Latest news with #HusseinIbish
Yahoo
15-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Trump and the Crown Prince
Subscribe here: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | Overcast | Pocket Casts Three years ago, Joe Biden visited Saudi Arabia and was pointedly not greeted at the airport by any of the kingdom's major leaders (a mere governor of a province was the highest-ranking official who showed up). This week when President Trump landed in Riyadh, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman met him at the end of the jetway, shook his hand warmly, and walked him down the purple carpet. In Qatar, his entourage was greeted by red Cybertrucks, camels, and dancers. The affection appears mutual and genuine. That is in part because Trump speaks the transactional language of the Gulf leaders he met with this week, and they appreciate him for it. As a gift, he gets a luxury jet from Qatar while U.S. citizens get … ? That remains to be seen. In this episode of Radio Atlantic, we talk with Hussein Ibish, a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute, about this new era of chumminess among the American president and Gulf leaders. What does it mean that Trump has not brought up any of Saudi Arabia's human-rights violations? Is that luxury jet just norm breaking or illegal? And how might this friendship influence Trump in his dealings with Israel as its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, threatens to escalate attacks on Gaza?Hanna Rosin: Have you been seeing the pictures of Trump on the tarmac being greeted by various royals? Hussein Ibish: Yeah. Rosin: I wonder if you read it this way: He seems very relaxed. Ibish: He is very relaxed. He's home. He's come home. This is, like—outside the U.S., this is his favorite place. [] Rosin: I'm Hanna Rosin. This is Radio Atlantic, and that is Hussein Ibish. Ibish: I'm Hussein Ibish, and I'm a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute, and I write for many publications, especially The Atlantic. Rosin: This week, we're watching the president's visit to the Gulf states: Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates. The pictures we're referring to show Trump at the airport tarmac in Saudi Arabia being greeted by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in a royal welcome. Lavender carpets. Golden swords. Arabian horses. And Trump smiling through all of it. This is a stark contrast to a few years ago, when MBS, as bin Salman is known, was a pariah in the West for his human-rights violations. So what does Donald Trump's new approach to the Gulf states mean for our Middle East policy? And why is Trump so at home there? Ibish: He lives in a world of patrons and clients. He lives in a world where authority is not questionable. And that's very familiar. It's a very familiar space to—especially the Saudi royals, but—all of them. And he understands them, and they understand him. And he loves them, and they love him. He can be himself, the unedited version. He doesn't have to check his instincts. He just go[es] with it. And that's kind of unusual for Trump. Rosin: The word that seems to summarize Trump's approach is transactional. That's the word that a lot of people use. So what are Middle East leaders getting from America, and what is Trump getting from them? Ibish: Yeah, it's pretty straightforward, right? The Middle Eastern—not leaders, but—countries, what they're getting, ultimately, is protection. They're getting military protection, which is often unsatisfactory from their point of view. But they don't really have a good alternative to the United States, so they have to try to work to make it as good as possible. And that's what they're doing. They're buying goodwill from the U.S. They're also buying weapons, which they want and need. It's not, you know, purely just gifting. However, what Trump is getting in return is lots of money, and more for himself than for the country. There is money coming for the country. There are these large weapons sales of missiles and other things to Saudi Arabia, the biggest weapons sale in U.S. history. And the U.A.E. is looking at buying over a million semiconductor chips from Nvidia. And so on. All three countries are buying lots of American stuff, which is a big boon to Trump's bid to revitalize American manufacturing. But there's also a grifting angle here, right? Trump is getting a lot of money for his own company. We've never seen this before. We've never seen, even in the first Trump term: The level to which this state visit is also a private-business visit is amazing, because the projects include a Trump Tower in both Riyadh and Jeddah, in Saudi Arabia; another Trump Tower in Dubai, in the U.A.E.; and a Trump International Golf [Club] and resort in Qatar. There's also a cryptocurrency scheme connected to his sons, in which a U.A.E.-linked company has just agreed to invest $2 billion, with a B—$2 billion. The company is not going to look the same after this trip. It's going to go from being a very-successful-for-its-size mom-and-pop shop built on the vast inheritance that Trump's had from his father, Fred—but now he's taking it into the stratosphere. I mean, the amount of financial clout that's coming to his family-owned, privately held business is just amazing. And what the Arabs are doing here is buying goodwill. It's an investment. It's an investment in Trump as a friend and, you know, ultimately also with the U.S. But right now Trump has, you know, instituted l'état c'est moi: 'He is the country, and the country is him.' And until somebody stops him or until he leaves the White House, that's the way it's going to be. And this is very understandable to a group of people who deal in patron-client relations as a matter of course. Rosin: Okay, so just to summarize, the transaction is: They get protection, and what Trump gets is money for the country and money for himself. Ibish: Exactly. They get protection and he gets money. We get money. Rosin: Yeah, it's very clear when you describe it: The symbol, the concrete thing that is going to symbolize this trip for a long time, is this luxury jet from Qatar. How should we understand what this transaction is? Ibish: Well, it's the absolute—I was waiting for you to bring it up, because it is exactly the kind of icon, the avatar of this trip. It says it all. Qatar, which is an unbelievably rich country, has 300,000—maybe 400,000—citizens. Most of the country, between 2 and 3 million people, are ex-pat laborers, foreign workers, Arab and Western technocrats. But collectively, those 350,000 or so Qataris are the largest single exporter in the world of liquid natural gas. And obviously, all of the wealth goes to the citizens. I mean, it's just amazing. You've never seen a country with this level of per-capita wealth. And it uses that money for national interests. In this case, what they've done is: One of the former prime ministers who is a royal has a jet, a luxury Boeing 747 that's kitted out not for a president but for a wealthy man who enjoys luxury travel on his own private plane. So what the Qataris have done is they've said: You can have the plane for use as president while you're in office, and after that it will be transferred to your presidential library, meaning he could still use it after that. So it's sort of been—they've very cleverly muddied the waters or blurred the line between private and public here, in order to give this plane to Donald Trump as an individual. They can say that they haven't, that they've given it to his presidency, right? Rosin: This is so interesting. Basically, what you're saying is this is the president that the Gulf leaders have been waiting for. Trump is the man that they can finally deal with in the way that they want to. Ibish: Yeah. Well, in a lot of ways I think that's true. I remember a certain high-ranking—or formerly very high-ranking—Gulf individual who said just as much in 2016, after he was elected. They said, He does the same things—and he listed a bunch of verbs that were unlawful actions—and said, We do that. And he does that. It's not, obviously, unlawful in their countries. It's normative, but traditionally not allowed in the United States and in Western countries in general. And I think this man was absolutely correct when he said, We do this and he does that, and we do this and he does that, and that they would feel very comfortable with him. They certainly would disagree about how much pressure he should put on Israel regarding Gaza, things like that. But I was thinking yesterday that there's really no daylight between Trump's positions on all the really most-important issues and those of Saudi Arabia. You can't find a major irritant there, which is really amazing. Rosin: Such as what? What issues? Ibish: Well, I mean, anything you think of—the war in Ukraine, the nature of U.S.