Thousands of supporters at the Isolate Israel march to Parliament on October 05, 2024 in Cape Town, South Africa. The groups called for the international community to boycott, divest and sanction Israel over the apartheid and genocide in Palestine. (Photo by Gallo Images/Brenton Geach)
US president-elect Donald Trump is an anti-war deal-maker and this is bound to make Israel and Ukraine unhappy.
Tel Aviv and Kyiv will have to accept that the business tycoon-cum-politician sees the world in his own way, which to him is the only way, local experts say.
University of Johannesburg-based international relations analyst Dr Oscar van Heerden said Trump would never drop Israel. Instead he would continue to support Tel Aviv as a US ally.
But, said Van Heerden, Trump would deliver bad news to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: he must end the war in Gaza, return the hostages and prepare a new USbacked strategy for the Middle East.
“He will tell Netanyahu he has made his point through the war, he has wrecked the Israeli economy and has made Israel an unsafe place for the Jews and now it’s time for him stop this war.
“Trump is different from Joe Biden who aided and abetted the genocide in Gaza,” Van Heerden said.
“Muslims in the US voted for Trump because they were confident he will change the situation in Palestine.
“Trump will have to translate that mandate from the Muslim voters into a concrete solution for the Gaza crisis.”
Van Heerden acknowledged that Trump was strongly pro-Israel, hence he supported the notion that the Golan Heights belong to Israel although it was Syrian land before the 1967 war.
Trump also wanted the US embassy in Israel to move from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem despite the fact this was bound to fuel the Middle East conflict.
Van Heerden’s sentiments were echoed by independent political analyst Sandile Swana who said that Trump would not pursue wars in the world.
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He would stop the Russia-Ukraine and Gaza wars and revive the trade war with China, which threatened US economic dominance.
“Trump is a deal-maker, therefore he will try to make a deal in the Middle East as opposed to continuing with war in the region,” Swana said.
He said Trump was explicit about his intention to reduce US defence expenditure.
“This is consistent with the initial warning of General Dwight Eisenhower who, after World War II, advised that the American people should never allow the military industrial complex to control them because they would be forever in war.
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“The military industrial complex has captured many presidents in the US including Joe Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and the Bushes who have been bloodthirsty US presidents.
“So, Trump may look like an uncivilised thug but what he hates is actual war, he is in favour of deal-making.”
On Ukraine, Van Heerden said Trump was likely tell Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky to stop the war and resign as president while he would successfully persuade Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the conflict.
This week, Putin indicated he would be willing to talk to Trump about Ukraine. Earlier Trump promised to end the war in Ukraine within 24 hours of being sworn in.
“Zelensky is living in a fantasy of thinking that he will defeat Russia. The war is Russia against 20 other countries of Europe that are supplying Ukraine with weapons and military expertise, but those countries have not made a dent on Russia.
“Most of Ukraine has been flattened by the Russians, its refugees are all over Europe, yet Zelensky wants to fight on in a war he is losing. He is fooling himself,” Van Heerden said.
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