The POTUS Donald Trump’s recent theatrics in the Israeli Knesset and at the 2025 Peace Summit in Egypt surpassed his earlier buffoonery; with his utterings like ‘Golden Age’ of Israel and the Middle East’, ‘End of an age of terror and death’, ‘Forces of chaos, terror, and ruin have been defeated’. Trump’s claims that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict started 3000 years ago, despite Israel being created in 1947-1948, reinforced his mental incapacity and sense of history-geography. Recall in his first presidency he asked visiting Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi whether India and China shared a border. Trump’s dangerous psychotic mental state posing a danger to the world has already been established
Peace in Gaza was never the agenda – not earlier, not now. Joe Biden and Netanyahu were offered the Gaza deal last year, but Trump told Netanyahu he will have a “Better Deal” if he secured a second presidency. It is for the same “better deal” that Israel unilaterally broke the previous fragile ceasefire on March 18 this year, with heavy airstrikes killing 400 Palestinians on that single day. Not allowing the Biden-Netanyahu deal enabled killing 6,80,000 Palestinians, including forced starvation deaths, by April 2025; a figure that would have gone up by many more thousands. Moreover, 80% of Gaza structures have been damaged or destroyed, which means billions of dollars in reconstruction.
Though desperate for a Nobel Peace Prize, Trump could not pull through signing of the so-called peace deal earlier because Netanyahu was dead against letting Gaza continue to be administered by Palestinians. Besides, Israel and the US both oppose the two-state solution. However, Trump managed to convince Netanyahu that without this so-called peace deal, there was no hope of Hamas returning the hostages and more would die, adding to the 26 already dead. And, that thereafter Israel would have a free-hand, which is why Netanyahu says, he has achieved his objective – going back on his earlier stand to make Gaza free of Palestinians – in line with Trump’s grand design of turning Gaza into an American Riviera.
The second problem Trump faced was Hamas; whose leadership Israel was targeting. But despite killing some 7,00,000 Palestinians, Hamas was alive and kicking. Trump, therefore, recruited Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who hates Israel and was sulking with the CIA having installed former Al Qaeda leader Ahmed al-Sharaa as Syria’s President. Trump entertained Erdogan in the White House and asked him to get Hamas to agree to signing the peace deal, without mentioning he wants Hamas to disarm.
In return, Trump tasked Erdogan to re-energize Al Qaeda – the same way Erdogan trained and armed ISIS under American and British instructors before unleashing them in 2014. So, Erdogan is already training over 300 Syrian soldiers in two bases in Turkey under a Syria-Turkey deal signed in August 2025, with expected number to increase up to 20,000. The revival of Al Qaeda is to advance US interests in the Middle East and Africa, as well as in the Sub Continent through the AQIS. No surprise, Erdogan signed the deal at the Peace Summit at Sharm El-Sheikh, Netanyahu was missing at the scene and Trump visited Tel Aviv separately.
There is a saying that some guys don’t mind auctioning their dead mother’s womb to gift a necklace to the harlot. Trump would do anything to make money for himself and his family. In 2017, Trump had said, “Qatar has been a funder of terrorism at a very high level.” This continues to-date, but with Qatar having gifted a private jet to Trump, the US is now building a Qatari Air Force base in America.
The antics of Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump in Israel must be seen together with Kushner few months earlier referring to Gaza’s coastal land as “very valuable” and suggesting that Israel should move out all civilians and clean it up before redeveloping it. As mentioned above, Trump himself has been talking of transforming Gaza into the Riviera of the Middle East – owned by Trump naturally! Barron Trump has been handling private deals of the Trump family globally, including with Pakistan. The hot mike at Sharm El-Sheikh exposed Trump agreeing to make younger brat Eric Trump available for a private deal with Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto.
