Palestinians cannot know peace till Trump and his fellow ghoul finally leave the stage

Before Donald Trump is officially canonized for ending the Israeli-Palestinian war and bringing peace to the Middle East, let’s do a reality check on Trump’s role and on the ultimate long-term impact.

First, it was past time for Benjamin Netanyahu to end the war and he knew it. He had accomplished his goals: severely degrading Hamas, killing or injuring 10 percent of Gaza’s Palestinian population including over 20,000 children and 10,000 women, displacing nearly 90 percent of the population, and destroying Gaza’s infrastructure to ensure the displaced would come home to cataclysmic, unlivable ruin. He was also losing support in Israel every day the onslaught continued.

Decades ago, Netanyahu was heard on tape as saying of the Palestinians, "We must beat them up, not once but repeatedly, beat them up so it hurts so badly, until it's unbearable."

Netanyahu accomplished his goal.

As the war raged on in 2025, Trump’s disdain for the Palestinians was evident. Trump offered to turn Gaza into a real estate magnate’s Shangri-La, assumedly free of Palestinians. He continued to supply Israel’s mighty military force with more weaponry against a woefully inferior opponent. Under Trump, the US voted against United Nations resolutions demanding a ceasefire in the Israel-Palestinian war, killing the resolutions.

Trump refused to condemn Israel’s massacre of Palestinian civilians while the world’s International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu, for using “starvation as a method of warfare,” restricting humanitarian aid, and intentionally targeting civilians. Under Trump, the US has refused to join the 147 nations that recognize Palestinian statehood or even commit to supporting a two-state Israeli-Palestinian solution.

Trump has been Netanyahu’s boy since the beginning of the war, enabling Netanyahu to carry out his scorched earth campaign until the Palestinians were ground into the Gaza dust, their territory destroyed. Netanyahu was more than happy to reward Trump’s unconditional support by giving Trump an uncontested slam dunk: ending the war after Netanyahu had accomplished all he wanted.

Of course, there will be no just peace agreement coming out of negotiations. Israel will maintain its military occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, further increase its stranglehold on the territories, build more Jewish settlements in the West Bank in violation of international law, and prolong the misery under which Gaza residents will suffer for decades.

A two-state solution, which any just peace agreement must include, will remain sheer fantasy until Netanyahu is no longer in power. As Netanyahu said in 1999 after sabotaging the Oslo Accords, which provided a roadmap for Palestinian statehood, “I’m proud I blocked a Palestinian state.” A two-state solution has always been anathema to Netanyahu, the Palestinians unwanted interlopers on lands rightfully belonging to Israel.

An elaborate diplomatic charade will occur among participants in the peace negotiations that will ultimately end in Israel maintaining iron-clad control over Palestinian territories and making no significant concessions. Trump will brag about the settlement bringing peace to the Middle East when all it will do is ensure decades of subjugation of a badly broken Palestinian people to their brutal occupier.

The entire world is thankful that the slaughter of Palestinian civilians and devastation of their homeland has ended. Netanyahu, however, should never be forgiven for his brutally asymmetrical response to the Hamas attack on Israel, resulting in 82 percent of the war’s casualties being Palestinians, 56 times as many as Israelis.

It should also be remembered that Trump never wavered in his support for Netanyahu, that he refused to condemn the annihilation of Palestinians, that he continued providing weapons to Israel, that his administration killed UN ceasefire resolutions, and that his end-the-war overtures came after Netanyahu had demolished Gaza and killed 67,000 Palestinians.

Netanyahu and Trump are kindred spirits, comrades in corruption, in extreme-right politics, in authoritarian rule, in undermining their countries’ democracies, and in their indifference to the suffering of Palestinians. In a 2001 tape discussing sabotaging the Oslo Accords, Netanyahu wasn’t concerned about the US response because the US, he said was “easily manipulated.” That remark was certainly prescient regarding his relationship with Trump.

Netanyahu knows that as long as Trump is staunchly in his corner, he can do whatever he wants and the rest of the world be damned, including the UN, the International Criminal Court, international law, and the 149 nations that recognize Palestinian statehood. Trump’s loyalty has proven unshakeable throughout the war and will continue throughout the peace talks.

Trump did not end the Israeli-Palestinian war. He was handed the “honor” on a silver platter by his grateful political doppelgänger. Until both men have mercifully left the political stage, Palestinians will be left twisting in the bitter wind.

• Tom Tyner is a freelance editorialist, satirist, political analyst, blogger, author and retired English instructor