What Happens to Gaza Under Trump

that question is no, one fully knows now. The first thing that I did when trying to prepare for this episode was tracked down as many articles as I could that included interviews with Gozen's about their expectations were largely negative, but a little more mixed than you might expect. A Reuter's reporter interviewed Abu Osama, living in Conunis in the

southern Gaza strip. He called Trump's election a quote new catastrophe in the history of the Palestinian people, adding despite the destruction, death and displacement that we have witnessed, what is coming will be more difficult. It will be politically devastating. This essentially agrees with what a Palestinian from beit Lahia in the Northern Gaza Strip, Ahmed Jerad told Al Jazeera quote.

Trump and Netanyahu are an evil alliance against the Palestinians, and our fate will be very difficult, not only in the fateful issues, but also in our daily concerns. This is a sad day for Palestinians. Trump will endorse net Nyahu's free hand regarding the possibility of the return of settlements to the Gaza Strip and even the displacement of

large numbers of Palestinians outside it. We hope to return to the north, and now all of our hopes have and shattered, and unfortunately Jerrod's fears here have been immediately proven well founded. On November sixth, as the rest of the world reeled from Trump's victory, IDF Brigadier General Itzig Kohen told Israeli reporters there is no intention of allowing the residents of the Northern Gaza Strip to return to their homes. Humanitarian aid would only be allowed to enter

through the south. His justification was that there are no more civilians in the north. Reporting from The Guardian interviewed several international humanitarian law experts, and the members of that likely dying field described Israeli actions here as war crimes. The forcible transfer of civilian populations and the use of food as a weapon are supposed to be banned. Despite this, we can safely assume that there will be no serious

consequences as a result of any of this. Now, the timing of this announcement was predominant, and it is not unreasonable to suggest that Israel might not have been as bold as they're currently being if Harris had won another Gozen. Seventy year old doctor Zakia Hilal told Al Jazeera it is true that American administrations do not differ in supporting Israel, but some are more severe and more intense than others, like Trump. You can find numerous gosins expressing feelings along

these lines if you read long enough. But you will also find a number who feel like what's coming won't be worse, or at least won't be very different from what they've already endured. Jehad Malaka, a researcher at the Palestinian Planning Center, told Al Jazeera he does not expect Trump's administration to be wildly different from Biden's. In this regard, Trump uses rough tools and Biden and the Democrats resort

to soft tools, but the politics are the same. Biden did not make any decision in favor of the Palestinians and was unable to achieve a ceasefire. He did not change the reality of the decisions of his predecessor Trump at all. The positions of the two administrations regarding Israel are the same and identical, and they put its interests above all other considerations. You can also find some Gazans who see a sliver of hope in Trump's new administration.

Reuter spoke with the owner of a grocery store in Gaza, Khaled Desuso, who told their reporter, I think Donald Trump, if he wins, he promised the Muslim people in America to stop the war in Gaza. We hope that happens, and it's not necessarily absurd to hope that there may

be some positive effects here. Trump has said many horrible things about Palestinians, obviously, several weeks before the election, he had a phone call with net Yahoo that may have been a vihilation of the Logan Act, although laws don't really matter anymore. Here's how Slate dot Com summarized what

happened in that call. According to Trump, the Israeli leaders said he disregarded President Joe Biden's warning to keep troops out of Rafa in southern Gaza, a decision that resulted in the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in a shootout in the area. Trump also said nat Nyahu asked him for advice on how to respond to Iran's missile attack on his to which Trump said he responded, do

whatever you have to do. Now, that's a dire sign, and it is impossible to imagine that a new Trump regime won't restart the sale in shipment of specific munitions that Biden banned for export to Israel this July. Biden halted the shipment of two thousand pound bombs to the IDF because quote, they cannot be used in Gazo or

any populated area without causing great human tragedy and damage. Now, the fact that munitions like this will very likely be used as hideous and I think it's extremely unlikely that we do not see an immediate rise in the death toll. But at the same time, Israel's extant acts have caused great human tragedy and damage. The munitions they have have already been responsible for calamitous death and destruction on a fairly wide scale. So where's the cause for any optimism

on this at all? It comes from Trump's own self interest. As Khalide de Suso noted, Trump ran promising to end wars. This means he does have some vested interest, even if only in his own ego, in forcing NETANYAHUO to draw

things to a close in short order. And there is indeed reporting that Trump has told net Nyahu to wrap things up by January so that he can take office with an end to the conflict and ideally use that as a way to kind of bolster his early popularity and gain some political capital for the other sweeping changes he wants to make. Now. The fact that Trump is pushing net Yahoo on ending things in January doesn't mean a sudden, peaceful ceasefire. For one thing, Nothing is going

to happen in the months between then and now. To reduce the level of bloodshed and almost every likely theoretical ends with Israel massively escalating violence and using new, more destructive weapons before bringing an end to their campaign. But it does mean that Trump might be able to pressure bb to bring things to an end. There's a good article on this in the BBC. No guarantees Trump will

