BoP and The Lurking Devil!

Saleem Ayoub Quna
Opinion
March 5, 2026

Eight months ago and precisely in June 2025, the US and Israel launched their first combined “Midnight Hammer” military operation against Iran, in an attempt to obliterate its controversial nuclear facilities, set since 2018, to be settled through negotiations between the US and Iran. Prior to that strike, not Ukraine nor Venezuela or Greenland, but Gaza was the hottest issue on Trump’ international agenda, as he was applying the final touches on his anticipated peace plan for the devastated tiny strip! On 26 January this year, i.e. nearly a month ago, Trump from Davos, in Switzerland, proudly announced the birth of BoP, “The Board of Peace”, which he would preside over forever.

To enhance his initiative’s chances to succeed, Trump had invited world leaders to join his new born club for peace. Those who responded favorably had little choice to do otherwise, and some of them promised to contribute billions of dollars to make the plan work. Other big shots such as Russia, France or China were either not interested or invited!

The last one to join the club, but reluctantly, was no other than the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, despite his direct involvement in the thick of the matter. Netanyahu thought the plan was naïve and amateurish in more than one aspect! So he would send his Foreign Minister to attend the signing ceremony in Davos, for his own thoughts were focused on other more important issues that would take place later! Regardless of Netanyahu’s caveats, the Trump BoP seemed to be one of few feasible options to stop the violence and killing committed by Israel.

in Gaza, and a shy start towards a peaceful transition in Gaza and beyond despite the many loopholes.
On this occasion Trump said: “This is a big, big day, a beautiful day, potentially one of the great days ever in civilization”. The he added: “I am not talking about Gaza. Gaza is one thing, but we are talking about
much beyond Gaza. The whole deal, everything getting solved. It is called peace in the Middle East”. While this BoP was hailed as an achievement for Trump’s diplomacy, envisaged by his top capable advisor to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, and his assistant Jared Kushner, Trump’s trusted son-in-law, it whistled disaster in Netanyahu’s ears.

From this man’s point of view, if the BoP was put on track of the peace train, let alone its arrival at its desired destination, it would mean one thing and nothing else: the end of Gaza tragedy which also meant the end of Netanyahu’s political career. For him, it looked like a trap that he had, knowingly but unwillingly, a role in setting up. At this crucial moment the manipulative devil and the survival instinct in
Netanyahu, were awakened and pushed him to embark on planning a reversal of this momentum. He had to end this nonsense talk about peace for Gaza, let alone beyond! For certain, he regretted his consent to the suspension of the Midnight-Hammer strike back in June against Iran. Now time is running short for him again.

He needs to take a big and last gamble to divert Trump’s current menacing approach to solve the thorny issues in this region. He, prematurely, and ahead of his originally scheduled visit to the US, books
a meeting with Trump at Mar-a-Lago in Florida, thus effecting his sixth meeting with Trump in less than a year!

There, he presents his case: Today, he tells Trump, Iran is the biggest real danger facing Israel and the free world led by the US; Iran is stockpiling an arsenal of all kinds of deadly missiles; the majority of
Iranians want the US to help them topple the regime which is massacring the protesters in the streets; Iranian negotiating team are just buying more time; it is now or a never again chance to finish this
nightmare called Iran, after its proxies in Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Gaza and Lebanon were defeated earlier.
Trump submissively listened, as Netanyahu managed to put a hold on every other item on Trump’s agenda, including his cherished BoP project for which he hoped to be nominated for the Nobel Prize for
peace!

Today as the war against Iran goes into its sixth day, two things and plus are crystal clear; there will be no peace prizes, and there will lot of havoc and chaos on the ground, plus the devil in Netanyahu, will be the happiest breathing creature around, for the time being!

Saleem Ayoub Quna

Opinion

The Chinese Fortune Cookie and The “Thucydides Trap”! A View From Amman

Saleem Ayoub Quna
May 15, 2026

By Saleem Ayoub Quna

Nearly 2000 years ago, there lived a prosperous Empire in ‘Athens’ which dominated the whole region of ancient Greece, along the hundreds of islands in the Aegean Sea. It was situated approximately 200 kilometers away from another military strong city, an empire called ‘Sparta’.

The advisors of the Emperor of Athens started warning their leadership of the growing power of this relatively distant neighbor, which could pose an imminent threat to its supremacy, and even to the existence of their empire in Athens as well.

In one of the ancient Greek ‘think-tanks’ in Athens also, lived a general and philosopher, who was monitoring the evolution of relations between the two city states. His name was ‘Thucydides’. He foresaw disaster and advised his fellow Athenians to resist the temptation to go after the Spartans, in order to quell the possibility that their power might expand and grow bigger in the region, and threaten and challenge the actual supremacy of Athens.

