by Professor Asher Cohen, Department of Political Studies, Bar Ilan University, (written for the religious zionist periodical - Matzav Haruach) translated by Hillel Fendel.
The key slogan in Bill Clinton’s US Presidential election campaign more than 30 years ago – “It's the economy, stupid!” – is considered even now one of the most successful lines in the history of political propaganda.
Clinton’s advisors understood that the vast majority of Americans are interested, more than anything else, in economic issues, and especially as they relate to their own individual financial situations. This insight was one of the factors that led to his victory. In terms of American domestic issues, this is certainly logical and understandable.
But it is totally irrelevant to the Middle East, and the problem is that President Donald Trump has adopted the same spirit as part of his dream to reorganize and reorder the world. He is waging his great struggle for a new world order against China, and more broadly against the China-Russia axis and their partners around the world. One might be tempted to view this as a battle of ideologies, between the world’s leading democracy against two non-democratic powers – but this is far from the case.
Trump's objective is not ideology as much as it to simply stop the Chinese. He is willing to forge political partnerships with regimes very far from being democratic on the basis of national interests alone. All he demands is that they be willing to help him block the Chinese; the question of national identity and ideology is far less important to him. Even states that are willing to join his alliances against the Chinese even as they support terrorism are most welcome.
Trump, with his business and deal-making experience and background, believes that almost any challenge in international relations can be solved through various economic incentives. Many in Israel have been of this mindset in the past, and some remain there to this day. The “New Middle East” envisioned by Shimon Peres rested entirely on the hope for a dramatic improvement in the Palestinians’ economic lives, which he hoped and expected would lead them to choose peace and compromise over their hatred for Israel.
Remnants of this approach continued for years afterwards, up to this day, under a basic assumption that economic improvement for PA residents - more work entry permits, a flow of funds into Gaza, etc. - would lead to security calm.
Israel understood too late, after paying the terrible and painful price of the Oct. 7th massacre, that the issue of ethnic identity is much more central to our Arab enemies than financial interests. People with an economic-business outlook, such as Pres. Trump and Israeli adherents of the Peres approach, are astonished to discover that even after the destruction of most of the Gaza Strip, the overwhelming majority of Gazans say that Oct. 7th was a positive event. Hamas continues even now to recruit more and more young people for the sacred goal of destroying Israel.
This can be seen in Lebanon as well. Even after the heavy blows it has suffered, Hizbullah does not give up for a moment what it describes as “the resistance.” Its members seek not to rebuild the villages of southern Lebanon, but to renew the terrorist infrastructures.
No improvement in their standard of living will get Hamas, and an overwhelming majority of all PA residents, to give up their basic identity – centered around their dream of destroying Israel. Arab-Palestinian identity in its essence is rooted in their hatred of Zionism and Zionists. To expect that they would abandon their goal of annihilating Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people is tantamount to demanding that they cease to be "Palestinians."
There is no Arab organization in the PA parallel to “Peace Now.” Periods of apparent calm are merely fillers as they wait for conditions to enable them to resume their fight-to-the-death against Israel.
In Israel, there is a growing understanding that even countries that appear to be potential partners with the US in bringing "peace" to Gaza – Turkey and Qatar foremost among them – have never abandoned their fundamental conceptions. They view Gaza as a permanent focal point of violence and hatred against Israel, one that will seek to challenge, harass and weaken Israel at every turn until it realizes its dream of destroying the Jewish state.
Even as the Americans seem to approach Gaza with an "art of the deal" outlook, Israel must stand its guard and be careful not to repeat the same mistake. Israel must oppose this American mindset in every possible way.