-Saudi relations, you know, how business should be conducted, the Yemen war, talks with Iran (they both want a deal). They convinced him that lifting the sanctions on Syria was a good idea. They just agree, more or less, on just about any issue. That can change overnight, because if there was a spike in oil prices, they would disagree right away. But I was contrasting that in my mind with the problems that the U.S. and Trump have with Israel right now, where there's disagreement about Gaza, about the cease-fire with the Houthis, about the talks with Iran, about the negotiations with Hamas. There are many irritants. Now, that's not to say the U.S. is closer to Saudi Arabia than it is Israel. I don't think that's true. The Israeli relationship with the U.S. is very deeply ingrained and protected by political influence in the U.S., especially from evangelical Christians on the right. But yeah, I think Trump is sort of ideal in many ways from, say, a Saudi point of view. [] Rosin: So now that we've established the nature of this relationship and where we are now, I want to understand what it means—to the rest of us, not to Trump and his family. So when you hear about U.S. relations with Gulf states in the past, especially Saudi Arabia, human rights enters as a factor. Not always forcefully, but it's always— Ibish: Well, it's definitely a rhetorical factor with most administrations. Whether they're Republican or Democrat, they do bring it up. Trump doesn't—ever, at all. Rosin: Right. So how important is that departure or shift? Ibish: Well, I mean, MBS has learned—and one of the big questions about him when he was a young, rash leader, you know, beginning in 2015, when he came in as defense minister, and a quick rise to where he is now, which is head of government. That is to say he is the prime minister of Saudi Arabia, so he runs the government. And human-rights issues became very serious in his early years with the arrest of the dissidents, the sort of adventure in Yemen that was ill-advised and badly done, to put it mildly, and also the jailing of important people who are not perhaps on board fully with the changes—the reforms, the social liberalization, or other concerns that MBS had about them—who were jailed at the Ritz Carlton. Rosin: Yeah, and of course, the 2018 murder of The Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, which the CIA concluded MBS ordered, although he denied it. Ibish: I was coming to that. That's the big enchilada—right?—for many people, including me, because he was a friend of mine for 15 years. And I, you know, I was just—I'm still scarred by it, and I think I always will be. [] Ibish: MBS, what we've learned about him is that, you know, he's not a sociopath, in the sense that he's educable. The question about him was always, Is he young and, you know, rash and doing these things because he doesn't know better, or is he kind of nuts? And the answer is, No, he's educable. He's evolving. He's maturing. Saudi Arabia remains a real human-rights violator from the point of view of human-rights norms. It executes a lot of people. Rule of law does not apply in the way we would expect. Dissidents—when they're found, when they exist—suffer, you know, arrest and imprisonment and long sentences. And even if they go as far as saying, Parts of the country should secede or leave Saudi Arabia, they can be executed. And they are sometimes. So it's not, you know, a happy story on human rights at all. But it's just way better than it was. And, you know, there are certainly more-alarming cases around the world. Rosin: Okay, so we need to take a quick break, but when we come back, I want to talk about what this trip means for the ongoing conflicts in the Middle East and U.S.'s role in them. That's when we're back. [] Rosin: Okay, we're back. So I want to put this Gulf visit in the broader Middle East context. As Trump was heading to this trip, he made a number of deals that seemed like they were trying to clear away American entanglements in the region—so the U.S. cease-fire agreement with the Houthis and Yemen, the agreement with Hamas to release the last living U.S. citizen held hostage in Gaza, and then the announcement that the U.S. was going to lift sanctions on Syria. Do you see a pattern in this series of deals? Do you see a common goal? What is it? Ibish: Yes. I think he's trying to reduce American exposure and involvement in conflict in the region—not only in the region, but in regional conflicts. So for example, the lifting of sanctions on Syria is a response to Gulf countries saying to him, in effect, You say you want us to handle our problems. Fine. We want to, you know, invest in Syria and build. We can't have any influence in Syria if we don't spend money there, because we don't have a militia or an army in Syria. The only way to get their attention is by investing in reconstruction and in other services where we can build constituencies of friends who will represent our interests and, by extension, yours. And we can't do that if every time we write a check, we have to worry about the Treasury Department slamming us. So if you want us to handle our business, you gotta take these sanctions off. The deal with the Houthis in Yemen is undoubtedly directly connected to another conflict-ending or conflict-containing policy of Trump, which is the negotiations with Iran. Trump definitely wants a deal with the Iranians, another version of the Obama peace deal—which he railed against but is trying to resurrect—but he wants it to be longer and stronger and tougher on Iran. And he can get all of that because of what happened to the Iranians under Biden. I mean, he'll never give Biden the credit for having put Iran in this situation, but it was under his presidency that Iran was crippled in its regional status, and the biggest blow by miles was the Turkish-engineered downfall of Assad in Syria. You know, that's why the—letting the Saudis and the Emiratis and others, you know, do what they can in Syria without sanctions is part of that. You know, he needs to take advantage of this moment of Iranian weakness and the fact that they need 20, 25 years to rebuild their power and to rethink their national-security strategy, because it was all based on the idea that Arab militia groups led by Hezbollah in Lebanon would provide a powerful forward defense against Israel and, ultimately, the United States. And that was tested and proved untrue. Hezbollah was decimated by Israel. So Iran is in very bad shape. It needs to rethink everything, and it needs time. And Trump understands this, and Trump wants a deal because he doesn't want to be put in a situation of having to confront the Iranians militarily. And Iran wants a deal, and the only country left that doesn't want such a deal is Israel. With Obama, the Arabs were totally against it, but now they're all for it because they want calm and regional stability. Rosin: So that is the one big, obvious point of disagreement, which you mentioned, is Israel. Ibish: Yeah. Rosin: This is coming at a moment when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is warning that he's going to escalate in Gaza. As you've been seeing this Gulf trip unfold, what do you think it means for Israel, Gaza, and America's role in all of that? Ibish: I mean, it certainly incentivizes Trump to think very carefully about doing what he can to restrain Israel's worst impulses in Gaza. The situation in Gaza is so dire after more than 70 days of complete blockade—no food, no medicine, no water, no electricity, no shelter, nothing, no supplies into Gaza. People have been reduced to the point of starvation. That's where we're headed here. And it's a crime—it's certainly a war crime, and it's probably a crime against humanity. What the Israelis are proposing to do is to go back into Gaza with full force, force all the population—2.2 million who are not Hamas fighters and cadres and officials—into a tiny enclave in the south, where they will be kept supposedly protected but actually kind of herded, where they'll be kept with what the UN says is very, totally inadequate plans for their food and water and medicine and shelter. Meanwhile, Israel proclaims it will scour the entire rest of the country for anything and everything connected with Hamas and destroy it. Gaza delenda est. You know, the bottom line is: This is kind of the war that the most-extreme factions in Hamas have been waiting for. It provides them with an open-ended, long-term insurgency. Now, obviously, the Israelis can rely on brute force to crush Hamas. But I think they've started to get the hint that as long as there are Palestinians in Gaza, there will be some form of Hamas, because Hamas is not a list of people and equipment. It's a name. And if you take a bunch of Palestinians and some of them say they're Hamas, then there will be Hamas, and that's likely to persist no matter what Israel does. And we're