There were more theatrics in Sharm El-Sheikh: Trump telling Italian Prime Minister Gloria Meloni how beautiful she is; Erdogan telling her to quit smoking; Meloni gawking at Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif buttering Trump for a Nobel Peace Prize – begging for WB/IMF loans; Trump virtually snubbing British Prime Minister Keir Starmer – for recognizing Palestine? The joke going around is that while French President Macron is busy changing prime ministers, Trump may have got Canada as the 51st state had he unleashed Katy Perry on Mark Carney.
Hamas has not returned bodies of all dead hostages together – perhaps sensing what Israel will do thereafter. Trump had said once all hostages are freed, members of Hamas giving up arms will be given amnesty. Members of Hamas who wish to leave Gaza will be provided with safe passage to receiving countries. But Hamas responded by saying, “Talk about expelling Palestinians, whether they’re Hamas members or not, from their land is absurd and nonsense.” A senior Hamas official, while admitting significant political hurdles remain, has said that disarmament of Hamas is “out of the question” even if Hamas steps aside from Gaza’s government. On the other hand, Netanyahu says Israel could resume its offensive if Hamas fails to disarm. The US-backed proposal to oversee the administration and reconstruction of Gaza (led by Tony Blair?) would obviously have American presence. The Palestinians view this the beginning of an occupation.
A day after signing the peace deal, violence erupted in Gaza. Hamas reportedly killed eight members of a rival group in Gaza in order to consolidate power. But then Israeli forces opened fire on Palestinians in northern Gaza on October 14 killing at least six people. According to the Israeli military, these people had crossed the “yellow line” – the boundary for Israel’s partial withdrawal. But Palestinian media says Israeli drones had fired on residents inspecting their homes; as reported by Alexandra Sharp.
Under the circumstances what is the likelihood of the cease-fire continuing? With even Trump not endorsing the two-state solution, it is indication enough that the Gaza Peace Plan (leave aside Middle East peace) has as many chances of success as Trump converting to Islam and heading ISIS himself. The Peace Summit in Egypt is no different from the farce of the Alaska Summit Trump played on Russian President Vladimir Putin.
But there appears to be a bigger game behind this façade, which also includes the regime change in Syria, the taming of Erdogan and the summit in Sharm El-Sheikh. Syria’s Bashar al-Assad regime being welcomed in the Arab world and reopening of Saudi Arabia-Iran relations were anathema to the US. Israel’s airstrikes in Doha, greenlighted by Trump and known to Qatar’s hierarchy, drew Erdogan’s response labelling it Israel’s “greedy, bloodthirsty assault on Qatar’s sovereignty”. But the result was the Arab-Islamic NATO summit in Doha two days later, attended by Pakistan and Turkey as well – isolating Iran completely from the Sunni Muslim world. This has been fully consolidated with the Arab-Islamic presence at the Peace Summit in Sharm El-Sheikh. The US is a major defence supplier to the Middle East and Qatar has been brought under the US defence umbrella.
Trump may be looking at the Nobel Peace Prize winner Machado to unseat President Maduro in Venezuela but his focus is now on Iran, with Netanyahu saying Iran is developing an 8,000-km missile and Iran not bowing to US pressure for Uranium enrichment. The US-Israel plan appears to be to obliterate Shia Iran and deal with the Sunni Middle East later. This could be also the reason why Syrian President Sharaa is going to meet President Putin. Pakistan’s nuclearization and placement of American nukes in Pakistan are aimed at whoever the US views adverse to its interest at a particular time.
Concurrently, while Trump has declared war on his own states within the US, he appears intent on raising the bar in the Ukraine war by violating Russian redlines further – giving long-range missiles (like Tomahawks?) to Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky – who excels in prostituting for the US-led NATO. What Trump can’t fathom is that broadening the war in Ukraine, as well as in the Middle East, will result in the US getting sucked in because European countries (other than Israel) are far from being ready to hold on their own. That’s why some analysts are pointing out that Trump is going soft on Chinese plans to integrate Taiwan in the near-term, other than his tariffs war, which China is well capable of responding to.
PN: The author is an Indian Army veteran. Views expressed are personal.
