{"id":305205,"date":"2025-03-17T07:31:12","date_gmt":"2025-03-17T07:31:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=305205"},"modified":"2025-03-19T08:16:44","modified_gmt":"2025-03-19T08:16:44","slug":"the-forever-wars-may-be-over-but-trump-is-no-peacemaker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=305205","title":{"rendered":"The forever wars may be over, but Trump is no peacemaker"},"content":{"rendered":"

The new guard of kleptocrats are seeking quick deals on Gaza and Ukraine, not because they want peace but because they\u2019ve found a better way to make themselves even richer<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Jonathan Cook \u2013 jonathan-cook.net March 14, 2025<\/strong><\/h1>\n

Anyone trying to make sense of the Trump administration\u2019s policy towards Gaza should have a thumping headache by now.<\/p>\n

Initially, US President Donald Trump called for the mass expulsion of Palestinians from the tiny territory wrecked by Israel over the past year and a half, so that he could build the \u201cRiviera of the Middle East<\/a>\u201d on the crushed bodies of Gaza\u2019s children.<\/p>\n

He followed up last week with an explicitly genocidal threat addressed to \u201cthe people of Gaza\u201d \u2013 all two million-plus of them. They would be \u201cDEAD<\/a>\u201d if the Israeli hostages held by Hamas were not quickly released \u2013 a decision over which Gaza\u2019s population has precisely no control.<\/p>\n

To make this extermination threat more credible, his administration has expedited the transfer of an extra $4bn worth of US weapons to Israel, bypassing<\/a> Congressional approval.<\/p>\n

Those arms include more of the 2,000lb bombs sent by the Biden administration, which turned Gaza into a \u201cdemolition site<\/a>\u201c, as Trump himself called it.<\/p>\n

The White House also nodded through Israel\u2019s reimposition of a blockade that has once again choked off food, water and fuel to the enclave \u2013 further evidence<\/a> of Israel\u2019s genocidal intent.<\/p>\n

But while all this was going on, Trump also dispatched to the region a special envoy, Adam Boehler, to negotiate the release of the few dozen Israeli hostages still held in Gaza.<\/p>\n

He was given permission to break with more than 30 years of US foreign policy and meet directly<\/a> with Hamas, long designated a terrorist organisation by Washington.<\/p>\n

\u2018Pretty nice guys\u2019<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The meeting reportedly took place without Israel\u2019s knowledge.<\/p>\n

One Israeli official observed<\/a>: \u201cYou can\u2019t announce that this organisation [Hamas] needs to be eliminated and destroyed, and give Israel full backing to do it, and at the same time conduct secret and intimate contacts with the group.\u201d<\/p>\n

In an interview with CNN at the weekend, Boehler remarked<\/a> of Hamas: \u201cThey don\u2019t have horns growing out of their head. They\u2019re actually guys like us. They\u2019re pretty nice guys.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then, in another unprecedented move, Boehler gave interviews<\/a> to Israeli TV channels to speak directly to the Israeli public \u2013 apparently to prevent Israel\u2019s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, from misrepresenting the content of his talks with Hamas.<\/p>\n

In one interview, Boehler said Hamas had proposed a five to 10-year truce with Israel. During that period, Hamas would be expected to \u201clay down its arms\u201d and forgo political power in Gaza. He the proposal as \u201cnot a bad first offer\u201d.<\/p>\n

In another, he referred to Palestinian prisoners as \u201chostages\u201d.<\/p>\n

His approach left Israel quietly seething<\/a> but unable to say much for fear of antagonising Trump.<\/p>\n

\u2018No agent of Israel\u2019<\/strong><\/h2>\n

In parallel, Trump\u2019s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff \u2013 who reportedly laid down the law early on to Netanyahu by ordering him to attend a meeting on the Sabbath \u2013 headed<\/a> to Doha this week to try to restore a ceasefire deal he had previously negotiated.<\/p>\n

He appears determined to push Israel into honouring the second phase of that agreement, which requires the Israeli army to withdraw from Gaza and halt its war on the enclave. That would pave the way for a third phase, in which Gaza is reconstructed.<\/p>\n

Witkoff\u2019s terms, according to reports<\/a>, are that Hamas agrees to demilitarise and its fighters leave the enclave.<\/p>\n

Israel is deeply opposed to a second phase. It wants to stick with phase one, in which it finishes swapping the remaining Israeli captives held by Hamas for some of the many thousands of Palestinians imprisoned in Israeli torture camps.<\/p>\n

The idea is that, once completed, Israel will be free to restart the slaughter.<\/p>\n

Boehler reinforced Witkoff\u2019s message, saying the White House hoped to \u201cjump-start\u201d talks and that the US was not \u201can agent of Israel\u201d \u2013 implicitly acknowledging that, for many decades, it has very much looked like one.<\/p>\n

Trump indicated<\/a> a change of heart himself on Wednesday, telling reporters at the White House: \u201cNobody will expel the Palestinians.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sword of retribution<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Apparently confounding Boehler\u2019s claim that the US is able to make its own decisions about the Middle East, Trump was reported on Thursday to have removed him from dealing with the hostages issue following Israeli objections.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Trump noisily shredded First Amendment protections on political speech, specifically in relation to Israel.<\/p>\n

He signed an executive order<\/a> empowering US authorities to arrest and deport visa holders protesting Israel\u2019s year-and-a-half-long slaughter in Gaza \u2013 or what the world\u2019s highest court is investigating as a \u201cplausible<\/a>\u201d genocide.<\/p>\n

That quickly resulted in the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil<\/a>, a leader of last spring\u2019s student protests at New York\u2019s Columbia University \u2013 one of the most high-profile of dozens of protracted demonstrations on US campuses last year, which were often met with police violence.<\/p>\n

The Department of Homeland Security accused Khalil of \u201cactivities\u201d \u2013 namely, campus protests \u2013 supposedly \u201caligned to Hamas\u201d. These demonstrations, it alleged, threatened \u201cUS national security\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
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SHALOM, MAHMOUD.<\/p>\n

“ICE proudly apprehended and detained Mahmoud Khalil, a Radical Foreign Pro-Hamas Student on the campus of @Columbia<\/a> University. This is the first arrest of many to come.” \u2013President Donald J. Trump pic.twitter.com\/gfuPd0tskf<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 The White House (@WhiteHouse) March 10, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n