getting closer and closer to the end goal of where I think the logic of this for Israel goes, which is depopulation. Gaza has to be, you know, depopulated of Palestinians in order to be free of Hamas. And because the two go together in Gaza, under the circumstances. Rosin: So given that that's the current situation, and given that Trump is now engaging in the Middle East, how does this change the calculus for how he and the U.S. engage? Ibish: Everything that has happened in the region incentivizes him to stop the Israelis from going ahead with this plan, at least as it has been structured now. It's too extreme. It's too brutal. It's too genocidal. It's too over the top. And I really think the fact that he made such close friends again and reinforced his relationship with these countries that don't want that, both at the emotional and the strategic registers, that need it not to happen in every possible way, is really important. It gives him every reason to hold the Israelis back and say, Guys, come on. Don't do this. Don't do this this way. Don't do it. And he's the only person in the world at the moment who has real leverage over Netanyahu, because of the nature of the Israeli-U.S. relationship. Rosin: Yeah. Well, Hussein, this has been so clarifying. I really appreciate you helping us navigate and understand what this trip to the Gulf states might mean. Ibish: Such a pleasure to be here. Thank you. [] Rosin: This episode of Radio Atlantic was produced by Kevin Townsend and Rosie Hughes. It was edited by Claudine Ebeid. We had engineering support from Rob Smierciak, fact-checking by Sara Krolewski. Claudine Ebeid is the executive producer of Atlantic Audio, and Andrea Valdez is our managing editor. Listeners, if you like what you hear on Radio Atlantic, you can support our work and the work of all Atlantic journalists when you subscribe to The Atlantic at I'm Hanna Rosin, and thank you for being a listener. Talk to you next week. Article originally published at The Atlantic
Atlantic
15-05-2025
- Politics
- Atlantic
Trump and the Crown Prince
Three years ago, Joe Biden visited Saudi Arabia and was pointedly not greeted at the airport by any of the kingdom's major leaders (a mere governor of a province was the highest-ranking official who showed up). This week when President Trump landed in Riyadh, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman met him at the end of the jetway, shook his hand warmly, and walked him down the purple carpet. In Qatar, his entourage was greeted by red Cybertrucks, camels, and dancers. The affection appears mutual and genuine. That is in part because Trump speaks the transactional language of the Gulf leaders he met with this week, and they appreciate him for it. As a gift, he gets a luxury jet from Qatar while U.S. citizens get … ? That remains to be seen. In this episode of Radio Atlantic, we talk with Hussein Ibish, a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute, about this new era of chumminess among the American president and Gulf leaders. What does it mean that Trump has not brought up any of Saudi Arabia's human-rights violations? Is that luxury jet just norm breaking or illegal? And how might this friendship influence Trump in his dealings with Israel as its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, threatens to escalate attacks on Gaza? The following is a transcript of the episode: Hanna Rosin: Have you been seeing the pictures of Trump on the tarmac being greeted by various royals? Hussein Ibish: Yeah. Rosin: I wonder if you read it this way: He seems very relaxed. Ibish: He is very relaxed. He's home. He's come home. This is, like—outside the U.S., this is his favorite place. [ Music ] Rosin: I'm Hanna Rosin. This is Radio Atlantic, and that is Hussein Ibish. Ibish: I'm Hussein Ibish, and I'm a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute, and I write for many publications, especially The Atlantic. Rosin: This week, we're watching the president's visit to the Gulf states: Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates. The pictures we're referring to show Trump at the airport tarmac in Saudi Arabia being greeted by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in a royal welcome. Lavender carpets. Golden swords. Arabian horses. And Trump smiling through all of it. This is a stark contrast to a few years ago, when MBS, as bin Salman is known, was a pariah in the West for his human-rights violations. So what does Donald Trump's new approach to the Gulf states mean for our Middle East policy? And why is Trump so at home there? Ibish: He lives in a world of patrons and clients. He lives in a world where authority is not questionable. And that's very familiar. It's a very familiar space to—especially the Saudi royals, but—all of them. And he understands them, and they understand him. And he loves them, and they love him. He can be himself, the unedited version. He doesn't have to check his instincts. He just go[es] with it. And that's kind of unusual for Trump. Rosin: The word that seems to summarize Trump's approach is transactional. That's the word that a lot of people use. So what are Middle East leaders getting from America, and what is Trump getting from them? Ibish: Yeah, it's pretty straightforward, right? The Middle Eastern—not leaders, but—countries, what they're getting, ultimately, is protection. They're getting military protection, which is often unsatisfactory from their point of view. But they don't really have a good alternative to the United States, so they have to try to work to make it as good as possible. And that's what they're doing. They're buying goodwill from the U.S. They're also buying weapons, which they want and need. It's not, you know, purely just gifting. However, what Trump is getting in return is lots of money, and more for himself than for the country. There is money coming for the country. There are these large weapons sales of missiles and other things to Saudi Arabia, the biggest weapons sale in U.S. history. And the U.A.E. is looking at buying over a million semiconductor chips from Nvidia. And so on. All three countries are buying lots of American stuff, which is a big boon to Trump's bid to revitalize American manufacturing. But there's also a grifting angle here, right? Trump is getting a lot of money for his own company. We've never seen this before. We've never seen, even in the first Trump term: The level to which this state visit is also a private-business visit is amazing, because the projects include a Trump Tower in both Riyadh and Jeddah, in Saudi Arabia; another Trump Tower in Dubai, in the U.A.E.; and a Trump International Golf [Club] and resort in Qatar. There's also a cryptocurrency scheme connected to his sons, in which a U.A.E.-linked company has just agreed to invest $2 billion, with a B— $2 billion. The company is not going to look the same after this trip. It's going to go from being a very-successful-for-its-size mom-and-pop shop built on the vast inheritance that Trump's had from his father, Fred—but now he's taking it into the stratosphere. I mean, the amount of financial clout that's coming to his family-owned, privately held business is just amazing. And what the Arabs are doing here is buying goodwill. It's an investment. It's an investment in Trump as a friend and, you know, ultimately also with the U.S. But right now Trump has, you know, instituted l'état c'est moi: 'He is the country, and the country is him.' And until somebody stops him or until he leaves the White House, that's the way it's going to be. And this is very understandable to a group of people who deal in patron-client relations as a matter of course. Rosin: Okay, so just to summarize, the transaction is: They get protection, and what Trump gets is money for the country and money for himself. Ibish: Exactly. They get protection and he gets money. We get money. Rosin: Yeah, it's very clear when you describe it: The symbol, the concrete thing that is going to symbolize this trip for a long time, is this luxury jet from Qatar. How should we understand what this transaction is? Ibish: Well, it's the absolute—I was waiting for you to bring it up, because it is exactly the kind of icon, the avatar of this trip. It says it all. Qatar, which is an unbelievably rich country, has 300,000—maybe 400,000—citizens. Most of the country, between 2 and 3 million people, are ex-pat laborers, foreign workers, Arab and Western technocrats. But collectively, those 350,000 or so Qataris are the largest single exporter in the world of liquid natural gas. And obviously, all of the wealth goes to the citizens. I mean, it's just amazing. You've never seen a country with this level of per-capita wealth. And it uses that money for national interests. In this case, what they've done is: One of the former prime ministers who is a royal has a jet, a luxury Boeing 747 that's