Robin Wright
The New Yorker
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| Fotografia de Jonathan Ernst / Reuters |
Mesmo para um homem propenso a hipérboles, o presidente Donald Trump alçou voo esta semana ao anunciar o anúncio de seu novo plano de paz para o Oriente Médio como "potencialmente um dos grandes dias da civilização". O plano de vinte pontos é ambiciosamente, ainda que vagamente, concebido para encerrar a guerra de quase dois anos em Gaza; trazer para casa todos os reféns, vivos e mortos; criar um comitê para governar o território; desmilitarizar o Hamas; e, eventualmente, eliminar "qualquer perigo representado na região". Ele prevê a retirada das tropas israelenses de Gaza, em fases, mas permite que mantenham um perímetro de segurança indefinido até que não haja "ameaça terrorista ressurgente". "Isto é a eternidade", disse Trump na segunda-feira, enquanto divagava por meia hora em um púlpito no Salão Leste da Casa Branca. "Isto é para sempre."
Ah, e, a propósito, Trump revelou que presidirá um novo "conselho de paz" internacional para monitorar a implementação do plano. "Não a meu pedido, acredite", disse ele. "Estou muito ocupado, mas temos que garantir que isso funcione." Nenhum outro líder em milhares de anos de história do Oriente Médio conseguiu garantir uma paz permanente, afirmou Trump. Mas ele conseguiu.
A descrição de Trump de seu novo cargo como "presidente do conselho" lembrou sua insistência, no início deste ano, de que Gaza se tornaria a "Riviera do Oriente Médio". Esse anúncio foi seguido por um vídeo gerado por IA mostrando um novo resort de Trump, às margens do Mediterrâneo, após a remoção dos escombros. A ONU estima que mais de noventa por cento de todos os edifícios residenciais em Gaza foram danificados ou destruídos. Nas primeiras 24 horas após Trump revelar seu plano, dezenas de palestinos foram mortos e mais de cem ficaram feridos, enquanto as Forças de Defesa de Israel avançavam cada vez mais para dentro da Cidade de Gaza, a capital. (Mais de 66 mil palestinos, cerca de 3% da população de Gaza, foram mortos na guerra.) "Se isso não fosse selar o destino de tantas pessoas, então a nomeação de Trump para chefiar este conselho de paz [com o ex-primeiro-ministro britânico Tony] Blair como seu subordinado seria um ótimo assunto para uma comédia", disse-me Daniel Levy, ex-negociador israelense que agora lidera o Projeto EUA/Oriente Médio.
O plano, se aprovado pelo Hamas, está programado para começar a ser implementado dentro de 72 horas, com o retorno dos reféns israelenses e a libertação de quase 2 mil palestinos presos por Israel. (Na quarta-feira, relatos indicaram que o Hamas estava aberto ao acordo, mas tinha reservas sobre vários pontos-chave, incluindo a libertação dos reféns e a exigência de desarmamento.) Trump afirmou que o plano já foi endossado por outros países do Oriente Médio. "Nossos parceiros árabes e muçulmanos estão totalmente preparados para intensificar e cumprir seus compromissos em benefício do povo de Gaza e de toda a região", disse ele. Como presidente do conselho, Trump continuou, ele estará envolvido "com algumas pessoas muito inteligentes" para garantir "que não estejamos apenas perdendo tempo com um acordo que não será concretizado".
Na coletiva de imprensa, o primeiro-ministro israelense, Benjamin Netanyahu, estava em um púlpito separado enquanto Trump falava sobre os detalhes. Netanyahu "jogou com inteligência", disse Aaron David Miller, que trabalhou em questões de paz no Oriente Médio com seis governos americanos, "ao redefinir o plano de Trump de acordo com suas próprias necessidades e limitações". O Hamas pouco ganha, política ou militarmente, além do fim da guerra que começou com seu ataque surpresa em 7 de outubro de 2023, quando cerca de 1.200 pessoas no sul de Israel foram mortas e 250 reféns foram capturados. A Jihad Islâmica Palestina, um grupo ainda mais militante, também esteve envolvida nesse ataque. Ela não é mencionada especificamente na iniciativa de paz.
Apesar de todas as esperanças entre israelenses e palestinos, especialistas e ex-diplomatas têm muitas dúvidas. "Mesmo que o Hamas aceite, a quantidade de negociações, discussões e politicagem levará semanas, se não meses, sem um resultado claro", disse-me Miller. Levy acrescentou que a proposta de Trump "não tem granularidade", como cronogramas além das primeiras setenta e duas horas, mapas delineando as retiradas israelenses ou detalhes sobre a introdução de uma força internacional de estabilização, conforme estipulado. "Netanyahu presumirá corretamente que tem bastante margem de manobra para transformar um 'sim' israelense inicial em mais manobras desviantes e prejudiciais durante negociações detalhadas", disse Levy.
