I guess if you can't win an award, the next best thing is having it dedicated to you, and that is exactly what Maria Corina Machado did with the Nobel Peace Prize. Of course, it was a calculated move as she wants the United States to support her ongoing effort to oust Nicolas Maduro. In fact, her "democratic" campaign goes back to when Hugo Chavis was president of Venezuela. I'm not sure who she actually represents but she reminds me of Aung San Suu Kyi.
Needless to say, the White House still wasn't happy but the deadline for this year's Nobel Peace Prize was January 31. All of Trump's great achievements came after that deadline if we are to accept his extensive resume. Better luck next year, Donald.
High on the list will be the peace deal he claims he has brokered in Gaza. This went down literally on the same day the Nobel Peace Prize winner was announced. It remains to be seen how this armistice holds up. So far, all we have is a ceasefire, but to hear Donald nothing would have happened without him.
It didn't matter that multiple European countries recognized Palestinian statehood and that the EU threatened sanctions if Netanyahu didn't bring this war to an end. Pressure was being brought on him both outside and inside Israel to end this senseless slaughter that had seen over 70,000 Palestinian killed, most of them women and children. Israel now controls over 50% of Gaza and has laid waste to roughly 80% of the territory, leaving a vast number of Palestinians homeless. It will take years if not decades to rebuild. The question is what will we see in the place of all this destruction.
The Peace Deal has been heavily criticized but no matter, the fighting has stopped for the moment. The fact that Jared Kushner and Tony Blair are in league with uber-rich Saudi sheiks and tech barons leaves few people expecting the deal will favor the Palestinians. These two are the "architects" of Trump's fabled plan. This is first and foremost a real estate deal. Welcome to Trump Gaza.
Israel has long coveted this strip but it wasn't worth the fight. Arial Sharon gave up in 2005 in what many thought signaled a major turning point. In the end, it was nothing more than a pause in hostilities. Meanwhile, Israel invaded Lebanon, supposedly to root out Hezbollah, leaving a massive wake of destruction. Eventually, Israel came back to Gaza, chipping away at its northern end until things blew up in October, 2023, with Hamas launching a surprise attack that left over 1200 Israelis dead and another 240 captured.
Bibi has always been a maximalist, dating back to the Wars of Attrition in the late 1960s when Israel was fighting the Palestinian Liberation Organization led by Yasser Arafat. In his mind, there is no room for Palestinians in his Kingdom of David. He single-handedly brought the Likud party back from the dead in the 2010s after Ohmert's Kadima party fell apart, and has ruled Israel ever since except for a brief moment when Labour won an election but failed to put together a lasting coalition. He did this by allying the extreme right wing parties in the Knesset that had always supported a Greater Israel.
It's not just Gaza that Bibi wants but the West Bank too. It will take him a little longer to fulfill that dream, if at all, but he can at least take Gaza off the table. He has long shown that the UN is a paper tiger. The only country he responds to is the US and then only on his terms. He knows he can bully his way into any President's White House. As Harry S. Truman said long ago, Israel has a bigger lobby than Palestine. The US supported Israel's effort to repopulate the Levant from the start.
The collapse of the Soviet Union was a huge blessing for Israel, as it allowed the government to resettle hundreds of thousands of Eastern European Jews throughout the country, principally along the West Bank. What started as tiny settlements in the 1990s have grown into large semi-urban communities. Over 500,000 Jews have resettled on Palestinian land with the number growing each year. Israel has pretty much taken over Jerusalem, pushing Palestinians to the fringes of the capital city.
There isn't much hope for this "Peace Deal" as far as Palestinians are concerned. The US will continue to favor Israel as it has done for the past 80 years. Their only hope had been the support of their Arab neighbors, but now that is faltering as Israel stuck deals with many of the Gulf States, thanks again to Jared Kushner. Follow the money.
Yet, Trump considers himself a 21st century Moses. No wonder Maria Machado is actively soliciting his aid in an effort to overthrow Maduro once and for all in Venezuela. Seems like discussions have already begun. After all, he recently bailed out his good buddy "Chainsaw" Milei in Argentina.
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