kitted out not for a president but for a wealthy man who enjoys luxury travel on his own private plane. So what the Qataris have done is they've said: You can have the plane for use as president while you're in office, and after that it will be transferred to your presidential library, meaning he could still use it after that. So it's sort of been—they've very cleverly muddied the waters or blurred the line between private and public here, in order to give this plane to Donald Trump as an individual. They can say that they haven't, that they've given it to his presidency, right? Rosin: This is so interesting. Basically, what you're saying is this is the president that the Gulf leaders have been waiting for. Trump is the man that they can finally deal with in the way that they want to. Ibish: Yeah. Well, in a lot of ways I think that's true. I remember a certain high-ranking—or formerly very high-ranking—Gulf individual who said just as much in 2016, after he was elected. They said, He does the same things —and he listed a bunch of verbs that were unlawful actions—and said, We do that. And he does that. It's not, obviously, unlawful in their countries. It's normative, but traditionally not allowed in the United States and in Western countries in general. And I think this man was absolutely correct when he said, We do this and he does that, and we do this and he does that, and that they would feel very comfortable with him. They certainly would disagree about how much pressure he should put on Israel regarding Gaza, things like that. But I was thinking yesterday that there's really no daylight between Trump's positions on all the really most-important issues and those of Saudi Arabia. You can't find a major irritant there, which is really amazing. Rosin: Such as what? What issues? Ibish: Well, I mean, anything you think of—the war in Ukraine, the nature of U.S.-Saudi relations, you know, how business should be conducted, the Yemen war, talks with Iran (they both want a deal). They convinced him that lifting the sanctions on Syria was a good idea. They just agree, more or less, on just about any issue. That can change overnight, because if there was a spike in oil prices, they would disagree right away. But I was contrasting that in my mind with the problems that the U.S. and Trump have with Israel right now, where there's disagreement about Gaza, about the cease-fire with the Houthis, about the talks with Iran, about the negotiations with Hamas. There are many irritants. Now, that's not to say the U.S. is closer to Saudi Arabia than it is Israel. I don't think that's true. The Israeli relationship with the U.S. is very deeply ingrained and protected by political influence in the U.S., especially from evangelical Christians on the right. But yeah, I think Trump is sort of ideal in many ways from, say, a Saudi point of view. [ Music ] Rosin: So now that we've established the nature of this relationship and where we are now, I want to understand what it means—to the rest of us, not to Trump and his family. So when you hear about U.S. relations with Gulf states in the past, especially Saudi Arabia, human rights enters as a factor. Not always forcefully, but it's always— Ibish: Well, it's definitely a rhetorical factor with most administrations. Whether they're Republican or Democrat, they do bring it up. Trump doesn't—ever, at all. Rosin: Right. So how important is that departure or shift? Ibish: Well, I mean, MBS has learned—and one of the big questions about him when he was a young, rash leader, you know, beginning in 2015, when he came in as defense minister, and a quick rise to where he is now, which is head of government. That is to say he is the prime minister of Saudi Arabia, so he runs the government. And human-rights issues became very serious in his early years with the arrest of the dissidents, the sort of adventure in Yemen that was ill-advised and badly done, to put it mildly, and also the jailing of important people who are not perhaps on board fully with the changes—the reforms, the social liberalization, or other concerns that MBS had about them—who were jailed at the Ritz Carlton. Rosin: Yeah, and of course, the 2018 murder of The Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, which the CIA concluded MBS ordered, although he denied it. Ibish: I was coming to that. That's the big enchilada—right?—for many people, including me, because he was a friend of mine for 15 years. And I, you know, I was just—I'm still scarred by it, and I think I always will be. [ Music ] Ibish: MBS, what we've learned about him is that, you know, he's not a sociopath, in the sense that he's educable. The question about him was always, Is he young and, you know, rash and doing these things because he doesn't know better, or is he kind of nuts? And the answer is, No, he's educable. He's evolving. He's maturing. Saudi Arabia remains a real human-rights violator from the point of view of human-rights norms. It executes a lot of people. Rule of law does not apply in the way we would expect. Dissidents—when they're found, when they exist—suffer, you know, arrest and imprisonment and long sentences. And even if they go as far as saying, Parts of the country should secede or leave Saudi Arabia, they can be executed. And they are sometimes. So it's not, you know, a happy story on human rights at all. But it's just way better than it was. And, you know, there are certainly more-alarming cases around the world. You couldn't really say that around the time of the murder of Jamal, because Saudi Arabia was really one of the worst violators at that time. And now I think it's almost back to normative Saudi behavior, hardly a good standard—it's a very low bar—but it's very different than he was years ago. Rosin: Okay, so we need to take a quick break, but when we come back, I want to talk about what this trip means for the ongoing conflicts in the Middle East and U.S.'s role in them. That's when we're back. Rosin: Okay, we're back. So I want to put this Gulf visit in the broader Middle East context. As Trump was heading to this trip, he made a number of deals that seemed like they were trying to clear away American entanglements in the region—so the U.S. cease-fire agreement with the Houthis and Yemen, the agreement with Hamas to release the last living U.S. citizen held hostage in Gaza, and then the announcement that the U.S. was going to lift sanctions on Syria. Do you see a pattern in this series of deals? Do you see a common goal? What is it? Ibish: Yes. I think he's trying to reduce American exposure and involvement in conflict in the region—not only in the region, but in regional conflicts. So for example, the lifting of sanctions on Syria is a response to Gulf countries saying to him, in effect, You say you want us to handle our problems. Fine. We want to, you know, invest in Syria and build. We can't have any influence in Syria if we don't spend money there, because we don't have a militia or an army in Syria. The only way to get their attention is by investing in reconstruction and in other services where we can build constituencies of friends who will represent our interests and, by extension, yours. And we can't do that if every time we write a check, we have to worry about the Treasury Department slamming us. So if you want us to handle our business, you gotta take these sanctions off. The deal with the Houthis in Yemen is undoubtedly directly connected to another conflict-ending or conflict-containing policy of Trump, which is the negotiations with Iran. Trump definitely wants a deal with the Iranians, another version of the Obama peace deal—which he railed against but is trying to resurrect—but he wants it to be longer and stronger and tougher on Iran. And he can get all of that because of what happened to the Iranians under Biden. I mean, he'll never give Biden the credit for having put Iran in this situation, but it was under his presidency that Iran was crippled in its regional status, and the biggest blow by miles was the Turkish-engineered downfall of Assad in Syria. You know, that's why the—letting the Saudis and the Emiratis and others, you know, do what they can in Syria without sanctions is part of that. You know, he needs to take advantage of this moment of Iranian weakness and the fact that they need 20, 25 years to rebuild their power and to rethink their national-security strategy, because it was all based on the idea that Arab militia groups led by Hezbollah in Lebanon would provide a powerful forward defense against Israel and, ultimately, the United States. And that was tested and proved untrue. Hezbollah was decimated by Israel. So Iran is in very bad shape. It needs to rethink everything, and it needs time. And Trump understands this, and Trump wants a deal because he doesn't want to be put in a situation of having to confront the Iranians militarily. And