President Trump, You Can Remake the Middle East if You Dare

Opinion|President Trump, You Can Remake the Middle East if You Dare

Dear President Trump:

You may not be interested in Jewish or Arab history, but they are both very interested in you today. This is one of those rare moments — like after World War I, World War II and the Cold War — when everything in the Middle East is in play and everything is possible. And right now, everyone is waiting for you.

No exaggeration: You have a chance to reshape this region in ways that could fundamentally enhance the peace and prosperity of Israelis, Palestinians and all the region’s people, as well as the national security interests of America.

Be advised, though, while the wages of success will be enormous, the consequences of failure will be utterly hellish. It’s the Nobel Prize or the booby prize. Yet there is no escaping this mission. The Middle East is either going to be reborn as a strong region where normalized relations, trade and cooperation are defining objectives or disintegrate into a few solid nation-states surrounded by vast zones of disorder, warlordism and terrorists who are chillingly expert at using drones.

On every train schedule there is something known as the last train. Well, when it comes to peacemaking between Israelis and Palestinians, before Israeli West Bank settlements totally choke off any possibility of a two-state deal; to ending Lebanon’s 50-year civil war, while there is still a shred of hope; to giving Syria a chance to reintegrate after 14 years of strife; and to neutralizing Iran before it gets a nuclear bomb, this really feels like a last train.

On Sunday, for the first time since Oct. 7, 2023, one could see a scintilla of hope that this war could wind down, as Israelis embraced loved ones who had been hostages for more than a year and Gazans left shelters and returned to their homes — where they are still standing. Haaretz quoted Ahmed Mattar in Gaza City, one of many displaced Palestinians walking north with belongings on carts and donkeys, as saying something that I am sure spoke for most Israelis and Palestinians (and certainly did for me): “People just want this madness to stop.”

No one will have a bigger say in that than you, President Trump. So let’s survey the challenge.

I’m confident you now understand from your recent involvement with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — pressing him to accept the cease-fire and hostage-prisoner exchange that Biden set up and Bibi had consistently opposed — that your political and diplomatic aspirations are in fundamental contradiction to his.