give net Nyahoo all he wants now. In that piece, East correspondent Lucy Williamson writes, Donald Trump's first term in office was exemplary as far as Israel is concerned. Said Michael Oran, a former Israeli ambassador to the United States, the hope is that he'll revisit that, but we have to be very clear sighted about who Donald Trump is and what he stands for. Firstly, he said, the former president doesn't like wars, seeing them as expensive. Trump has

urged Israel to finish the war in Gaza quickly. He's also not a big fan of israel settlements in the occupied West Bank, has set Ambassador Oran, and has opposed the wishes of some Israeli leaders to annex parts of it. Both of these policies could put him in conflict with far right parties in Netanyahu's current governing coalition, who have threatened to bring down the government if the Prime Minister

pursues policies they reject. Michael Orn believes net Yaho will need to take a different approach with the incoming president. If Donald Trump comes to office in January and says, okay, you have a week to finish the war, net Yahoo is going to have to respect that. And we'll contain you talking about what this means. But first here's semants. So it is possible that we will see a quick end to the violence in January, and perhaps a quicker

one than we would have seen under Harris. That's the best case scenario and not necessarily the likeliest one, and I should re emphasize here that best case scenario still means that we will probably see a massive escalation in violence as the IDF seeks to force more people out of northern Gaza and in the conflict, with a large slice of Gaza permanently wrenched from Palestinian control and hand it over to Israeli settlers, there is no version of what comes next that is not a calamity to the

Palestinian people. Now, the signs from within the Israeli government on what a new Trump administration means for them are certainly bullish, you could say, and reading these tea leaves provides very little fuel for optimism. It Mar ben Vere, the Minister of National Security, posted yes with several lesses and an emoji of a flexed bicep in a post

on social media. When the first good return started coming in for Trump on the day of the election itself, and a sign of confidence in the coming results, Bibi Netanyahu fired his Defense Minister Jove Gallant, who had been his primary point of contact with the Biden administration. And it's harder to imagine a much more direct sign of

what he wants to do than that. Now. I've struggled to present the sweep of possible results of this, and it bears reiterating that the bulk of predictions from Gazans who are plugged into the politics of the region are

incredibly negative. Ahmed Fayad, an independent researcher in Israeli affairs who currently resides in central Gaza, told Al Jazeera that he felt Trump's influence would be entirely negative, adding that Trump was a quote more dominating figure than Biden and his influence would allow net Nyahu to quote conquer Gaza quote. Amidst the weakened Palestinian Front and absence of any Arab unity and solidarity, the whole Palestinian cause faces its worst

threat yet. Now. What does bear watching is the degree to which BIEB might face threats from his own right flank. Net Nyahu himself is almost certainly on the side of doing what will please his patron Trump all the more, and that would be forcing a quick violent end to the fighting and taking northern Gaza as the spoils of war. But this might bring him into conflict with radicals on his own side, who can't be placated by anything but

what they would see as total victory. In the event net Nyahu feels pushed, it is not impossible that he will wind up in conflict with Trump. This has happened before, as BB's sense of self preservation led him to take actions that enraged Trump. The best example of this took place in the immediate aftermath of the twenty two election. If you want to think back to those happier days, b B was again the first world leader to call and offer Biden congratulations on his victory, as he was

with Trump. This is a habit for the man who, among other things, is an expert at toadying for favor with US leaders. Trump was livid, and he spoke out about this, telling Israeli journalist Barak Ravid that he believed that he had saved Israel from destruction, and in response, Netnyahoo had stabbed him in the back. I'm going to quote now from an article in the BBC. Mister Trump accused mister Netnyahuo of congratulating too quickly mister Trump's successor,

Joe Biden on winning the twenty twenty US election. Mister Trump disputed the election result, though his claims were never upheld. The first person who congratulated Joe Biden was Bbe, the man that I did more for than any other person I dealt with. Bibe could have stayed quiet. He has made a terrible mistake. He was very early, mister Trump said, like earlier than most. I haven't spoken to him since. Fuck him. I actually don't know that he said fuck

The actual text of the article says expletive him. But I'm assuming he said fuck him. I think that's probably a fair assumption for me to make. Now, some evidence does suggest that Trump and Bib don't personally get along, as that quote I just read implies, certainly not to the degree that net Nyahu and Biden once did once.