Iran wants a deal, and the only country left that doesn't want such a deal is Israel. With Obama, the Arabs were totally against it, but now they're all for it because they want calm and regional stability. Rosin: So that is the one big, obvious point of disagreement, which you mentioned, is Israel. Ibish: Yeah. Rosin: This is coming at a moment when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is warning that he's going to escalate in Gaza. As you've been seeing this Gulf trip unfold, what do you think it means for Israel, Gaza, and America's role in all of that? Ibish: I mean, it certainly incentivizes Trump to think very carefully about doing what he can to restrain Israel's worst impulses in Gaza. The situation in Gaza is so dire after more than 70 days of complete blockade—no food, no medicine, no water, no electricity, no shelter, nothing, no supplies into Gaza. People have been reduced to the point of starvation. That's where we're headed here. And it's a crime—it's certainly a war crime, and it's probably a crime against humanity. What the Israelis are proposing to do is to go back into Gaza with full force, force all the population—2.2 million who are not Hamas fighters and cadres and officials—into a tiny enclave in the south, where they will be kept supposedly protected but actually kind of herded, where they'll be kept with what the UN says is very, totally inadequate plans for their food and water and medicine and shelter. Meanwhile, Israel proclaims it will scour the entire rest of the country for anything and everything connected with Hamas and destroy it. Gaza delenda est. You know, the bottom line is: This is kind of the war that the most-extreme factions in Hamas have been waiting for. It provides them with an open-ended, long-term insurgency. Now, obviously, the Israelis can rely on brute force to crush Hamas. But I think they've started to get the hint that as long as there are Palestinians in Gaza, there will be some form of Hamas, because Hamas is not a list of people and equipment. It's a name. And if you take a bunch of Palestinians and some of them say they're Hamas, then there will be Hamas, and that's likely to persist no matter what Israel does. And we're getting closer and closer to the end goal of where I think the logic of this for Israel goes, which is depopulation. Gaza has to be, you know, depopulated of Palestinians in order to be free of Hamas. And because the two go together in Gaza, under the circumstances. Rosin: So given that that's the current situation, and given that Trump is now engaging in the Middle East, how does this change the calculus for how he and the U.S. engage? Ibish: Everything that has happened in the region incentivizes him to stop the Israelis from going ahead with this plan, at least as it has been structured now. It's too extreme. It's too brutal. It's too genocidal. It's too over the top. And I really think the fact that he made such close friends again and reinforced his relationship with these countries that don't want that, both at the emotional and the strategic registers, that need it not to happen in every possible way, is really important. It gives him every reason to hold the Israelis back and say, Guys, come on. Don't do this. Don't do this this way. Don't do it. And he's the only person in the world at the moment who has real leverage over Netanyahu, because of the nature of the Israeli-U.S. relationship. Rosin: Yeah. Well, Hussein, this has been so clarifying. I really appreciate you helping us navigate and understand what this trip to the Gulf states might mean. [ Music ] Rosin: This episode of Radio Atlantic was produced by Kevin Townsend and Rosie Hughes. It was edited by Claudine Ebeid. We had engineering support from Rob Smierciak, fact-checking by Sara Krolewski. Claudine Ebeid is the executive producer of Atlantic Audio, and Andrea Valdez is our managing editor. Listeners, if you like what you hear on Radio Atlantic, you can support our work and the work of all Atlantic journalists when you subscribe to The Atlantic at I'm Hanna Rosin, and thank you for being a listener. Talk to you next week.
The Age
15-05-2025
- Business
- The Age
Trump trashes taboos in radical rewrite of Middle East rule book
Doha: President Donald Trump on Wednesday met Syria's new leader. He asked Qatari mediators to help broker peace with Iran. And he once again declared he would be a 'FOOL' not to take Qatar's offer of a luxury jumbo jet for his use. It was a day-long flurry that laid plain how the US leader is reorienting Washington's role in the world in a far more transactional direction, one based more on quick wins than sweeping declarations of grand strategies. The day began with pomp in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, and ended in neighbouring Qatar after Trump was greeted with camels and sped to what he said was a 'perfecto' marble palace. Along the way, Trump continued to rewrite the US approach to the region as he met Syrian leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, a former rebel leader once affiliated with al-Qaeda who has sought to project a more moderate image since capturing Syria's capital, Damascus, in December. 'All the Gulfies like dealing with Trump. It's easy to understand where he's coming from'. Hussein Ibish, Arab Gulf States Institute It was the latest instance of Trump's pragmatic, try-everything approach to foreign policy. It has led to a blitz of efforts, including freeing the last US hostage held by Hamas, declaring a desire to reverse nearly 50 years of simmering tension with Iran and contemplating Qatar's offer of a $US400 million ($600 million) luxury Boeing 747, in the service of addressing Trump's frustration with the ageing Air Force One. Many initiatives have uncertain prospects of success, and the potential free jet has unsettled even some of Trump's most ardent supporters, who have questioned whether a foreign power is buying its way into the president's heart in the form of luxury. Trump hammered back in defence of the 747 idea on Wednesday, saying in a Truth Social post that Qatar wants to 'reward us for a job well done' and that 'only a FOOL would not accept this gift on behalf of our country'. Trump's transactional approach to the presidency has neatly matched that of the monarchs in the Persian Gulf region, who recognise that Trump is happiest when they are doing deals with him, whether business, security or gifted 747s. Qatar on Wednesday inked a deal to buy what Trump touted as 160 Boeing jets – there was some uncertainty about the number – as the US leader bragged: 'That's a record.' 'All the Gulfies like dealing with Trump,' said Hussein Ibish, a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington. 'It's easy to understand where he's coming from. It's a patriarchal structure. He's the big guy, and everything centres around him. That's how they move, too.' Monarchs in the Gulf region 'do not distinguish between their personal interests and national interests', Ibish said. Trump's stops on this trip – from Saudi Arabia to Qatar to the United Arab Emirates – line up neatly as countries where his sons have signed business deals in recent weeks on behalf of the Trump Organisation, the family business, and World Liberty Financial, a cryptocurrency firm started in September that was co-founded by Trump's sons and Zach Witkoff, one of the sons of Trump's Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff. The White House says that Trump is taking a financial hit from being president and that he no longer has any involvement in his family businesses. But Qatar may be at the forefront in using its largesse to turn around its status with Trump. For much of his first term, Saudi Arabia led a de facto regional blockade against Qatar, isolating the country economically over its relationship with Iran, its past support for the Muslim Brotherhood, and its funding for the Al Jazeera news network, whose reporting has at times upset neighbouring governments. Loading Back then, Trump largely sympathised with Qatar's opponents, though his administration worked to end the tensions and used Doha as a mediator in talks with Afghanistan's Taliban rebels. The blockade ended in January 2021, shortly before Trump left office. Since then, Qatari leaders have doubled down on their efforts to be indispensable regional mediators, hosting talks between Hamas and Israel, and between Russia and Ukraine, among others. Trump has been ready to move at a greater speed on foreign policy in his second term. Freed from the pressures of re-election, and from the nay-saying of advisers who sometimes curbed his impulses the first time around, the president is far more open to trying unorthodox policies – such as imposing crippling tariffs on US allies, then spinning around and dialling them back after bond markets rebelled. He also has been open to mixing official work with actions that boost his family's business interests, including the Trump meme coin and a Melania Trump documentary for which Amazon has paid $US40 million. In the case of Syria, Trump's approach was a welcome relief to proponents of a fresh strategy toward Damascus. They had pushed to end sanctions that they said were needlessly damaging a country beginning to shake off 14 years of civil war. The meeting with Sharaa went 'great', Trump told reporters on Air Force One during the hour-long flight from Saudi Arabia to Qatar. Sharaa is a 'young, attractive guy,' Trump said. 