Trump’s Cards

Iqbal S. Hasnain

In his first term, President Donald Trump (2016-2020) and his son-in-law Jared Kushner successfully negotiated a deal between Arab countries and Israel to strengthen economic, cultural and political relations. The deal came to be known as Abraham Accords. It was signed by United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain and Morocco. Saudi Arabia, the most powerful Arab nation, delayed signing the deal. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had hoped that such a deal would lead to the creation of a kind of West Asian North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) by fostering closer security ties between Israel and Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries while isolating Islamic Republic of Iran and its allies. President Trump had pulled the US out of the nuclear agreement between Iran and the West, by describing it as, ‘a horrible one-sided deal that should have never, ever been made.’ He also expressed openness to renegotiating with Iran, albeit under his terms. In response, the Ayatollah Khamenei, supreme leader of Iran, banned any negotiations with the Trump administration.

The objective of Abraham Accords was to foster a direct security relationship between Israel and Arab nations. President Joe Biden’s administration had hoped that Saudi Arabia, as a leading member of the Arab and Muslim world and guardians of Holy mosques would also join the group and put the Palestinian issue forever under the carpet. Jordan was the first to flag the issue of illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank in 2023 which flared up before the proposed Negev Summit. Thereafter, the meeting called at the initiative of Biden was cancelled.

The massacre of 7 October 2023 in southern Israel by Hamas has changed West Asia’s geopolitical alliances forever. Hamas is rooted in Muslim Brotherhood, which was born in Egypt in 1928, as a religious reform movement. Its military wing, al-Qassam brigades, were born in 1987. The attack was intended to provoke the Israeli military into an overreaction that would undermine international sympathy for Israel and jeopardize Abraham Accords, and rally support for the Palestinian cause which went out of the radar of the international community. By 2023, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) were well-stocked with missiles and drones from Iran. They also built Qassam missiles around 2005 that had a range of about 10 miles. Hamas had acquired the technology from Iran and Hezbollah to build their own weapons system. The missiles they used on October 7 can travel 150 miles. During the attack, they launched dozens of Zouari drones and fixed wing weapons manufactured by locally available materials. Hamas also used small commercial-grade drones to drop grenades on Israeli observation towers and fixed machine guns. Hamas attack was successful