23.01.2025

After the ceasefire

Our solution can only be feasible if it is regional and socialist. Nothing else works strategically. Moshé Machover looks at the prospects following the ceasefire deal and in light of the new Trump administration

I would like to comment on the current situation in the Middle East, including the ceasefire plan, and make some projections for the future. It is very difficult to make any certain prediction, because we are in the middle of a process that may go in different directions. But let me just start with the change that has occurred, with Benjamin Netanyahu suddenly subscribing to a deal that was on the table since May or June last year.

In fact, what the Israeli cabinet agreed to on January 17 is essentially the same as the Biden plan of May last year, which was officially submitted to the various negotiating parties in June. So what has changed? According to the best-informed Israeli sources, such as the more serious journalists of Ha’aretz, it is what they call the ‘Trump factor’ - perhaps surprisingly, because Israel, and especially Netanyahu, seem to expect an even more permissive attitude from the incoming US administration.

The Biden administration granted whatever Netanyahu asked for, applied no real pressure - it offered only hypocritical ‘expressions of concern’. But Trump, even before he got into office, adopted a much more robust attitude. He sent his emissary, Steve Witkoff, to meet Netanyahu. Witkoff is not a diplomat but a real-estate dealer just like Trump himself. He is Jewish, by the way. He told Netanyahu he would like to meet him the next day. He was informed that the next day was a Saturday, and Netanyahu does not do business on the Shabbat, but Witkoff responded with something like ‘Fuck Shabbat!’ and, when he read the riot act, Netanyahu complied, Shabbat or no Shabbat.

Next, he did what he always does - engage in duplicity. The ceasefire plan, with its various stages, leaves a lot of room for interpretation. It is Netanyahu’s method - used throughout his very long political career - to tell one lot of people one thing and another lot another thing: he tries to satisfy both the devil and the deep blue sea by giving them slightly different versions. It has been said that, if you want to make a deal with Netanyahu, don’t go to him on your own. Just make sure that there is a witness ...

There was a famous episode which you can still find online, which dates from the Obama years. It was in 2011, during a G20 summit meeting in which Nicolas Sarkozy, then president of France, sat next to Obama. When they chatted, they did not realise that the microphones had not been switched off, so what they said was recorded (and is still online and very amusing). Sarkozy says to Obama, “I can’t stand [Netanyahu] any more. He’s a liar.” And Obama replies, “You may be sick of him, but me, I have to deal with him every day”.

What is the essence of the deal? Hamas agreed to it on this basis (which was clear to the mediators, Egypt, Qatar, and so on): it should lead to the end of the current war. The endpoint should be the cessation of hostilities, full stop: that is to say, Israel should withdraw even from the Philadelphi Corridor, whose importance I explained in a recent talk to the Online Communist Forum, and it is in my recent article in the Weekly Worker. On the other hand, for the extremist fanatics, the messianic section of Netanyahu’s coalition, such as Ben-Gvir and Smotrich, the aim is to resume the war, leave Israel in control and recolonise the Gaza Strip - they have made this very clear. And Netanyahu himself would also like to get on with ethnic cleansing.

So he is now in a quandary. How to proceed? The way he had managed so far was to blame Hamas with some fictitious excuses, alleging that it has now posed new conditions. In fact, it was he who put forward new conditions every time the proposed agreement was brought up. What is going to happen now is anybody’s guess. It is a question of how strong the pressure from the new American administration is going to be, because Trump may be interested in stopping this war and going on to a new phase. (I will explain later what seems to be his plan for rearranging the Middle East). The question also is to what extent even Trump, with his more brutal and more, let us say, robust attitude, is going to be able - or even wish - to overcome the obstacles that have been put within the American political system to pressurising Israel.

Dog and tail

I would like to explain something that should be obvious, but is not generally understood. There is the question whether the Israeli tail is wagging the American dog. There seem to be quite a lot of people who believe that Israel actually decides American policy, when it comes to Palestine. This includes such eminent bourgeois ‘political scientists’ as John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, who have published a book - The Israel lobby and US foreign policy - in which they elaborate the thesis that US policy on Palestine is dictated by the pro-Israel lobby, which, by the way, includes much wider circles than the Jewish Zionists in America (eg, the much more numerous evangelist Zionists). They claim that this pressure determines American policy and makes it take steps that are against the US national interest.

But first of all, it is not a clear-cut question what the US national interest is. ‘National interest’ is just a euphemism for the interests of the ruling class, which is not united on all questions of policy. Otherwise, we would not have had the differences on various issues between Trump and Biden or, more traditionally, between Democrats and Republicans. They both do not represent the American working class, of course, but the American ruling class. However, they do not agree necessarily on what the ‘national interest’ is supposed to be.

Secondly, even those like Mearsheimer, whom I regard as well informed about the details of American policy, have not put forward a convincing account of what precisely are those essential US interests that are overruled by the pro-Israel lobby. What would American policymakers do if they were not subjected to the dictates of the pro-Israel lobby? It is true that the traditional, almost limitless, support for Israeli actions arouses hostility to the United States among the Arab masses. But the US has not been particularly worried about this. It relies on the Arab regimes to suppress the hostility of the Arab masses, including their instinctive and well-known support for Palestinian rights; and they have, on the whole, been quite successful so far.

It is true that on some issues sections of the American political class would support something that Israel has so far refused: the so-called ‘two-state solution’, which in effect is not about a sovereign Palestinian state, but a protectorate dominated by Israel, the US and the Arab regimes directly or indirectly. This is the plan Israel has so far rejected. The US is not genuine in describing it as a ‘solution’, but is certainly interested in promoting it, and I think Trump in his own way is going to be interested in it even more.