'Tough guy. Strong past. Very strong past. Fighter.' Sharaa has 'a real shot at holding it together,' Trump said. 'He's a real leader. He led the charge, and he's amazing.' In a meeting of leaders of the Gulf Co-operation Council in Riyadh on Wednesday, Trump noted that his announcement the previous evening that he would reverse sanctions on Syria drew an ovation and the largest applause of the night. Loading 'I've seen such progress,' Trump said of the region. 'The whole world is watching the Middle East.' Wednesday's meeting with Sharaa stretched more than half an hour, according to the White House. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman hosted, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan dialled in via speakerphone. The sanctions on Syria that Trump ended Tuesday were intended to squeeze the regime of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, who ruled the country with an iron grip for decades before he was ousted in December. The measures had been left in place because of Washington's uncertainty about Sharaa's intentions and to push him to remake Syria inclusively. But advocates of a policy change said they were sending the wrong message to Damascus and depriving the new leader of the oxygen he needed to air out society. Trump ultimately sided with them. Trump also handed Iran a choice, warning that he would not allow the country to develop a nuclear weapon but also declaring a startling openness to reshaping relations with Tehran if it makes a deal. 'I haven't seen camels like that in a long time.' Donald Trump 'I hope you can help me with the Iran situation,' Trump said on Wednesday at an opulent state dinner with Qatari leaders. 'You want to do something that's going to save maybe millions of lives. Because things like that get started, and they get out of control.' Loading Trump's approach has unsettled leaders who take a more ideological view of global affairs, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Israel sees Iran as a mortal enemy, and in Gaza, the country has often prioritised bombing Hamas into submission rather than engaging diplomatically to free the remaining hostages held by the Palestinian militant group. The Trump administration went over Netanyahu's head and worked directly with Hamas to secure this week's release of the final American hostage, Edan Alexander. But Trump on Wednesday said Israel should not be worried. 'This is good for Israel, having a relationship like I have with these countries, Middle Eastern countries, essentially all of them,' he said. As with the Saudis, the Qataris also rolled out a lavish ceremony for Trump's arrival, with an honour guard of dozens singing songs, some of them mounted on white horses, some on black horses, others dancing with swords raised. There were also camels. 'I haven't seen camels like that in a long time. And it was some greeting. We appreciate it very much,' Trump said upon arrival at the Amiri Diwan, the administrative offices of Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani. Trump marvelled at the soaring architecture around him. 'The job you've done is second to none. You look at this, it's so beautiful,' he said. 'As a construction person, I'm seeing perfect marble. This is what they call perfecto.' At a state dinner at Lusail Palace, Trump and the emir stood in a receiving line for nearly an hour. Drums and singing could be heard from outside, and the smell of incense filled the room inside. A massive chandelier was suspended over them. A parade of officials came to shake hands, including Christopher Ruddy, the founder of Newsmax; Antonio Gracias, one of Elon Musk's closest friends; and media personality Piers Morgan. Musk arrived more than 30 minutes late, doing a chat and cut to get towards the front of the line. Stephen Schwarzman, the chief executive of Blackstone, also appeared, as did Gianni Infantino, the president of FIFA, which brought the World Cup to Qatar in 2022 and awarded it to the United States for 2026. The Qatari leader had done his homework to appeal to Trump: talking up his massive investments in the United States, mentioning the US trade surplus with Qatar and saying Qatar likes to 'drill, baby drill' – a Trump campaign slogan. 'I'm so grateful for the trade deficit we have with you because the surplus swings in your favour,' Tamim said. 'It's just a perfect evening,' Trump said.
Sydney Morning Herald
15-05-2025
- Business
- Sydney Morning Herald
Trump trashes taboos in radical rewrite of Middle East rule book
Doha: President Donald Trump on Wednesday met Syria's new leader. He asked Qatari mediators to help broker peace with Iran. And he once again declared he would be a 'FOOL' not to take Qatar's offer of a luxury jumbo jet for his use. It was a day-long flurry that laid plain how the US leader is reorienting Washington's role in the world in a far more transactional direction, one based more on quick wins than sweeping declarations of grand strategies. The day began with pomp in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, and ended in neighbouring Qatar after Trump was greeted with camels and sped to what he said was a 'perfecto' marble palace. Along the way, Trump continued to rewrite the US approach to the region as he met Syrian leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, a former rebel leader once affiliated with al-Qaeda who has sought to project a more moderate image since capturing Syria's capital, Damascus, in December. 'All the Gulfies like dealing with Trump. It's easy to understand where he's coming from'. Hussein Ibish, Arab Gulf States Institute It was the latest instance of Trump's pragmatic, try-everything approach to foreign policy. It has led to a blitz of efforts, including freeing the last US hostage held by Hamas, declaring a desire to reverse nearly 50 years of simmering tension with Iran and contemplating Qatar's offer of a $US400 million ($600 million) luxury Boeing 747, in the service of addressing Trump's frustration with the ageing Air Force One. Many initiatives have uncertain prospects of success, and the potential free jet has unsettled even some of Trump's most ardent supporters, who have questioned whether a foreign power is buying its way into the president's heart in the form of luxury. Trump hammered back in defence of the 747 idea on Wednesday, saying in a Truth Social post that Qatar wants to 'reward us for a job well done' and that 'only a FOOL would not accept this gift on behalf of our country'. Trump's transactional approach to the presidency has neatly matched that of the monarchs in the Persian Gulf region, who recognise that Trump is happiest when they are doing deals with him, whether business, security or gifted 747s. Qatar on Wednesday inked a deal to buy what Trump touted as 160 Boeing jets – there was some uncertainty about the number – as the US leader bragged: 'That's a record.' 'All the Gulfies like dealing with Trump,' said Hussein Ibish, a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington. 