such as Ireland and South Africa, and growing global sympathy.