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00:00Moving on to more analysis, then, of US foreign policy under Trump 2.0 or Trump 47.
00:06Choose your formula as you wish.
00:08What next for Israel, then, under President Trump?
00:10The US president calls himself the most pro-Israel US president in history.
00:15That's what he calls himself.
00:17And staunchly supported Israel during his first term,
00:21even before taking office for the second term.
00:23He proved instrumental in pushing Benjamin Netanyahu's government
00:27into signing a ceasefire deal.
00:28Remember, that's a deal that Joe Biden put on the table back in May.
00:32Emerald Maxwell has this.
00:37The self-proclaimed best friend that Israel has ever had is back in the White House.
00:42We're going to make Israel great again and we're going to make America great again.
00:46We're going to make them both great again, greater than ever before.
00:50Token of affection.
00:51Donald Trump portrays himself as Israel's steadfast protector,
00:55and his record reflects that.
00:57During his first term as US president, he recognised Jerusalem as Israel's capital,
01:02and followed up by moving the United States embassy there from Tel Aviv,
01:06thereby undermining the cause of Palestinians
01:09who want East Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state.
01:14Trump also recognised the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights as part of Israel,
01:19a decision honoured by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,
01:22who named a planned settlement there after him.
01:25And the US president enabled illegal Israeli settlement activity
01:29with his Middle East peace plan,
01:32offering Israel the right to annex roughly 30% of the West Bank.
01:37Under this vision, Jerusalem will remain Israel's undivided,
01:42very important, undivided capital.
01:47But all of this came at the expense of the Palestinians,
01:50who were further marginalised.
01:52Trump's peace plan, which they rejected,
01:54prompting clashes between protesters and Israeli armed forces,
01:58offered Palestinians a smaller, demilitarised state
02:01and denied millions of refugees the right to return.
02:06Jerusalem is not for sale.
02:11And all our rights are not for sale, and not for bargaining.
02:17Your conspiracy deal won't pass.
02:22Also during his first term,
02:25Trump facilitated the normalisation of ties between Israel
02:28and Gulf Arab states with the Abraham Accords,
02:31as well as with Morocco and Sudan.
02:34Although the political landscape has changed since October 7th
02:38and amid the devastating war in Gaza,
02:41Trump has renewed his first-term pledge to deliver peace in the Middle East.
02:45Meanwhile, Netanyahu, having buckled to heavy pressure from Trump
02:49in agreeing to the ceasefire deal,
02:51will expect US support over future control of Gaza.
03:22Constitutionally speaking, that means he's not running again.
03:24He's going to have a little bit more latitude in foreign policy,
03:28and in particular in the Middle East,
03:29which means that whatever unconditional and very strong support
03:34that you saw for Israel in the first term,
03:36you might not see it actually in the second term.
03:37I know this sounds controversial or thought-provoking,
03:39but that's my assessment, my guess.
03:43The support is going to have to reconcile
03:45with two priorities of the administration
03:47in the second term in the Middle East.
03:48The first being achieving some kind of peace between Israelis and Palestinians,
03:53if actually you believe sincerely that the president
03:57is going to try to go for a Nobel Peace Prize.
04:00So that's going to require some Israeli concessions.
04:03And then the second is the issue of Iran, obviously.
04:06And that requires some kind of stability in the Middle East,
04:09obviously some kind of a deal,
04:11or at least an ultimatum to the Iranians.
04:13And that in itself also is going to require some concessions from the Israelis.
04:17So that support that we're all very much accustomed to
04:20from the United States or from the administration,
04:23it does have a ceiling.
04:25Bilal, focusing in on the situation in Gaza,
04:29it was only last March that Jared Kushner was talking about
04:32a kind of development deal for the Gaza Strip,
04:35bulldozing it, creating some kind of gated community,
04:40bussing out Palestinian families
04:42and putting them somewhere in the Negev Desert.
04:44When that kind of thing is discussed,
04:47one can understand why people perhaps are very pessimistic
04:49or cynical about what might happen under Trump's administration.
04:55Not necessarily.
04:56I would have put the cart before the horse.
04:58I think everybody very much understands that the pathway to
05:02peace and reconciliation in that part of the world
05:05is through the one and only two-state solution.
05:08Even the president himself understands that.
05:10Whatever economics discussion would happen afterwards,
05:13that's perfectly fine.
05:14But I don't think it has to be put at the forefront
05:16of any Middle East item on the agenda of the administration.
05:20So, two-state solution.
05:22You'd say that Trump would sign up for that.
05:24He realizes that has to happen.
05:26How would he convince Benjamin Netanyahu to go along with that?
05:30Well, exactly what I said before.
05:32I mean, he does have a lot of leverage.
05:33He does have a very strong desire
05:36to achieve something really historic in the Middle East.
05:39He wants to be remembered as someone who did something
05:41that no other predecessor of his
05:43in the entire history of US foreign policy has been able to do.
05:46That requires Israeli concessions.
05:48Believe it or not, there's going to be a ton of
05:52behind-the-scenes negotiations between the American leadership
05:54and the Israeli leadership.
05:56Actually, it might not be Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu.
05:59We don't even know his political future.
06:02The stability of the cabinet itself right now is in question.