But there is also another factor that should be taken into consideration. The American ruling class has helped to build up the power of the Israel lobby: it has fostered it in order to manage internal public opinion. It is useful for the policymakers in the White House and Pentagon to rely on the lobby to manage public opinion, as well as the voting of the members of Congress and the Senate.

Here comes into play a phenomenon which is well-known to dog breeders: if you train a Rottweiler to be an attack dog, it can sometimes be very difficult to control. This phenomenon, I think, is in evidence in the behaviour of the pro-Israel lobby in the US, and the difficulty of the ruling class in always being able to control it. There is no evidence that the ruling class is too worried about this lobby, but on occasions it is a little bit inconvenient, and the establishment finds it somewhat difficult to manage things.

We should not be swayed by those in the media who portray Trump as an idiot or simpleton who does not know what he wants, I think he is more intelligent (and more scheming) than he is given credit for. It is also becoming clear - and it was visible in his previous term as president - that he prefers a ‘businessman attitude’ to international politics rather than that of the military. In other words, he would prefer global economic war to military conflict involving the US, which is to be a means of last resort.

What is becoming clear is the difference in his strategy towards the Middle East, compared to that of the Biden administration. Instead of promoting military alliances, he is very keen to sponsor an economic approach. This was signalled by the Abraham accords that he managed to pull off towards the end of his last term, which lured the Gulf Emirates and Bahrain into an economic pact with Israel. This has partly worked as designed.

But there is a big absence in this alliance and that is Saudi Arabia - by far the richest and economically most powerful Arab state. So far, Saudi Arabia has demurred, and has made it clear that it is not going to join without some kind of apparent settlement of the Palestinian issue - it is too sensitive to internal dissent. Will it go along with a pact with Israel without some kind of resolution (or apparent resolution) of the Palestinian issue?

The point is, if you are pursuing a strategy which is based primarily on military confrontation, then the primary member of this kind of alliance is going to be Israel, which is militarily by far the strongest in the region. But if your strategy is based on economic warfare, then Saudi Arabia is quite obviously a key element. Israel’s utility to the US in the Middle East is primarily its military capacity - its role as an American ‘attack dog’ in the region; while Saudi Arabia is obviously essential if the strategy is going to be based on economic confrontation.

I may be wrong, but it seems to me that potentially there could be a certain shift in US policy towards not only Israel, but the whole of the Middle East. Events will reveal whether my speculation is correct or not.

Uncertain

It also seems to me very uncertain whether the ceasefire will hold, or whether the Israeli government, with Netanyahu and his messianic allies, will manage to sabotage it - get a few hostages back and then resume the genocide in Gaza. And do not expect Trump to stop it.

But I think it is clear that Palestine is becoming the global issue of our time. The main issues that have defined progressive opinion have often changed in living memory. In the 1960s and early 70s, it was Vietnam that divided global public opinion into progressive and reactionary camps. Vietnam was an issue at the top of the agenda of people who think about international questions. In a later period, it was South Africa. This was, if you like, the touchstone that divided progressives from reactionaries, to put it very crudely.

Now it is the Palestine issue that is becoming the touchstone of world public opinion and concern about international issues. We on the radical, revolutionary left must make sure that we take the right attitude towards this. First of all, it would be wrong to confine our political work to opposition to Israel and Zionist colonisation. I think it is essential to include this as part of our opposition to the US and imperialism in general - that is to say, it is not just about Palestine. We must avoid the dangerous tendency to regard the key question as opposition to the Israeli Zionist regime alone. Yes, it is about this, but it is a mistake to disconnect it from its global links.

Secondly, we have to deal with the slogans that will continue to be put forward, and the ideological and political struggle that is facing us. One idea that will still be pushed is the two-state illusion. It is not just being proposed - in a purely deceptive way - by the United States and its camp followers. (If you ask Sir Keir Starmer, he will repeat the same mantra: ‘two-state solution’.) Please note that this is also the position of Jeremy Corbyn, the Communist Party of Britain and the Morning Star. It is also the position of the Israeli Communist Party, which is not Zionist and in some ways has taken a very creditable position on the conflict. Its publications and the position it puts forward in the Knesset are under tremendous attack. Yet its formula is still the ‘two-state solution’. This has to be debunked. It must be explained why, even if it could be implemented, it would not be a resolution to the conflict, but another form of subjugation of the Palestinian people to Zionist colonisation.

An alternative that will also be put forward is the ‘one-state solution’. A real resolution of the conflict must be based on equal individual rights for all inhabitants of the area of Israel/Palestine, and equal national rights for the Palestinian Arab nationality and the Israeli Jewish nationality (or, as it should be termed, the Hebrew nationality, as distinct from the mythical worldwide ‘Jewish nation’). Also, the Palestinian refugees must have the right to return to their homeland.

Now, some versions of this should not be attacked in the same way as the two-state illusion. True, even the best versions are not feasible if they fall short of the necessary socialist transformation - not only of Israel and Palestine, but the whole region. The current versions of the one-state solution are utopian, in that they do not confront the need to overthrow the Zionist state, which is only possible as part of a regional socialist transformation. However, even the utopian versions fulfil a positive role, in that they expose the Zionist regime for opposing justice; so we should not treat those who put them forward as political enemies.

This article is based on the talk Moshé Machover gave to Winter Communist University 2025: youtube.com/watch?v=vTgP7pK0dyo