Donald Trump transmitted two distinct messages about the Middle East on the campaign trail, both of which could not be true at the same time. Courting the Arab or Muslim American electorate in states like Michigan, he spoke of a sincere desire to restore peace, although he was vague on what exactly peace looked like and how he would achieve it. Away from that audience, he communicated his absolute support for the government of prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, saying Israel must be allowed to achieve total victory over its enemies. A ceasefire? Under no circumstances! As for the Biden administration, he criticised it for imposing restrictions on Israel in Gaza, and against Iran, whose nuclear program should have been targeted in the recent Israeli attack.

Trump is known for his many outlandish statements, but when he describes himself as the most pro-Israeli president in American history, he is probably on the money for once. It was Trump who recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and who moved the US embassy there from Tel Aviv. It was Trump who recognized Israel’s annexation of and sovereignty over the Golan Heights, captured from Syria. It was Trump who pushed for normalization between Israel and other Arab countries bypassing the Palestinians. Objectively, we have to assume that Trump will try to finish what he started during his first term – this time with the freedom afforded as a second-term president unencumbered by the constraint of trying to win four more years in the White House. And while other presidents may have felt emboldened to go against the Israel lobby in their second term for this reason, Trump may become even more emboldened to support Israel. In doing so, he will be aligned with the Republican base, which is fanatically pro-Israel in all its most extreme policies.

One idea doing the rounds – spearheaded by David Friedman, Trump's former ambassador to Israel - is that Washington could recognize full Israeli sovereignty over the occupied West Bank, with Palestinians not being granted political rights or receiving citizenship, but allowed to live there as resident aliens. Friedman also called for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza and transferring its population to Sinai. It is people like this who surround the president-elect, shaping his vision and policies without any Arab counterargument. Trump has also spoken about Israel’s minuscule proportions, and the possibility of extending its boundaries. It was no coincidence such a suggestion came at a conference organized by Miriam Adelson, donor of $100 million to Trump’s election campaign and who - with her late husband Sheldon Adelson – was a major backer of moving the US embassy to Jerusalem.

The other (more) urgent matter is Iran - and Netanyahu’s strategy to destroy Tehran’s nuclear program, ideally with US help as he needs American ordnance to penetrate Iran’s many underground nuclear facilities. Washington insiders say Netanyahu sought to persuade Trump to do this four years ago, following the president’s defeat in the previous elections and before he left the White House. He might have succeeded but for the intervention of the Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Back then, Gen. Mark Milley warned Trump that a comprehensive regional war was against Washington’s regional interests, but the situation has evolved and such an attack may be more appealing now. One of the big fears in 2020 concerned Hezbollah’s powerful missile capability playing a role in Iran’s response to a US-Israeli strike. Today Hezbollah is already at war with Israel, and Washington believes its ally has been able to limit the military capabilities of both Hezbollah, and Hamas in Gaza.

Trump’s character is not inclined towards war and he often boasted that during his first term not a single war was started under his watch, in sharp contrast to other recent administrations. But we need to look deeper to read the real situation. For example, Trump’s decision to assassinate Qassem Soleimani, commander of the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. The president’s friend and golfing partner Senator Lindsey Graham warned over a round of golf  that such a move could drag Washington into a war with Iran. But Trump went ahead and had Soleimani killed in January 2020, even without Israel’s participation that had previously been arranged to carry out the operation.

So Trump is not averse to taking risks, seeing himself as a swashbuckling John Wayne-type figure. But he has limited experience or depth in foreign affairs so the eventual appointees for these positions for secretary of defense and secretary of state will be indicators of which direction his administration will go. But we must be prepared for a Senator Tom Cotton at the Pentagon and a Senator Marco Rubio or Richard Grenell at the State Department, all security hawks aligned with the Israeli right. These people are not likely to need much effort to convince the president to take a tough line with Iran or to green-light an attack on it, especially after the alleged Iranian assassination attempt on him. Trump may still harbour a residual inclination to avoid war, but as we saw when he decided to withdraw US forces from Syria, the state apparatus was able to circumvent his decision. US forces remain on Syrian territory to this day.

Meanwhile, we know that Netanyahu is an expert in managing relations with Washington in all its political colours, especially with fellow right-wingers in the ascendancy. (We saw how he was able to withstand pressure from the Biden administration to instigate a ceasefire that would have helped the Democrats in the recent election.) The prime minister got everything he wanted during the first Trump administration and he is now poised to become a historic leader of Israel by sweeping up all the remaining prizes to be taken.

Trump is thought to have asked Netanyahu to end the war when he enters the White House on January 20. But we can’t rule out the Israeli prime minister announcing the “end of major military operations”, but keeping a loophole open to continue partial military operations as the situation requires. In that way, he could continue the war at a lower level until achieving his goals while keeping Trump’s support.

All this means we are facing perhaps the most dangerous phase in the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict, distilled into a Palestinian-Israeli conflict. I am not one to always place the Arabs in a passive frame or to underestimate their ability to bring influence to bear  - if they chose to. The problem is that many Arab governments have been happy to ally with right-wing movements in Washington for the sake of narrow self-interest, but now find themselves facing a complete reshaping of the regional system regardless of the needs and desires of the peoples of the region.

This is not to say the Arab states should enter into a confrontation with the United States or Israel, as the price tag for such a confrontation would certainly be too high. However, they still have an important card in their hands: normalization. Saudi Arabia recently announced it would not consider normalizing relations with Israel before the establishment of a Palestinian state. It is crucial to reaffirm this publicly and privately to the incoming administration. The same goes for the other Arab and Islamic countries that have begun normalization or are thinking of taking this step.

Some may think the issue is only related to the Palestinians and their rights, but it is linked to the interests of all countries in the region and internationally. Any comprehensive normalization with Israel without a just settlement of the Palestinian issue will be a recognition of dominance for the extremist Israeli right, which can impose a racist anti-Arab agenda across the region. Let us not forget that Israelis describe Palestinian citizens within the 1948 boundary as “Arabs”. Arab governments need the Palestinians more than the Palestinians need them, because the Palestinians are the strategic and demographic barrier to curb Israeli expansionist tendencies and put the brakes on regional supremacy that Israel now believes is within reach.

The New York Times observed that Donald Trump won many votes from Arab Americans as well as conservative Jews who support Israel. The paper commented that one side would be very disappointed, and there is no doubt which side it had in mind!