06:06But assuming he survives, given the controversial deal
06:12that he just signed with Hamas,
06:13controversial, of course, in the eyes of his extremist colleagues
06:16in the cabinet, assuming he survives,
06:18boy, he's going to have some kind of a tough negotiations
06:21and conversation with President Trump,
06:23who I believe has no problem using his leverage.
06:26So Trump will do what needs to be done
06:28in order to get the result that he wants.
06:32Is the result that he wants exactly what the result
06:35that the Palestinians would want?
06:36I suppose that becomes the question too,
06:37because they're going to want things on their terms.
06:40They want things to be the way they would like them to be.
06:43And perhaps they will not correspond with what Israel wants.
06:47Yeah, I mean, obviously, the details are always going to be
06:49very important in here.
06:50And we've been trying to solve this conflict,
06:52as you very well know, for decades.
06:53So I'm not saying any of this is going to be easy.
06:56But all I'm saying is that there's a little bit more latitude
06:58on the part of this administration to push for things
07:00that previous presidents were not able to do
07:03because of certain influences on US policy.
07:06I think the president has an enough independent base,
07:09enough, I would say, autonomous action on foreign policy,
07:13especially in the Middle East,
07:14a very strong mandate, remember, with Congress.
07:18I mean, he's pretty much got a free hand.
07:19And so it really is up to him, personally speaking,
07:23giving the order to his senior associates
07:26working on the Middle East.
07:27And he's got some heavy hitters.
07:29Why didn't Joe Biden make as much progress?
07:32Joe Biden, friend of Israel,
07:34someone who supported Israel to the nth degree
07:38over what was happening in Gaza, perhaps,
07:40tried to get Netanyahu to make his troops cease and desist
07:44in some way, shape or form.
07:45But that was never followed up by Israel, of course.
07:48Why did Biden not make the progress
07:49that perhaps he would have wanted?
07:52I don't want to sit here and oversimplify it, obviously.
07:55But I think it comes down to one thing, one thing only,
07:58the inability or lack of desire of the former president
08:02to use his leverage and use the entire might
08:05of the United States to really push things forward.
08:12I also don't want to completely discredit the administration.
08:14I mean, the reason why we're here now with the deal
08:19is that they've done some work themselves.
08:21But I also don't want to discredit
08:23the indirect or psychological influence
08:27of the incoming administration.
08:29Because you got to remember, I mean,
08:30the Israelis knew that President Trump was coming to power.
08:33And so I bet you that they obviously made concessions
08:37with that in mind, recognising that whatever
08:39they put on the table is going to be nicely received,
08:42positively received by the administration.
08:44But to your point, my friend, look, I don't know.
08:47I mean, it's entirely disappointing, obviously,
08:50very much embarrassing, the fact that we were not
08:52willing or able to use our leverage.
08:54But things are going to change with this administration.
08:56I promise you that.
08:57Indeed, one hopes there is peace.
08:58One hopes there are no more deaths.
09:00And one hopes there's some kind of way
09:01that these wounds can be healed.
09:04But of course, it's going to take a lot of time.
09:06And as part of that, a lot of literal rebuilding.
09:09Is that something where you think Trump's influence
09:12will come into play?
09:13Will there be a kind of a Trump stamp on what is built?
09:16I'm not suggesting we revisit the Kushner plan,
09:18but some kind of influence happening there.
09:22Oh, sure.
09:23Oh, absolutely.
09:24And this is someone who has no problem discussing
09:26economics, investments, reconstruction.
09:28This is his sort of comfort zone.
09:30He's got the international connections.
09:32Everybody's going to want to work with him,
09:34be it the Europeans, be it the Arab Gulf powers.
09:37Everybody who's got money, who has a vested interest
09:39in achieving peace and reconstructing Gaza
09:42and obviously Lebanon as well,
09:46is going to work with the president.
09:49And how important will it be for Donald Trump
09:52to basically shore up Israel as it is,
09:54to look further east, of course,
09:56to what's happening in Syria,
09:57what's happening in Iran?
09:59How important is it for Trump to make sure
10:01that he maintains what he needs there?
10:05Well, look, let's start with personnel, OK?
10:08I mean, we still don't have a full picture
10:10of who's going to be occupying the National Security Council
10:13in terms of Middle East portfolios, right?
10:14We do know that he has some personnel there,
10:17but the team is not ready yet.
10:18And so these details that you just asked me about right now,
10:21they're still going to have to be hammered by the new team
10:24that's going to assume positions
10:26in the National Security Council
10:27and also how they're going to find their counterparts
10:30in the entire interagency in the United States government.
10:33So that's in the Pentagon, that's in the State Department.
10:35A lot of people are leaving, right?
10:37But we still don't have everybody coming in.
10:40And so that's why you call the transition, obviously.
10:42A lot of these details that you're asking me about,
10:44they're going to have to be formulated and coordinated
10:47with all of these people,
10:48many of whom are still not in the building.
10:51So many questions, the answer's yet to come,
10:55but we sense there is something positive
10:57moving across the Middle East,
10:58and perhaps that could be because of the leverage Trump has.
11:01Bill Al, thank you for joining us
11:03and giving us this sense of what is to come.
11:05Pleasure to have you on the programme.
11:07That's Bill Al Saab,
11:08Director of Trends Research and Advisory Centre,
11:11Associate Fellow at Chatham House.
11:12Thank you for joining us, sir.
11:13Thank you very much for sharing your analysis with us.