Trump’s Mideast Utterings ‘Hot Air’

By Abdel Bari Atwan

After the private dinner hosted by Donald Trump “in honor” of Mrs. Sara Netanyahu, the US President-elect immediately threatened to set the Middle East on fire if the Israeli prisoners in the Gaza Strip tunnels, guarded by the Qassam Brigades and the Al-Quds Brigades, were not released before his return to the White House on 20 January 2025.

Trump went further when he threatened the Palestinian resistance factions with paying a heavy price if the hostages were not released, and directed his threats specifically at the leaders of the Hamas and Islamic Jihad movements.

In his first term as US President, he made many similar threats, such as destroying North Korea, subjugating China, forcing Mexico to pay the bill for the border wall to keep out immigrants, and turning Iran into another Hiroshima if it responded to the assassination of the martyrs, Qassem Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.

Trump – an “unruly” professional liar – did not dare to carry out any of these threats, and perhaps the only threat he carried out was withdrawing from the nuclear agreement with Iran in 2017, which backfired and came as a major gift to Iran it never dreamed of, which since developed, theoretically and practically, into an unofficially declared nuclear state.

We would like to tell Trump his threats will not move a hair on the head of the smallest hungry or injured Palestinian infant in the steadfast and heroic Gaza Strip.

If his partner [Netanyahu] in the extermination war and ethnic cleansing and who used all kinds of mass destruction weapons to bomb Gaza – executed more than 45,000 martyrs, three-quarters of whom, children and women, and destroyed 95 percent of their homes – did not succeed in releasing these Israeli prisoners, despite advanced US intelligence, what does Trump have that is stronger and more effective than that?  Hitting the Gaza Strip with a nuclear bomb, as his criminal friend Senator Lindsey Graham suggests?!

The heroic Al-Qassam Brigades and Al-Quds Brigades have not submitted to all this bloody Israeli pressure and did not release the prisoners throughout the past 14 months. All the pressure and rounds of negotiations sponsored by America failed, unfortunately with Arab collusion; the USA wanted to trap Hamas and Jihad which firmly stuck to their conditions, and did not give up a single inch.

So what more can the reckless Trump do?

We need to remind Trump and draw his attention to a set of points he must have forgotten about in the midst of his euphoria on his victory over his naive and foolish opponent Kamala Harris:

First, the resistance in Gaza is still strong, ongoing, and inflicting huge and humiliating losses on the Israeli enemy and its forces, and from zero-distance, which reflects the heroism and courage of its men.  Not a single mujahid surrendered, all fought until martyrdom.

Second, there is not a single American aircraft carrier now in the Middle East and its seas, whether it is red, white or Arab, due to the blessed Yemeni missiles. It is enough to point out the attack with naval ballistic missiles that hit the carrier Abraham Lincoln a few days ago, which escaped with heavy casualties and damaged three destroyers and other ships. The day before yesterday, a Yemeni hypersonic missile struck a military base in the heart of occupied Jaffa.

Third, the brave and courageous Trump did not dare respond to the Iranian missile that shot down his largest drone in the Gulf, the “RQ-4 Global Hawk” in 2019 (costing $300 million) after it deviated from its course several meters inside Iranian territory.

Fourth, great America withdrew from Afghanistan, defeated and humiliated, a few months after Biden took power from you. We all witnessed, and the whole world at that, the great escape of American forces in a way that reflects the height of humiliation.

Trump no longer frightens anyone, and in his new version he did not dare utter a single word of criticism at Russian President Vladimir Putin, who defeated his country on the plains and coasts of Ukraine, and cut off and annexed more than 20 percent of its “territory”.

Trump did not dare utter the name of China, which was his number one enemy in his first term, and let us not forget in this haste to touch on North Korea and its leader Kim Jong-un, who humiliated and degraded him, and brought him to Hanoi and Singapore in two summit meetings, from which he returned to Washington with his head bowed.

Perhaps only some Arabs who were forced to accept the humiliating normalization and his “Deal of the Century” during his first term will be afraid of Trump and his threats. But times have changed, and there is now a major superpower called the “Axis of Resistance” with a mighty head and long, deadly arms.

Above all, there is the new, powerful BRICS organization, which will not end Trump’s second term in the White House (four years) until the US dollar exhales most of its last breath. The days lie ahead, Mr. Trump!

This is a translated piece from Arabic by Mr Abdel Bari Atwan, chief editor of Al Raialyoum website and reprinted on www.crossfirearabia.com.

CrossFireArabia

CrossFireArabia

Dr. Marwan Asmar holds a PhD from Leeds University and is a freelance writer specializing on the Middle East. He has worked as a journalist since the early 1990s in Jordan and the Gulf countries, and been widely published, including at Albawaba, Gulf News, Al Ghad, World Press Review and others.