'It's easy to understand where he's coming from. It's a patriarchal structure. He's the big guy, and everything centres around him. That's how they move, too.' Monarchs in the Gulf region 'do not distinguish between their personal interests and national interests', Ibish said. Trump's stops on this trip – from Saudi Arabia to Qatar to the United Arab Emirates – line up neatly as countries where his sons have signed business deals in recent weeks on behalf of the Trump Organisation, the family business, and World Liberty Financial, a cryptocurrency firm started in September that was co-founded by Trump's sons and Zach Witkoff, one of the sons of Trump's Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff. The White House says that Trump is taking a financial hit from being president and that he no longer has any involvement in his family businesses. But Qatar may be at the forefront in using its largesse to turn around its status with Trump. For much of his first term, Saudi Arabia led a de facto regional blockade against Qatar, isolating the country economically over its relationship with Iran, its past support for the Muslim Brotherhood, and its funding for the Al Jazeera news network, whose reporting has at times upset neighbouring governments. Loading Back then, Trump largely sympathised with Qatar's opponents, though his administration worked to end the tensions and used Doha as a mediator in talks with Afghanistan's Taliban rebels. The blockade ended in January 2021, shortly before Trump left office. Since then, Qatari leaders have doubled down on their efforts to be indispensable regional mediators, hosting talks between Hamas and Israel, and between Russia and Ukraine, among others. Trump has been ready to move at a greater speed on foreign policy in his second term. Freed from the pressures of re-election, and from the nay-saying of advisers who sometimes curbed his impulses the first time around, the president is far more open to trying unorthodox policies – such as imposing crippling tariffs on US allies, then spinning around and dialling them back after bond markets rebelled. He also has been open to mixing official work with actions that boost his family's business interests, including the Trump meme coin and a Melania Trump documentary for which Amazon has paid $US40 million. In the case of Syria, Trump's approach was a welcome relief to proponents of a fresh strategy toward Damascus. They had pushed to end sanctions that they said were needlessly damaging a country beginning to shake off 14 years of civil war. The meeting with Sharaa went 'great', Trump told reporters on Air Force One during the hour-long flight from Saudi Arabia to Qatar. Sharaa is a 'young, attractive guy,' Trump said. 'Tough guy. Strong past. Very strong past. Fighter.' Sharaa has 'a real shot at holding it together,' Trump said. 'He's a real leader. He led the charge, and he's amazing.' In a meeting of leaders of the Gulf Co-operation Council in Riyadh on Wednesday, Trump noted that his announcement the previous evening that he would reverse sanctions on Syria drew an ovation and the largest applause of the night. Loading 'I've seen such progress,' Trump said of the region. 'The whole world is watching the Middle East.' Wednesday's meeting with Sharaa stretched more than half an hour, according to the White House. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman hosted, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan dialled in via speakerphone. The sanctions on Syria that Trump ended Tuesday were intended to squeeze the regime of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, who ruled the country with an iron grip for decades before he was ousted in December. The measures had been left in place because of Washington's uncertainty about Sharaa's intentions and to push him to remake Syria inclusively. But advocates of a policy change said they were sending the wrong message to Damascus and depriving the new leader of the oxygen he needed to air out society. Trump ultimately sided with them. Trump also handed Iran a choice, warning that he would not allow the country to develop a nuclear weapon but also declaring a startling openness to reshaping relations with Tehran if it makes a deal. 'I haven't seen camels like that in a long time.' Donald Trump 'I hope you can help me with the Iran situation,' Trump said on Wednesday at an opulent state dinner with Qatari leaders. 'You want to do something that's going to save maybe millions of lives. Because things like that get started, and they get out of control.' Loading Trump's approach has unsettled leaders who take a more ideological view of global affairs, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Israel sees Iran as a mortal enemy, and in Gaza, the country has often prioritised bombing Hamas into submission rather than engaging diplomatically to free the remaining hostages held by the Palestinian militant group. The Trump administration went over Netanyahu's head and worked directly with Hamas to secure this week's release of the final American hostage, Edan Alexander. But Trump on Wednesday said Israel should not be worried. 'This is good for Israel, having a relationship like I have with these countries, Middle Eastern countries, essentially all of them,' he said. As with the Saudis, the Qataris also rolled out a lavish ceremony for Trump's arrival, with an honour guard of dozens singing songs, some of them mounted on white horses, some on black horses, others dancing with swords raised. There were also camels. 'I haven't seen camels like that in a long time. And it was some greeting. We appreciate it very much,' Trump said upon arrival at the Amiri Diwan, the administrative offices of Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani. Trump marvelled at the soaring architecture around him. 'The job you've done is second to none. You look at this, it's so beautiful,' he said. 'As a construction person, I'm seeing perfect marble. This is what they call perfecto.' At a state dinner at Lusail Palace, Trump and the emir stood in a receiving line for nearly an hour. Drums and singing could be heard from outside, and the smell of incense filled the room inside. A massive chandelier was suspended over them. A parade of officials came to shake hands, including Christopher Ruddy, the founder of Newsmax; Antonio Gracias, one of Elon Musk's closest friends; and media personality Piers Morgan. Musk arrived more than 30 minutes late, doing a chat and cut to get towards the front of the line. Stephen Schwarzman, the chief executive of Blackstone, also appeared, as did Gianni Infantino, the president of FIFA, which brought the World Cup to Qatar in 2022 and awarded it to the United States for 2026. The Qatari leader had done his homework to appeal to Trump: talking up his massive investments in the United States, mentioning the US trade surplus with Qatar and saying Qatar likes to 'drill, baby drill' – a Trump campaign slogan. 'I'm so grateful for the trade deficit we have with you because the surplus swings in your favour,' Tamim said. 'It's just a perfect evening,' Trump said.
ABC News
14-05-2025
- Business
- ABC News
Why Trump's Middle East tour is about money, not peace
Sam Hawley: So far he's secured a new luxury jet and billions of dollars in investment deals. But as Donald Trump continues his tour of the Middle East, there's been no talk of a plan for peace in Gaza. Today Hussein Ibish from the Arab Gulf States Institute on Trump's tour and why he won't be meeting the Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu. I'm Sam Hawley on Gadigal land in Sydney. This is ABC News Daily. Hussein, Donald Trump, he's gone to the Middle East, but this trip seems to be much more about money than peace. Is that fair enough? Hussein Ibish: It is fair and it is accurate. There are a few diplomatic manoeuvres going on. There was the release of the American hostage that was still held in Gaza by Hamas, the lifting of sanctions on Syria. But behind it, the main agenda is money, money, money. And there's the national interest money. And the other economic agenda is his private personal agenda. Where there is this enormous set of investments related to Trump incorporated. The privately owned family company now being nominally run by his sons. And he stands to make billions off of Trump Tower in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Trump Tower in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, a Trump Tower in Dubai in the UAE, and a Trump golf course and resort in Qatar. They will reap billions. Donald Trump: With this trip, we're adding over $1 trillion more in terms of investment and investment into our country and buying our products. I've never seen anything like it. There's no better place to make a future, make a fortune. Sam Hawley: And before he started his trip, of course, the big news story was that he had actually accepted a luxury jet, Donald Trump, from the Qatari government worth $400 million US dollars. Jounalist: Mr. President, what do you say to people who view that luxury jet as a personal gift to you? Donald Trump: You should be embarrassed asking that question. They're giving us a free jet. I could say, no, no, no, don't give us, I want to pay you a billion or 400 million or whatever it is. Or I could say, thank you very much. Hussein Ibish: That's not a gift to him personally, although he'll be using it. It's a gift to the United States. Sam Hawley: Sounds nice if you can get it though. Hussein Ibish: Well, it's still the case that all these other deals that are private and personal are all being done because there is a generalized suspension of the usual rules and laws against corruption, self-dealing, bribery, and many other laws that would prevent this kind of outrageous corruption, which normally in any Western country would be considered criminally actionable. Sam Hawley: Well, of course, his first stop was to Saudi Arabia to meet the Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman. Right. And they've signed deals that could be investment deals that could be worth eventually up around a trillion dollars. And they did sign an arms deal, a $142 billion arms deal. Hussein Ibish: Here's what Trump is doing. He's doing what he did in 2017, but he's going to do it three times. Once in Saudi Arabia, and then again, he's going to do the same thing in the UAE. And then one more time in Qatar. He's going to take real deals like the missile sale that you mentioned, $138 billion, I think it is, something like that, plus aspirational deals, plus fake deals and pledges that everyone who is well-informed knows is never going to happen. And he's going to add all of that up in the most fanciful way and come up with a figure like a trillion dollars or something absurd like that, when the real figure is big, but not anything like that size in order to secure a political win. Trump has gone to the Gulf to get wins. He's desperately in need of wins. Sam Hawley: All right. So, as you mentioned, he will also visit Qatar and the UAE. He will not, though, be meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu on this trip. That relationship's really headed south, I think you can say, since that very cordial meeting that they had in February. Hussein Ibish: Yeah, it's in bad shape. I mean, look, I wouldn't want to overstate things because the U.S.