The Electronic Intifada 10 December 2024
The Biden administration was complicit with Israel’s genocide in Gaza for 14 months. Few in Gaza believe Trump will be an improvement.
SOPA Images/SIPA USAAs the world prepares for the second coming of Donald Trump, Palestinians in Gaza are clutching at straws to find any positive perspective on the new/old next US president whose inauguration is on 20 January.
With Israel continuing to refuse a ceasefire in Gaza, though entering a separate, if deeply fragile one with Hizballah and Lebanon, the hope that a comprehensive truce could be agreed has fallen by the wayside.
With Israel also unrestrained and acting with complete impunity, the hope from the beginning in Gaza was that the US would eventually rein in its genocidal ally.
But more than a year of US complicity under outgoing President Joe Biden and nothing other than the usual Trump incomprehensibility to go on suggest little will be different from January.
Certainly, that’s how most people in Gaza see it.
Omar al-Khudary is a nurse from northern Gaza.
In January, Israeli soldiers abducted Omar and put him in the infamous Sde Teiman detention center for 40 days.
“I was dying a hundred times a day inside the prison. I forgot that I was a human because the Israelis dealt with us as animals,” Omar recalled. “I spent the time blindfolded. Seeing the sun once I was freed was like a rebirth.”
Even when he was finally freed, he was released in the south, where he remains, separated from his wife and two children, still in the north.
Omar was happy to see Biden, Kamala Harris and the Democrats lose the election.
“Harris and her party offered nothing. They were a vacuum that gave Israel more than 400 days to create chaos.”
He held US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in special contempt for continuing to provide Israel with weapons throughout the past 14 months.
One coin, two faces
Omar did not, however, think Trump Republicans would be any different. Both Republicans and Democrats, he said, “are committed to what they see as Israel’s security.”
He did agree with more conservative Republican positions on sexuality and gender issues and also thought Trump’s party would be less likely to “push the world towards a third world war.”
Tameem, 25, is a doctor who confesses to never caring for politics even though she understands that for Palestinians, “there is no escape: Politics is our life and our lives are all about politics.”
She did not want to give her full name for this report.
Tameem agreed with Omar that there is little difference between the two US parties on Palestine.
“Let’s admit that America is the spiritual father of Israel and will never be with our side.”
She said suggestions that Trump is keen to end Israel’s war on Gaza give little sense as to how he will want it to end.
She suspected, she told The Electronic Intifada, that “Trump is basically a businessman and wants to make deals. But they won’t be for our benefit.”
She said she was not opposed to international forces taking control of Gaza’s borders, and she said she would not be opposed to taking Israeli citizenship if it meant she could stay in Gaza.
“It’s better than being thrown into the Sinai desert,” said the young doctor – who once wanted to complete her studies abroad but now dreams, she says, only of bread and water.
“All I want is an end to this war as soon as possible – to save what souls are left.”
Manufactured hero
Ahmad Majdalawi, 36, is a teacher from the north of Gaza.
Early in Israel’s assault, he was forced to leave his home and sought shelter in Gaza City, where he still resides.
He has been puzzled by the attempt to paint Trump as an anti-war president.
“Everyone knows that Trump is racist, unstable, reckless, chaotic and pro-Israeli,” he said. “The image of the ‘alternative hero’ who will stop wars has been gradually produced.”
People seem to have forgotten, he pointed out, that it was Trump who decided to “recognise” Jerusalem as Israel’s “indivisible” capital and further “recognize” Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights. And that Trump also canceled the Iranian nuclear agreement, and ordered the assassination of senior Iranian general Qasem Soleimani.
Trump’s anti-war image is entirely manufactured, Ahmad said, and goes to show that elections today only “trade in people’s fears,” leaving them to vote for a mirage – even though everyone knows they are voting for a mirage.
Similarly, Hana, 30, a homemaker and mother of three, said she had no respect for Trump or anyone else in American politics.
Hana too did not want to give her full name for this article.
She said that the only positive thing about Trump was that he was not Biden.
“I thought that Trump was the worst American president ever, until we tried Biden.”
Hear my voice
Hana has been caring for her children alone since November 2023 because her husband is trapped in northern Gaza looking after his injured brother.
She said the US has an outsized influence on world events and so US elections are important to everyone, including the Palestinian people.
But with US politicians forever trying to appease a powerful pro-Israel lobby, no president has ever done much for the Palestinians.
“Biden was always saying positive things; but he implemented nothing positive.”
“Trump won’t be better,” she said, “but at least he might be honest about his pro-Israel positions.”
Sameh Barbakh, 15, would love to have a chance to speak with the incoming US president.
The boy was displaced along with his family when their home in Khan Younis was destroyed in an Israeli air strike last December.
He hasn’t seen his father – whom Israeli troops detained in February from Nasser Medical Complex, where he had sought shelter – for ten months.
“Biden is supporting the occupier over the occupied. And he keeps funding Israel with weapons that kill us,” Sameh said.
He wondered aloud why the world cannot distinguish between the victim and the victimizer and said he wished for a “just” US president to take power and to acknowledge Palestinian rights and ownership of their land.
Those around him say they are not happy about Trump’s victory, Sameh said, but he had decided to defer his own judgement.
“I wish Trump could hear me. I want him to know that all I want is my father back. I want him to know that I miss eating chocolate and meat. I want him to know that it’s cold at night and our clothes are few and very expensive to buy.”
Hanin A. Elholy is a researcher, writer and translator based in Gaza.
