I imagine that instead of Volodymyr Zelensky, Benjamin Netanyahu was sitting in the Oval Office of the White House. Donald Trump and his Vice President J.D. Vance attacked Netanyahu on camera, telling him that his refusal to stop the war in Gaza was a gamble with World War III: “You need to be more obedient. Your people are dying, and you don’t want a ceasefire. If you agree to end the war, your people would stop dying. You don’t want a ceasefire. I do. You don’t have an ace up your sleeve. With us you have it, without us you have nothing. Accept the ceasefire or we’re out of the game.”
I imagine that the things Trump said to Zelensky were said to Netanyahu. Literally, he had to say every word to him.
But that's just my wild dream, and those threats were not directed at Netanyahu. And they won't be, even though they would be necessary. Imagine such a conversation. Netanyahu leaves the White House in fear, his face as gray as Zelensky's, and the very next day he returns and bangs on the White House gate: he is ready to end the war in Gaza and withdraw the Israeli army from the Strip. All the abductees are freed, the genocide is stopped. Without such a conversation, Israel will choose to continue the war. It is difficult to imagine a more terrible vision, a more useless war that will be even more terrible in the second chapter.
The public humiliation that the helpless Zelensky was subjected to is typical abuse for people like Trump and Vance, and it is not the first of its kind. What is new is that it happened on camera. Apart from Hosni Mubarak’s “Sign, you dog” to Yasser Arafat at the signing ceremony of the Cairo Accords in 1994, the cameras have never captured such a show of force by the masters of the world, or those who think they are, towards their wards.
Trump should be thanked for exposing his inner world, where there is no place for justice, values, international law, humanity or loyalty. Only power and money, money and power. But even that approach is applied selectively. A meeting between Trump and Zelensky would have to happen with Netanyahu. Every word Trump said to Zelensky applies to Netanyahu. Yet no one thinks of that, perhaps because no minerals have been discovered in the West Bank. But wait, what about the Riviera in Gaza?
From the perspective of Israel and Netanyahu, who understand only the language of force, this could be a historic conversation, a game-changer. It doesn't look like it's going to happen. But if we're going to dream, why not dream big? Huge. Imagine a similar conversation in the White House, with the end of the Israeli occupation on the agenda. There is no other way to end it than through a conversation like this.
Israel no longer has a single joker up its sleeve, except for American support. People are dying because of it, it is a source of tension that threatens the entire world. There is no country that openly supports the occupation, and there is no issue that unites the world that opposes it, even tacitly. It is difficult to understand what American interest the occupation serves, which has made the United States no less hated than its protégé. It is difficult to understand why such a conversation has never taken place.
I imagine Netanyahu coming to the White House and Trump, that terrible and dangerous man, threatening him like he threatened Zelensky. The very next morning, the demolition of Kiryat Arba and Kiryat Sefer begins.* Let go of dreams.
(Haaretz; Peščanik.net, translation from Hebrew by Alma Ferhat)
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* Kiryat Arba is a settlement on the outskirts of Hebron, where Itamar Ben Gvir also lives. Kiryat Sefer (now called Modiin Illit) is a Haredi settlement in the southern West Bank built on the site of Palestinian villages; prim.trans.
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