-Israeli relationship is very strong and Trump's relationship with Israel and with Netanyahu's right-wing government is very strong. It's true there are many issues that are irritants between Trump and Netanyahu, and they include things like the negotiations with Hamas over the release of the American hostage, which was done without Israel's knowledge or consent or involvement, the negotiations with the Houthis for a ceasefire, which did not include Israel, and also the, I think the Israelis will be unhappy about the lifting of sanctions against Syria. In addition, there is a big gap on Gaza where Trump wants the war to end and Israel is preparing to ramp it up to its most intense phase ever thus far. And another big issue, maybe the biggest one, is Trump's negotiations with Iran, where both Iran and Trump are very keen on getting a deal. The Israelis are very upset about this. Sam Hawley: All right, so Benjamin Netanyahu is clearly unhappy with some of the deals that Donald Trump is doing, including in relation to Iran. You mentioned the U.S. citizen, of course, that was freed by Hamas this week. Arab mediators say that release is a really encouraging step towards a return to ceasefire talks. But what do you think? Is that really the case? What has Benjamin Netanyahu been saying in relation to peace? Hussein Ibish: Well, he's very clear that as soon as Trump leaves the Middle East, he's going to launch a major offensive, drive the 2.2 million Palestinians in Gaza into a small enclave and try to crush and kill Hamas and the rest of the territory. Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli Prime Minister: Last night, we stayed up late in the cabinet and decided on an intensified operation in Gaza. It was the chief of staff's recommendation to proceed, as he put it, towards the defeat of Hamas. And along the way, he believes this will also help us rescue the hostages. And I agree with him. The population will be moved for its own protection. Hussein Ibish: It's really the closest thing Israel has done so far, if they do it, to fully justify South Africa's genocide case at the International Court of Justice. Over time, Israel's use of food and medicine and water as a weapon of war and the rising death toll of women and children and other non-combatants, civilians, has contributed to a reality where that case is now strong. If Israel goes ahead with this offensive as they've described it, it'll become very strong. Not that Netanyahu is ever going to be arrested and dragged in front of the Hague, more's the pity, since he certainly, he and the Hamas leaders belong there, perhaps in adjacent courtrooms. But the point is that they're hoping that Trump will intervene to either prevent or mitigate this, to put some sort of limits on Israel. And that very much remains to be seen. Sam Hawley: The real fear now, of course, is that Gaza is on the brink of starvation because Israel has blockaded food and fuel. Hussein Ibish: For over 70 days now, they've allowed no food, fuel, water, medicine, anything into Gaza. Sam Hawley: Well, Israel says that all Hamas needs to do is disarm and the war could end, that it's hiding fighters among the community. That's Israel's argument. Hussein Ibish: Well, even if all that were true, let's stipulate that that's true. And Hamas is a very ruthless group of people who don't care about the population of Gaza. And they've made that very clear through word and deed over time. In fact, they say when challenged, oh, we're a nation of martyrs. Even if all this were true, Israel is still responsible for its actions. The fact that Hamas does bad things does not give Israel the right to engage in the massive breaking of international law, the taking of all of the people of Gaza hostage in effect by cutting off food and water to them for months on end, and massacring them in large numbers without caring about which of them live or die. All of that is criminal behavior. It may rise to the level of crimes against... certainly war crimes, and it may rise to the level of crimes against humanity and possibly genocide. And Israel's behavior in Gaza in the past year and a half has been among the most reprehensible of any developed state since World War II. I just think there's no doubt about it whatsoever. Sam Hawley: Well, Hussein, Benjamin Netanyahu says he will use full force to finish the job and eliminate Hamas. So what does that look like? And will the world and for that matter Israelis allow it? Hussein Ibish: Well, Israelis will allow it. The world can't do much except for Trump. Will Trump allow it? As I say, I don't know. Trump doesn't have the absolute power to stop it. But if he were to intervene, he could make life extremely difficult for Netanyahu. And he could certainly attenuate it and make the Israelis think twice. And probably he can restrain them. You know, what would it look like? What Israel has described is unimaginable. So it's something we've never seen before. The herding of 2 million people into a small enclave, a giant prison camp, a large concentration camp, with 'inadequate' (the UN has said, and I'm sure they're right) structures for food, medicine, health care, shelter, etc. And it'll look like a massacre is what it'll look like. The second thing is that even that scenario will not eliminate Hamas from Gaza. The Israeli military cannot be everywhere. And recent history shows very clearly in Afghanistan, Iraq, many places, that it is possible in the modern world to, and possibly before that, but certainly in the modern world, it's readily possible to run an insurgency under the most onerous circumstances and on a shoestring if your fighters are willing to die. And that's the crucial point. And I think Hamas has proven that its fighters are willing to die. And I think they'll be more ready now than ever. What's there to live for in Gaza? Winston Churchill had the sort of motto of the insurgent down to a T, when he had, you know, keep calm and carry on, was the British slogan during the Blitz. But Churchill had worked out a next phase slogan. If the Germans had invaded Britain, he would have rolled out the slogan "You can always take one with you." And he was thinking about everyone in Britain grabbing a kitchen knife or some other implement and finding a German soldier and saying, right, I may go, but, you know, I'll take one of them with me. And, you know, that spirit is going to seize many of the people of Gaza, even if it's unwise, even if it's irrational. I'm just saying if it could be the spirit of Britain in the 40s, why wouldn't it be the spirit of Gaza now? I mean, I think it would be. The Israelis are going to find it impossible to remove Hamas from Gaza unless they depopulate Gaza. And I think in the end, that's where the Israeli plan is going to go. By making conditions on the ground unendurable and rendering Gaza uninhabitable and then sort of forcing the outside world to take Palestinians on a piecemeal basis. Oh, you know, a thousand here, 10,000 there, you know, 2,000 in Finland and another 300 in Chile and bit by bit, individual by individual, family by family, group by group. And meanwhile, Israel will be probably reestablishing at least symbolic settlements in Gaza's north and probably moving towards annexation of part or all of Gaza in the foreseeable future. Permanent dispossession, permanent exile, permanent expulsion. Sam Hawley: Hussein Ibish is from the Arab Gulf States Institute, a Washington D.C based think tank. This episode was produced by Sydney Pead and Adair Sheppard. Audio production by Sam Dunn. Our supervising producer is David Coady. I'm Sam Hawley. Thanks for listening.
