Lhe Middle East seems to have escaped the worst of the Covid-19. But in the coming months, the region could be attacked by a political virus, no less difficult to control: Donald Trump’s electoral diplomacy. At least two fronts are targeted: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the American offensive against the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Drawing the health map of our neighbors to the south, the correspondents of World drew a portrait of a Middle East on May 9 (newspaper dated May 10-11) which, compared to Europe, has been relatively unaffected by the last of the coronaviruses. Civically observed confinement and a solid health system have enabled Israel to successfully limit the impact of the pandemic – which the Palestinians have also resisted (see Jean-Pierre Filiu's analysis on Lemonde.fr). On occasion, he did not escape a rascal and unscrupulous political leader like Benjamin Netanyahu whom he had a chance to seize in order to stay in power. In the name of "national emergency", of course, required by the fight against the virus.
After three general elections in one year, which did not separate any of the lists, the outgoing Prime Minister "Bibi" and the Leader of the Opposition, Benny Gantz, concluded an alliance and formed a government this week. Patron of Likud, the old Israeli right, Netanyahu remains prime minister for eighteen months more. Defense Minister in the new team, Gantz, leader of a "moderate" right-wing opposition, the Blue White party, will take over the government in November 2021.
Netanyahu knows he must act quickly
The program of this national alliance provides for the annexation of part of the West Bank, the Palestinian territory that Israel has occupied since the war of June 1967. This measure would definitively bury the possibility of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. Illegal under international law, but supported by the Trump administration, the annexation would first concern the Jordan Valley, a third of the West Bank. At the moment, Netanyahu does not seem in a hurry. He spoke about it this week with US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo, who was visiting Jerusalem, who seemed to be in no rush.
But, on this subject, Netanyahu knows that he must act quickly. He won't have a more complacent President than Trump – whose re-election in November is by no means guaranteed. And, within the core of Trump’s electorate, the fundamentalist Christian bloc is, for allegedly biblical reasons, a staunch supporter of Israel’s settlement and annexation of the West Bank. We’ll know more by the end of the summer.
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