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I’m Palestinian. Here’s why Trump’s Gaza gambit might just work
It could also be just what the Middle East needs
After a century of Palestinian leaders rejecting a two-state-solution, Trump’s proposal could be a wakeup call that peace is the only solution
By DAOUD KUTTAB (February 21, 2025) This story was originally published in the Forward (https://forward.com/opinion/698785/gaza-palestine-israel-trump/). Click here to get the Forward’s free email newsletters delivered to your inbox.
One of the biggest obstacles to finding a peaceful solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been an overwhelming imbalance in direct international support. Armed with extensive international resources, especially from the United States, Israel has long been able to reject logical solutions while presenting the minimum justifications to placate international sponsors. Over time, this has led to resistance from Palestinians, which has produced an even more radical Israeli position, leading, after the horrific Oct. 7 attack, to the devastating violence of Israel’s war in Gaza.
Now, President Donald Trump’s administration has been called to help Israel out of the jam it finds itself in. Trump has, in classic fashion, delivered bombastic promises of peace and prosperity, much to the delight of Israelis, who have largely embraced his proposals for a mass relocation of Palestinians in Gaza and a U.S. takeover of the embattled strip.
But as the saying goes, be careful what you wish for. Once Washington finds itself more involved in the day-to-day management of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, Trump might find that the result that will guarantee peace and tranquility is not necessarily that which Israelis — and certainly the Israeli right — are expecting.
That’s because Trump, who has a history of making grand promises and not fulfilling them, may find that it is easier to create a buffer between Israelis and Palestinians than to organize the displacement of an entire population and redevelopment of an area destroyed to rubble. And that kind of buffer, between a powerful militaristic occupier and a weak but resilient occupied, is exactly what the region needs.
And the U.S. is the ideal party to create that buffer, for two reasons.
First, it can provide what no other state in the world is able to: the security assurances that Israel and the Israeli people badly need. And second, whenever Israelis engage with Palestinians, they use their superior military and political power to insist on exaggerated demands. But when the U.S. is in the room — represented by officials not afraid to deploy their power — a more logical conversation takes place.
Security guarantees from the U.S. could go a long way in removing a major obstacle Israel has continuously presented in justifying its hesitancy about finding a long-term strategy to create a permanent peace solution and a Palestinian state. Past peace ideas have failed because the balance of power was always on the Israeli side, and despite its claims to want peace, Israel has never truly been willing to pay the price of that outcome — land — using security as an excuse. Providing Israelis with an iron-clad guarantee of security, possible with the deployment of U.S. or NATO forces, could finally shift the balance.
Successive U.S. presidents have failed to help Palestinians and Israelis reach peace, because they have refused to take the bold steps needed to act as honest brokers, and rejected the idea of acting as a temporary buffer and an insurer between the occupier and the occupied.
Trump has shown that an excess of restraint will not be his administration’s problem. When months of indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas, with the engagement of former President Joe Biden’s administration, repeatedly failed to produce a ceasefire, the intervention of Trump’s incoming administration brought the deal to fruition. I do not doubt that continued U.S. engagement will also produce agreement on the critical second and third phases of the ceasefire deal, which will involve the release of all remaining hostages in Gaza — dead and alive — and end the 15-month war.
Yes, Trump has proclaimed a vision for the future of the region that is notably free of a Palestinian presence, let alone leadership. But once the leader of the U.S. and his aides roll up their sleeves and begin the nitty gritty process of trying to achieve peace in the Middle East, they will run into a truth that all others who have tried the same have faced, which is that to get anything done in the region, one must apply tough love policies to all sides — not just one.
For Palestinians, like me, inviting this intervention means making a bet: That Trump, once on the ground, will find it more expedient to scale back his plans. The president’s history of bluster — and of making big threats, but strategically accepting much smaller gains — makes that bet worthwhile.
Palestinians have seen in the Israeli settlement enterprise the best proof that Israel is not willing to relinquish land for peace — just the opposite. A shake-up is needed. And Palestinians have previously hoped that an international presence could provide that adjustment: As part of previous peace negotiations, some past Palestinian leaders, including President Mahmoud Abbas, have suggested stationing NATO troops in a future Palestinian state to reassure Israel. But those proposals, like so many others in this process, stalled.
If Trump is willing to genuinely engage, in a way that his predecessors were not, it might mean a major breakthrough that will change our region. The Trump administration can end this occupation and can bring peace through security if it wishes, and the world will applaud them if they do.
Daoud Kuttab is an award-winning Palestinian journalist and former Ferris Professor of journalism at Princeton University. His twitter handle is @daoudkuttab
The views and opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Forward. Discover more perspectives in Opinion. To contact Opinion authors, email opinion@forward.com.
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The one Jewish value everyone should hold dear in the age of AI
As friends, relatives and even colleagues dive headlong into our AI future, I’ve been stuck nervously on the platform’s edge. I’m not a skeptic of technology by nature, but by experience. I’ve watched too many shiny new toys come along, promising to make society smarter or better connected, only to become superspreaders of confusion, alienation and disenfranchisement.
So when you tell me a machine can summarize any book, draw any picture or write any email, my first thought is going to be, What could possibly go wrong?
This, too, was the reaction of the Haredi rabbis who declared a communal fast over AI last month.
“If at the push of a button, I can get a hold of a d’var torah for my Shabbos meal from AI, to us, that’s a problem,” a Haredi leader told me at the time. “No, no — I want you to open the book and read it and come up with a question and come up with an answer. That’s part of what’s holy about learning Torah. It’s not just end result. It’s the process.”
