The Republican Party’s policy platform indicates how the Middle East would be approached under a Donald Trump presidency in the US.
The Republican National Committee adopted the policy document at the party’s national convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on Monday. The platform promises to support Israel and cultivate relations with the area’s rulers. Trump reportedly assisted in drawing up the document, which could set his agenda if he wins a second term in the White House.
In chapter 10, Return to Peace Through Strength, a brief regional section consists of two sentences. “We will stand with Israel, and we will seek peace in the Middle East. We will rebuild our alliance network in the region to ensure a future of peace, stability and prosperity.”
Region-related provisions have impinged on the domestic front, where the platform pledges to protect the US with the “Iron Dome missile defence shield” based on Israel’s system. The document calls for resumption of Trump’s ban on the entry to the US of citizens from Muslim countries such as Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria and Yemen, while Trump has said he would bar entry of Palestinian refugees from Gaza.
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The platform pledges to “deport pro-Hamas radicals and make our college campuses safe and patriotic again”. This refers to anti-Gaza war, pro-Palestinian demonstrations which have roiled US university campuses. Trump has called for cancelling visas for “radical, anti-American and anti-Semitic foreigners”. The platform condemns anti-Semitism and calls for holding accountable those who threaten or harm Jewish people.
During his first term in office, Trump upended long-standing US and international regional policies. He recognised Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and shifted the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Contradicting international law, his administration argued Israeli settlements in Palestinian territory conquered by Israel in 1967 were not illegal.
Trump closed the US consulate in East Jerusalem, which served Palestinians and the Palestinian mission in Washington. He recognised the extension of Israeli sovereignty to the occupied Syrian Golan Heights. In 2018, he withdrew from the US-backed deal limiting Iran’s nuclear programme in exchange for lifting sanctions.
In January 2020, Trump announced his “deal of the century” for peace between Palestinians and Israelis. While the plan claimed to be based on the two-state solution, Palestinians were promised non-contiguous enclaves controlled by Israel and a capital on the edge of Jerusalem. Israel would annex the Jordan Valley, which amounts to 30 per cent of the West Bank, and ultimately its settlements. Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas called the plan the “slap of the century”.
In October 2020, Trump announced the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco had normalised relations with Israel. This went against the long-standing Arab policy of shunning Israel until a Palestinian state emerged, a policy that had also been breached, in the face of popular opposition, by Egypt in 1979 and Jordan in 1994.
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