The fate of the Gaza Strip will not be on the agenda of US President Donald Trump’s first foreign visit to Saudi Arabia on May 13. Washington, Riyadh and other Arab capitals will focus on the issues of bilateral relations and the Iranian nuclear program. Israel’s preparation of a large-scale military operation against Hamas casts a shadow over the entire tour of the head of the White House, Arab diplomats say. Therefore, Saudi Arabia asked the United States not to mention normalization with Israel during the summit.
The Gaza Strip will not be a priority topic during Trump’s tour, which begins next week, Axios sources who prepared the trip said. Instead of painful topics related to Israel’s actions, the head of the White House will discuss bilateral relations and investments.
According to Semafor, Arab business circles expect the US president to pay special attention to contracts in sectors such as energy, mineral resources, financial services, artificial intelligence, technology, industry and healthcare. Moreover, earlier, Riyadh promised to invest $ 600 billion in the US economy over four years, and the UAE – $ 1.4 trillion. for a decade.
Saudi Arabia, which will be the 47th President of the United States’ first destination after his inauguration, will host the United States-Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) summit, where leaders of all countries of the regional club will be invited. In addition to economic cooperation, the Arab states intend to discuss with their key ally the fate of the nuclear deal with Iran, the next round of negotiations on which has so far stalled due to technical reasons. Regional players support Trump’s desire to resolve the problem of the Iranian atom peacefully, but expect the American leader to clarify his position on whether Tehran will be allowed to have its own enrichment program.
During his first term, Trump also chose Saudi Arabia as the location for his debut foreign visit, but then the Middle East looked completely different. The war in the Gaza Strip, which began in October 2023 in response to the massacre by Hamas militants in southern Israel, has changed the face of the region. And the ongoing fighting is alarming the Arab world. “President Trump’s visit to the region in the context of the war in Gaza is perceived very negatively,” said one of the interlocutors of the Axios portal. “He made a lot of noise by insisting on a cease–fire before his inauguration, and achieved this, but three months later (after the conclusion of the ceasefire agreement. – NG) the situation in Gaza has only worsened.”
Over the weekend, the Israeli government approved a plan for the offensive operation “Gideon’s Chariots”, which should increase military pressure on Hamas. The initiative, which is to be implemented only after Trump’s visit to the Middle East, involves the phased occupation of Gaza for an indefinite period and the displacement of civilians into a single humanitarian zone in the south of the enclave. At the same time, the channels of assistance to the Palestinians will be significantly revised and limited. This is probably done to encourage “voluntary” emigration. According to Axios sources, a legal alternative to staying in the humanitarian zone is to “voluntarily” leave the enclave for third countries, as Trump had previously suggested.
The head of the White House initially assumed that the Gulf countries would finance a plan for the resettlement of Gaza and its total reconstruction, followed by its transformation into a resort area.
The Hamas leadership has already announced that the expansion of the Israeli military operation will endanger the lives of Israelis abducted during Black Saturday on October 7, 2023. Over 20 people remaining in the group’s hands are presumably still alive. “The Israeli government’s approval of plans to expand the ground operation in Gaza represents an obvious decision to sacrifice the hostages in the strip,” the Palestinian radicals said in a statement. In their statement, they appealed to the UN and the international community to “immediately take measures to put an end to the actions of the Israeli leadership and hold it accountable” for the fighting.
According to Axios sources, despite attempts to mediate between Israel and Hamas, Trump has now abandoned his active role around Gaza, leaving all further actions in the enclave to the discretion of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Yesterday, speaking at the Israeli Embassy in Washington at an event dedicated to the 77th Independence Day of the Jewish state, Stephen Witkoff, Special envoy of the President of the United States for the Middle East, informed that at the moment “a lot of efforts are being made” to expand the Abraham Agreements, a series of deals on normalization of relations between the Jewish state and the Arab world. “There will be a certain, possibly large, number of announcements in the very near future,” he announced. “We hope that this will allow us to make great progress by next year.”
It was assumed that Saudi Arabia would be the next country to join the Abraham Accords. However, such a step is impossible in the current conditions. As two Arab officials told the Qatari portal The Middle East Eye (MEE), Riyadh even put forward conditions in preparation for Trump’s visit to the kingdom: not to include issues of normalization of relations with Israel on the agenda. “Saudi Arabia is too serious not to be deceived about anything related to Israel during the upcoming visit. This was clearly conveyed to Washington,” said one of the MEE interlocutors, adding that Trump’s trip poses serious image risks for Saudi Arabia in the context of the war in Gaza.
In this regard, the Saudi ruling house decided to monitor everything from technical details to substantive aspects of the dialogue as part of the elaboration of the Trump tour, MEE sources say. According to them, Riyadh asked Washington to focus on only three issues during the summit: military-technical deals, the fate of the Iranian atom and economic cooperation. There is nothing superfluous in this program. “There will be no surprises or unexpected requests, either publicly or privately,” one of MEE’s interlocutors summed up.