Curious about their logic, I spent some time tracking down Lakewood’s gedolim to learn more. This was no straightforward task — I found it easier to get a hold of their wives than the great rabbis themselves. Even at dinner hour, these titans of Torah study were still in the beit midrash. But eventually I got through to three — thanks to my cousin Jeffrey, who knew a rav who knew a rav — and that was fortunate, because I came away with the Jewish skeleton key to our brave new world.
That key is the Jewish value of עֲמֵילוּת (ameilut), or toil. As far as Jewish values go, ameilut is an obscure one. It lacks the celebrity swagger of its better-known peers like chesed and tzedakah or the political power of tikkun olam. It was never associated with a biblical matriarch or carved into a golem’s forehead. Yet I believe it is just as crucial. Yes, toiling is a mitzvah. And in the age of AI, ameilut can be a human road map.
The word’s root appears a couple dozen times in the Hebrew Bible — unsurprisingly, it’s a recurring theme in Job — but its salience comes not from the Torah but from commentary on Leviticus 26:3, which establishes ameilut as a sacred endeavor. When God implores Israel to “walk with” the commandments, Rashi, an 11th century rabbi whose commentaries are considered authoritative, reinterpreted this to mean that God wants Jews to be ameilim b’torah — toiling in Torah study. He is reinterpreting God’s command that we walk and move forward to also mean that we should take time to stand still, turn over (and over) the same words to find new meaning and view getting stuck as a sign of progress.
For Haredim — who pronounce it ameilus — the notion that struggle can be its own reward underpins a life spent poring over sefarim in the beit midrash (and missing phone calls from the Jewish press). It follows that ChatGPT, which transforms knowledge from something developed to something consumed, is anathema to their approach. They’ve realized that making learning easy has actually made learning hard.
To be sure, the goals of the Haredi world are not exactly the same as mine. Those communities are famously insular, wary of the internet and especially cognizant of secular society’s pernicious influence. I’m basically the opposite: I love to mix it up (including with Haredi Jews) and am extremely online. A little narishkeit is good for the soul, as far as I can tell.
But I’ve found that ameilut-maxxing translates pretty well to non-religious life, too. It’s an imperative to embrace the challenge. As a notoriously limited chef, I’m now toiling in cookbooks; as a writer, I can cherish the blank page. Reframing the hard part as the good part, then, is a reminder that the toil is actually our divine right. Because ameilut is something AI can’t experience, replicate or understand. It is the very essence of what it means to be alive.
The post The one Jewish value everyone should hold dear in the age of AI appeared first on The Forward.
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Mistrial Declared in Case of Students Charged After Stanford Anti-Israel Protests
FILE PHOTO: A student attends an event at a protest encampment in support of Palestinians at Stanford University during the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Stanford, California U.S., April 26, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Carlos Barria/File Photo
A judge declared a mistrial on Friday in a case of five current and former Stanford University students related to the 2024 pro-Palestinian protests when demonstrators barricaded themselves inside the school president’s office.
Twelve protesters were initially charged last year with felony vandalism, according to prosecutors who said at least one suspect entered the building by breaking a window. Police arrested 13 people on June 5, 2024, in relation to the incident and the university said the building underwent “extensive” damage.
The case was tried in Santa Clara County Superior Court against five defendants charged with felony vandalism and felony conspiracy to trespass. The rest previously accepted plea deals or diversion programs.
The jury was deadlocked. It voted nine to three to convict on the felony charge of vandalism and eight to four to convict on the felony charge to trespass. Jurors failed to reach a verdict after deliberations.
The charges were among the most serious against participants in the 2024 pro-Palestinian protest movement on US colleges in which demonstrators demanded an end to Israel’s war in Gaza and Washington’s support for its ally along with a divestment of funds by their universities from companies supporting Israel.
Prosecutors in the case said the defendants engaged in unlawful property destruction.
“This case is about a group of people who destroyed someone else’s property and caused hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage. That is against the law,” Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen said in a statement, adding he sought a new trial.
Anthony Brass, a lawyer for one of the protesters, told the New York Times his side was not defending lawlessness but “the concept of transparency and ethical investment.”
“This is a win for these young people of conscience and a win for free speech,” Brass said, adding “humanitarian activism has no place in a criminal courtroom.”
Protesters had renamed the building “Dr. Adnan’s Office” after Adnan Al-Bursh, a Palestinian doctor who died in an Israeli prison after months of detention.
Over 3,000 were arrested during the 2024 US pro-Palestinian protest movement, according to media tallies. Some students faced suspension, expulsion and degree revocation.
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Exclusive: FM Gideon Sa’ar to Represent Israel at 1st Board of Peace Meeting in Washington on Thursday
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar speaks next to High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission Kaja Kallas, and EU commissioner for the Mediterranean Dubravka Suica as they hold a press conference on the day of an EU-Israel Association Council with European Union foreign ministers in Brussels, Belgium, Feb. 24, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Yves Herman
i24 News – Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar will represent the country at the inaugural meeting of the Gaza Board of Peace in Washington on Thursday, i24NEWS learned on Saturday.
The arrangement was agreed upon following a request from Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who will not be able to attend.
Netanyahu pushed his Washington visit forward by a week, meeting with US President Donald Trump this week to discuss the Iran situation.
A U.N. Security Council resolution, adopted in mid-November, authorized the Board of Peace and countries working with it to establish an international stabilization force in Gaza and build on the ceasefire agreed in October under a Trump plan.
Under Trump’s Gaza plan, the board was meant to supervise Gaza’s temporary governance. Trump thereafter said the board, with him as chair, would be expanded to tackle global conflicts.