I should say this may hinge partly on the fact that Trump really only believes in himself and his own benefit, whereas Joe Biden was a strong and committed believer in Israel and was willing to take actions against his own political self interest in furtherance of that belief. And we've

all seen where those actions got him. Just last December, Trump attacked net Nahou at an early campaign rally in New York, saying bib had quote let us down by pulling Israeli support for the operation that killed Iranian General Cossum Solomoni at the last minute. He also criticized the

Israeli leader for not being prepared for Hermas's October seventh attack. Now, I want to be clear here that these divisions between both men are blisteringly unlikely to mean anything that approaches relief for the Palestinian people, at least in the near term. The immediate and probably long term future of Gaza is much bleaker today than it was a few weeks ago. The Guardian recently published an article interviewing former CIA director

and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta. He predicted Trump would give Bibe a blank check for aggression, which might invite the possibility of open war with Iran. Now that's the kind of thing that can lead one to panic, especially when you assume a guy like Panetta is privy to a lot of inside information. We may not be, but I'm actually not really sure that he is. I don't see any evidence from this article that Panetta is speaking from

direct personal knowledge about extant plans to carry out an attack. Instead, he quoted Trump's description of the call that Trump had had with bb before the election, telling net Yahoo, do whatever you have to do. So Leon may just be working from the same information the rest of us have

and coming to a somewhat different conclusion. I'm not as sure as he is about an imminent attack on Iran because Trump campaigned heavily on ending wars, and while I don't credit Trump is a particularly honest man, I do think he sees his personal benefit right now in being able to portray himself as a peacemaker, in part because he has so much domestically he wants to do, and

so much else internationally he wants to do. Right expending a bunch of political capital, dealing with the kinds of protests and unrest and even anger from his base that a war with Iran would mean, especially once it gets bogged down in the kind of violence that would come with that. He may not and likely doesn't see that as being of benefit to him. Now, that doesn't mean it will never happen. It doesn't mean his calculus won't change.

I do foresee some situations in which Trump might decide that his personal benefit is in there being a wider ground conflict with Iran that US forces get drawn into. You know, we'll talk a little bit about some of the possibilities around this, and we're getting outside of the realm of kind of established fact at this point, but I do think it's worth considering some of this. But

first consider these ads. So, when we talk about the possibility of a ground conflict with Iran starting between Israel and Iran, but almost inevitably drawing in more US forces, the unknowns and unknown knowns in this situation are pretty staggering. If I let myself analyze every possibility, my mind can go to some dark places. Trump sees war with Iran

as a negative. Now I'm quite sure, But how would he feel about it in the wake of, say, a Musk centered plan to in the federal reserve and tank the dollar, in the wake of the changes that all of his immigration policies would make on the price of food, the Pression era levels of inflation and unemployment returning to the United States, and the attendant social unrest that that would cause. If Americans find themselves on the verge of food rights, perhaps Trump would gamble on war being the

best distraction he could manage. It's certainly not impossible. Now, I don't know how useful it is to bury myself in theoreticals and probabilities. The known threats are dire enough, and they demand full time awareness in order to attempt to counter and endure. So instead of spiraling, I'm going to leave you today with the words of another Ghazan, Mohammed R. Mausch. He's a journalist who wrote an article for MSNBC right after the election titled My family and

I Survived the War in Gaza. We know Trump's America won't save us, and here's Mohammed For us. The election of Donald Trump isn't just a blip on the political radar or a shift in foreign policy. It's a challenge to sustain existence while the world seems intent on erasing us.

It's about surviving seventy seven years under occupation and over a year of all ongoing genocide, the very genocide I barely survived last December, when my family and I, including my elderly parents and three year old son, were buried under the rubble of what was once our home after it was struck by an Israeli fired US missal. The

date December seventh, twenty twenty three. Our bones were crushed between layers of concrete and twisted metal as we spent hours in the dark, buried together and praying to be pulled out in one piece. The trauma of that night, in both its physical and emotional toll, of my son's small, fragile hand clinging to mind, comes back to me now as Trump prepares to take power once more. I've seen how American political leader's toy with the idea of change.

How they dress up their campaigns with grand ideas about peace and justice, yet each president brushes off our reality. Barack Obama promised hope and change we could believe in, yet we got more bombs. Joe Biden offered a different approach, pledging and yielding support for Israel, leaving us to live

through even more horror. Vice President Kamala Harris Niceties included no concrete promises to protect Palestinians, but she did pledge to continue financial support for Israel, and Trump's blundness as he promises to come back swinging reminds us not to hold out hope for change. So, you know, not much optimism here, but I do really recommend reading that article

that MSNBC published. You know, it's bleak, but important, especially given the fact that you know we may be soon entering a world where it would be harder for people like Muhammad to express their feelings and their truth to an audience. I don't think it's unlikely that a clamp

down is coming on some of these things. It's hard to say how extensive it will be, but there's a threat that you know, Israel and their backers see in the way that public sympathy has built so quickly for Gaza in a way that wasn't present with a lot of previous stages of violence between Israel in Gaza. Right now, this is the result of a lot of videos spreading on social media. It's the result on of voices from Gaza getting out and getting to people in a way

they really hadn't before. And so one thing that does worry me greatly when I think about what's going to happen in Gaza under President Trump is not just what's going to happen to the people living there right now, but what's going to happen to their ability to tell their story, to get information out to the rest of us.

That is very much an open question at this moment, but it's certainly one that should be on your lips, and it's one that we will be investigating here at cool Zone as long as we're able to continue doing that until next time. I'm Robert Evans. We'll be back tomorrow and every other day reporting on you know, the world. It Could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media.

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