Related Posts

Trump’s Twist With The Houthis

By Dr Khairi Janbek

During his meeting with the Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, US President Trump interrupted the proceedings and declared that the American bombing campaign against the Houthis has stopped. He said, they don’t want to fight us so we respect that.

Now, what does that translate to, is not really very clear. Does it mean that the Houthis will not attack US ships only, or will they cease their actions which threaten maritime movement in the Red Sea including Israeli ships? And will the fighting, for instance, end British bombardment and/or Israeli bombardment. I suppose it remains to be seen.

It is said by observers that the Trump decision was a surprise to the international community and even to some in his administration, though one would argue there are no more surprises with president Trump since his definition of the “America First” policy has come to mean either extracting himself out of the problems he makes as if nothing happened or alternatively stick his nose in already existing mess here and there, then extracting himself out of it without having either solved or achieved anything.

What went on and still goes on in the Red Sea area seems to be closely tied to the big red apple or the big prize, and that is the nuclear negotiations with Iran. Otherwise what would make the Houthis stop fighting, they have been bombed for such a long time without any tangible results?

On the one hand, one would assume that Iran is sending positive signals to the Americans by clearly restraining their proxies in Yemen, while at the same time the Saudis are urging both the Americans and the Iranians to reach an agreement over the issue, while in the mean time, in the background, Israel is lurking behind the scenes being restrained in the name of a successful nuclear agreement.

Indeed, the success of the nuclear agreement will mean that Iran can have a civilian nuclear program subject to periodic inspection, and that by itself, should bolden Saudi Arabia to have its own civilian nuclear program and enrich uranium on its own territory independent of the usual American demand that Saudia should sign first a peace agreement with Israel.

I suppose someone must give in, after all President Trump will be returning back from his coming trip to the Gulf with almost $3 trillion, and calling the Persian Gulf, the Arab Gulf in America; which would be just as meaningless as calling the Gulf of Mexico, the Gulf of America.

As for Israel, well the Houthis declare clearly that their soul stand with Gaza will not refrain from bombing the Zionist state?

Now, to what extent can Mr Netanyahu, the prime minister, whom till now has managed to disguise his political survival in the garment of a regional strategy, will be allowed to upset the American plans, especially, first of all, in counter bombing the Houthis, or even emboldened enough to bomb Iran as the sponsors of the Houthis.

If Israel is to be kept out of the Gulf currently, it will work on exacting a price somewhere else.

Dr Khairi Janbek is a Jordanian writer based in Paris, France.

Continue reading
The Gaza Death Trap

While everyone waits for the full-blast war on Gaza which Israel promises to continue, Tel Aviv must know this will not be an easy matter not least of all by the Benjamin Netanyahu government whose ministers are split over allowing the army to resume its “fighting” position in Gaza.

Not everyone holds the view of extremist Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich. He wants to resume, or continue, a large scale offensive on Gaza and reoccupy the enclave forever! For these opposing ministers as well as a large number of army soldiers and officers are not in favor of going back to fighting in Gaza because (a) of the bloody situation and danger soldiers were subjected to since 7 October, 2023, and because they want the rest of the remaining hostages – 59 and about 24 still thought to be alive – to be returned.

They fear – and reflecting major sections of society who have been demonstrating daily in Tel Aviv and other major Israeli cities under the of banner “bring them home,” – that increasing the wheels of war on Gaza would be signing the death warrants of the remaining hostages, originally marked at 250 and over 40 of them killed by indiscriminate Israeli bombing of the different areas of enclave over the past 17 months or so of fighting.

In the eyes of Smotrich, and he doesn’t mince his words, the return of the hostages is now secondary and what is crucial is to destroy Hamas and end its presence in the Gaza Strip.

But this is not happening. Since the resumption of the Israeli war on Gaza on 19 March, 2025 the resistance led by the Islamic organization and the other Palestinian factions have also resumed their fighting. While it is true, Hamas was slow in getting back to the war, preferring to give the ceasefire and peace talks a chance, and which led many to say the resistance are finished, this was far further from the truth.

Fighting again

Exactly one month later after 19 March, the Palestinian resistance led by Hamas and Islamic Jihad, re-started their fight against the Israeli army and the targeting of its soldiers; the Zionist army had maintained an active presence in the different areas of the Gaza Strip since the ceasefire took effect on 19 January, 2025 when the newly-elected US president was installed in the White House.

After much waiting and the gradual realization that Israel was no longer interested in the ceasefire nor in ongoing talks in Doha and Cairo, Hamas and Islamic Jihad reignited their war tactics on the Gaza battlefield. They realized Netanyahu, as prime minister of an extreme right-wing government, was no longer interested in maintaining a ceasefire.