He begged them not to fall to such an illusionary trap. Sparta seemingly was minding its own business and was not fully aware of Athens’ fears and phobia of the unknown.

‘Thucydides’ kept warning his own people about such eventuality, but to no avail. The war finally broke out and it was called the “Peloponnesian war” that lasted for nearly three decades. Its endgame was a humiliating defeat for Athens, and a decisive victory for Sparta.

In the first decade of this century, a certain Graham Allison, a professor of political science at Harvard School for International Studies, was studying and analyzing this pattern of hostile relations between nations, built on suspicion and mistrust.

Out of 16 wars in the world, big and small, he found out, 12 wars erupted between nations, precisely because of, not similar, but identical circumstances, where a certain nation would fear the rising power and influence of another nation, and decides to go to war to eliminate this imaginary threat, so the former would keep its clout and domination.

While studying and tracking back cases of war from modern times such as WWI and WWII and other older conflicts, and when he reached the “Peloponnesian War, 431-404 BC” in Greece, he came up with a simple conclusion that causes such wars between nations, which is the fear of a nation of another nation’s power and ill-intentions! And he brilliantly dubs it the “Thucydides Trap” thus emulating the first experienced and documented war of this kind in ancient Greece, nearly 2000 years ago!

Now we come back to our present day and astonishingly hear Chinese President Xi Jinping warning his powerful visitor, US President Trump, and himself not to submit to the “Thucydides Trap” which many nations in the past did!

What is also amazing in this regard, is first, that the Chinese leader alluded to that ancient lesson which happened in Greece that lies thousands of miles away from China, and second, is how the smart and knowledgeable Xi Jinping’s speech writers, were as they inserted Graham Allison’s most famous political coinage in connection with today’s issues of war and peace!

In conclusion, I would like to list two questions and one footnote:

Does not the name “Thucydides” phonetically rhyme with the word “suicide”, especially if you could listen to its pronunciation in Greek!

Does not the “War of choice” launched against Iran on the pretext that it is posing a threat to Israel, squarely fall under the category of “Thucydides Trap” wars?

When Sparta won the war against Athens, it was significantly due to Persian support against Athens, bearing in mind that the Persians were the forefathers of present-day Iranians!

Opinion

Oslo: Strangling The Dove

Dr Khairi Janbek
May 10, 2026

By Dr Khairi Janbek

When we do a recap of the Oslo Agreements, they were a series of accords between Israel and the PLO signed in 1993. It was a process meant to lead to a permanent settlement of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict within five year, including decisions on borders, refugees, security, Jerusalem and settlements.

But right from the start, voices were divided over the process, while for others, the whole idea had a built-in mechanism for failure from the start. The Palestinians started seeing that the Oslo Agreements were neither ending the establishment of Israeli settlements nor the end to occupation, while for the Israelis it didn’t seem to end their security concerns.

Indeed, it is pointless to think which comes first, the chicken or the egg, because two different fears and logistics persisted from the start. But also, it is important to think about the circumstances which brought about the idea of launching the process, and which did put the PLO in a tough position for being perceived as supporting the wrong side which lost; Iraq.

The room for manoeuvre for the late Yasser Arafat was very tight as he stood to lose the legitimacy of the PLO.

What one is trying to say is that, right from the start, outside official circles, many on the Palestinian side were against Oslo probably as many as was the case on the Israeli side.

The gradual erosion of Oslo mainly through the continued Israeli actions kept feeding extremism on both sides. Nevertheless, the concept was not revoked by any Israeli government because of its effect on Arab public opinion, pressure which is likely to block any peace initiative. Moreover, the international atmosphere was not conducive for such an initiative.

Having said that, one cannot claim that the international atmosphere is currently more indifferent to the abrogation of the Oslo, rather Israel seems to have more leeway in undertaking unilateral actions with more impunity.

Of course, it is not international law that can be counted on in this respect but rather, at least for the time being Donald Trump’s disapproval of the idea of annexing the West Bank by Israel. This is despite the fact that all the Israeli actions of dividing the West Bank from north to south first and currently from west to east, goes unnoticed. But the important thing has been till now, and don’t say the magic word, end of Oslo.

However, the recent development is that Israeli political parties, the partners in Netanyahu’s government are all pushing openly, for the abrogation of the Oslo agreements and cancelling out all the Israeli obligations towards it.

One can only say such an open declaration is a matter of principle by the Israeli government, because the changes on the ground are there for all to see. One supposes all parties are playing for time to see the end of the Palestinian national aspirations.

The columnist is a Jordanian writer based in Paris, France

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BoP and The Lurking Devil!

Saleem Ayoub Quna

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