Daniel Kurtzer, a former U.S. Ambassador to Israel involved in many past U.S. peace initiatives, and now at Princeton, told me that neither Israel nor Hamas has an interest in ending the war. Trump clearly “loves” the drama of the announcement, he added, but the President doesn’t understand that it is subject to “wildly different views of the details, and likely protracted negotiations.” The differences are still “profound,” Kurtzer said. Jeremy Ben-Ami, of J Street, a pro-Israel, pro-peace organization based in Washington, D.C., said that Hamas is likely to see the plan as a “negotiated surrender.” And Trump explained that, if Hamas rejects it or demands changes, he will allow Netanyahu to do whatever needs to be done to “finish the job.” Kurtzer pointed out that this was “political gold” for the Israeli leader, “who can maneuver anything Hamas says into a ‘no’.” Notably, Trump and Netanyahu declined to answer any questions at the end of the press conference. Trump said, “We’re waiting for signatures and waiting for approvals from a lot of different countries that are involved in this.”
The plan makes no mention of the West Bank, home to more than 2.5 million Palestinians. Israeli settlements there have increasingly encroached on Palestinian areas, with approval from Netanyahu’s far-right allies. Still, the Palestinian Authority, which governs parts of the West Bank, has supported the Trump plan. It said it would carry out internal reforms to facilitate “a modern, democratic, and nonmilitarized Palestinian state” that would include new elections and allow the “peaceful transfer of power.” Those promises, however, have been made in earlier peace initiatives, with little impact. The Palestinian Authority also vowed to end the practice of financially rewarding families of those who are involved in, or die in, conflict with Israel.
Netanyahu’s polite appearance at the White House on Monday made for a stunning contrast with the speech he had given only three days earlier at the United Nations, where most of the delegations walked out of the General Assembly Hall in protest. In a long-winded rant, the Prime Minister had railed at Britain, France, Canada, and Australia for formally recognizing a Palestinian state. The four governments, long-standing allies of Israel, had just joined more than a hundred and fifty other U.N. members who support a two-state solution. Netanyahu called them all “weak-kneed leaders who appease evil.” He charged, “Astoundingly, as we fight the terrorists who murdered many of your citizens, you are fighting us. You condemn us. You embargo us. And you wage political and legal warfare.” The message is that “murdering Jews pays off.” Israel, he pledged, would not allow them “to shove a terror state down our throats.”
On Monday, however, Netanyahu welcomed the Trump plan, which calls for “a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood, which we recognize as the aspiration of the Palestinian people,” though with no time frame or deadline. At their joint appearance, he said, “We’re going to open possibilities that nobody even dreamed of.” The Prime Minister may be playing along with Trump for now, as he has with other Administrations, Ben-Ami told me. “If there’s one constant over thirty years of U.S. dealings with Netanyahu, it is that nothing is ever final, nothing can be accepted at face value,” he said.
Netanyahu is almost certainly aware that American public support for Israel is declining. In a Quinnipiac poll released last week, forty-seven per cent of respondents still say support for Israel is in the U.S. national interest—but that is a significant drop from sixty-nine per cent in the aftermath of October 7th. (Also in last week’s poll: only twenty-one per cent of Americans have a favorable view of Netanyahu.) Another new survey, by the Times and Siena University, found that more Americans side with Palestinians than with Israel—a first. In a seismic shift, a majority also oppose sending more aid to Israel, long the closest U.S. ally in the Middle East.
The biggest long-term question for Israel is what Iran does next. The two nations engaged in a twelve-day war, in June, during which Israel assassinated senior Iranian military leaders and nuclear specialists. The U.S. also launched airstrikes on three of Iran’s most important nuclear facilities. At the press conference, Trump pondered whether Iran might join other Muslim countries in embracing his Gaza peace plan. “We hope we’re going to be able to get along with Iran,” he told reporters. “I think they’re going to be open to it. I really believe that.”
The prospect seemed highly unlikely. In his own appearance at the U.N. General Assembly last week, the Iranian President, Masoud Pezeshkian, condemned “savage aggression” by Israel and the U.S. during the twelve-day war, in “flagrant contravention” of international law and on the eve of scheduled diplomacy between Tehran and Washington. He separately lashed out at Britain, France, and Germany for triggering so-called snapback sanctions over Tehran’s failure to compromise on its nuclear program. The sanctions will further hobble Iran’s oil and banking sectors. They also require U.N. members to freeze Iran’s foreign assets, end arms deals, and cut off major revenue streams.
In a meeting with media and think-tank experts, on Friday, Pezeshkian claimed that Israel and the U.S. intended to “topple” the theocracy. “They thought that after a few assassinations and bombs, people would take to the streets and end things,” he said. Pezeshkian insisted that a fatwa by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had long ago forbidden Iran from making a nuclear bomb. “We are not allowed under our religion to build nuclear weapons facilities,” he told us. If Tehran had sought nuclear weapons, “we would have gotten them by now.”
Yet, in July, Tehran enacted a new law suspending coöperation with the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog. Two weeks ago, a public letter from seventy-one members of parliament, roughly a quarter of the unicameral body, argued that Khamenei’s edict banned the use of nuclear weapons but did not forbid building or stockpiling them as deterrents.
The snapback sanctions on Iran went into effect on Sunday morning. They marked a formal end to the hard-bartered negotiations, led by the Obama Administration, that produced the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action a decade ago. The snapback provision was designed to allow any of the six world powers that brokered the deal to demand that sanctions be reimposed if Tehran violated its requirements. But the provision had an expiration date—on October 18th of this year—which was why the Europeans invoked it.
Timing may have played a role in Trump’s Gaza plan, too. The President has often and publicly lobbied for the Nobel Peace Prize. The White House recently issued a list of leaders and governments that support him. The prize is scheduled to be awarded on October 10th. ♦
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