Analysts maintained that Netanyahu was encouraged by Trump’s conflicting and dangerous stance on Gaza on top of which was the dramatic and subsequently abhorred idea of expelling the 2.1 million population of Gaza to build the Strip as the newly-plushed Middle East Riviera.

Although he quickly backed down due to Palestinian, Arab and even world pressure, Netanyahu interpreted this hugely-wrongful idea as greenlight to continue to hammer Gaza from the air and reimpose the starvation policy of its population.

Although the people got the backend of the Israeli willful mad firepower while shutting down the curtain on aid entering the 364-kilometer enclave, Hamas and the other Palestinian groups begun to regroup and re-started its military operations against the Israeli army in Biet Hanoon in the northern Gaza Strip to Gaza City in the center, Shujaiyia to the west, Khan Younis lower down and Refah, further south on the border with Egypt.

Like before, since 7 October, 2023, the resistance has now embarked on the increasing use of ambushes and booby-trap operations of luring Israeli soldiers and targeting Israeli tanks, armored vehicles and bulldozers while firing at them through locally-made, cheap but effective and deadly missiles that resulted in many of these soldiers being killed and badly-injured – numbers in the thousands – while many of the tanks and bulldozers either blown up and/or put out of action.

Towards the end of April onwards, this strategy was reactivated at full length and on different days sniping Israeli soldiers and targeting armoury would rise in multiple and different operations through the Gaza Strip. What is today of major worry to the Israeli army is that these geographical areas which were supposed to be “cleaned up” from Palestinian operatives are becoming active once again which means that for the Israeli army its back to square one.

The Israeli army had literally destroyed many of the major cities, towns, neighborhoods, villages of Gaza not once but many times. They entered places like Khan Younis, Jabalia, Shujaiyia, Nuseirat, Rafah and many more multiple times and declared them free from Palestinian resistance groups but these fighters just continue to emerge as seen recently and to the chagrin and frustration of the Israeli army.

Such frustration has led Israeli politicians like Netanyhu, and arch anti-Palestinian politicians like Itamar Ben-Gvir, Minister of National Security and hated by some Israelis for his extreme rightwing views to call for the re-occupation of Gaza, something that Netanyahu is actively contemplating. The prevailing view that once the army gets into Gaza once again, and on a mass scale, they can never leave! There are many in the army who have long rejected such an idea because they know of the “bloody situation” their soldiers would face.

However, the Israeli government and its army continues to operate under a set of illusions it is refusing to budge away from simply because Hamas and the Palestinian resistance presence is still operating in Gaza and in a robust mode to fight and kill Israeli soldiers and destroy their tanks and military hardware.

This is in addition to the fact the Israel and its army is getting nowhere near to freeing the rest of the hostages and who are likely to die if Israel embarks on a bigger war on Gaza and which Netanyahu and his extremist government are determined to do despite the warnings of the Israeli army which admits the rest of the hostages could die in any bigger military offensive.

Trump in region

Throughout this war there was always one external factor that played a permanent role in fuelling the Israeli genocide of Gaza and that was the United States through its provision of military support to Tel Aviv first under the Joe Biden administration and now under Trump.

If he could be persuaded to stop the supply of weapons to Israel, Netanyahu will finally stop the war on Gaza. Trump is on record, especially when he was running for the White House he would stop the war in Ukraine and Gaza. But will he? First of all, the Israeli lobby is entrenched in the US government.

However, there is one important factor that can pressure the Trump administration and that is the Arab countries. Trump is soon visiting Saudi Arabia and the Gulf countries including Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. If enough pressure can be applied from these quarters then surely the US president can move on the Gaza issue and halt any plans that Netanyahu is concocting for the enclave.

The Trump visit is being made in mid-May and its already played as a “bilateral” tour between the United States and these states whilest focusing on investment. And this is where their influence can be made with investment, economics and politics moving on one pedestal.

So the ball at the present time is in the hands of the Arab Gulf countries!

This comment is written by Dr Marwan Asmar, chief editor of the crossfirearabia.com website. 

Continue reading

You Missed

Trump Slams Door on Netanyahu

Trump Slams Door on Netanyahu

Ottoman Painting Fetches $1.3 Million in London

Ottoman Painting Fetches $1.3 Million in London

Hamas Welcomes New Pope in Rome

Hamas Welcomes New Pope in Rome

Israel Drops 100,000 Tons of Explosives on Gaza

What Does Trump Want to do About Gaza?

What Does Trump Want to do About Gaza?

Trump’s Twist With The Houthis

Trump’s Twist With The Houthis