WASHINGTON – Where the desert meets the sea in a newly developing area of Abu Dhabi, there is a cautious whisper of hope in a region too often defined by discord.
It comes from three cubic buildings of austere appearance. Rising from Saadiyat Island’s sands, the Abrahamic Family House features a mosque, a church and a synagogue. The buildings are of equal size, distinct yet harmonious, and connected by a garden.
The mosque looks towards Mecca, the church is oriented to the east and the synagogue faces Jerusalem. The Louvre, Abu Dhabi, is next door. The Guggenheim Abu Dhabi museum is also coming up in this neighbourhood of luxury villas and beaches, protected mangroves and hawksbill turtles.
The complex’s clean, off-white lines, an unexpected instance of architectural restraint in the opulent land of the Burj Khalifa, caught my eye during a visit in December 2024. It was like catching old friends in a huddle, bonding over dates and cardamom-scented black coffee.
This ode to tolerance and coexistence in stone, wood and concrete has an unlikely co-architect: the 45th President of the United States.
The sanctuary was built on the foundation of the Abraham Accords, the diplomatic coup of President Donald Trump’s first term. The series of landmark agreements signed in 2020 and 2021 normalised relations between Israel and four Arab nations: the United Arab Emirates (UAE), of which Abu Dhabi is the capital, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan.
Getting the Arabs and the Israelis to regard each other as good neighbours was a foreign policy feat which the wise old men of the Middle East thought would be impossible until the Palestinian question, its statehood, was resolved.
Two years after its inauguration in February 2023, the well-guarded interfaith complex stirs with life and prayer. The first Jewish wedding to take place here was that of Mr Trump’s first-term former assistant Avi Berkovitz, a key negotiator in the Abraham Accords.
This is proof, thus, of the power of audacious diplomacy. Of the idea that the shared heritage of the patriarch Abraham between the three religions could be celebrated.
A view of the Imam Al-Tayeb Mosque that lies within the Abrahamic Family House, an interfaith complex located on Saadiyat Island in Abu Dhabi, UAE.ST PHOTO: BHAGYASHREE GAREKAR
But what Mr Trump is now proposing seems like a far cry from that demonstration of unity.
In the third week of his second term, as he hosted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the first foreign leader to visit, President Trump on Feb 4 casually dropped a proposal to “take over the Gaza Strip” and “develop” it.
As the world recoiled from the shock, his senior officials walked back on some of his most controversial remarks, saying that two million Palestinians would be relocated from Gaza only temporarily – not permanently, as Mr Trump had seemed to indicate.
But he has continued to insist, in answer to questions flung by incredulous reporters throughout the week, that the idea had been “very well received”.
In the face of flat and instant refusals from Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Jordan’s King Abdullah II to take in the Palestinians, Mr Trump has said he expects them to change their minds. “We do a lot for them, and they’re gonna do it,” he said on Jan 31, after he had spoken to those leaders.
The picture may be clearer on Feb 11 when Mr Trump meets the Jordanian King at the White House.
A demonstrator holds a sign with the picture of Jordan’s King Abdullah during a protest near the US embassy in Amman, Jordan, on Feb 7.PHOTO: REUTERS
In the meantime, there are few takers for the notion that this could be a masterstroke disguised as madness, Mr Trump’s “Nixon in China” moment – a bold, counterintuitive move that reshapes the geopolitical landscape.
Most of the world capitals concur with the way the Palestinians see it – as a plainly malign plan that merely resonates with Mr Trump’s instincts as a New York real estate mogul.
The idea itself is not new, however. The possibility that Gaza could be made prosperous, turned into “Singapore on the Mediterranean”, once had the support of former Israeli prime minister and Nobel laureate Shimon Peres.
His vision was that prosperity could serve as a peacemaker. That with investments and international support, Gaza and its residents could thrive on trade and tourism. More, the quartz-rich sands of Gaza can be used to make semiconductors, the backbone of the tech industry.
And Israeli-Palestinian peace, the late Mr Peres thought, could follow.
In a testament to the political distance traversed since, the twisted resurrection of this idea by Mr Trump has roused ample disbelief in the Israel of today because of its audacity, and in no small part also because of what it could do to the fragile ceasefire.
‘A negotiating tactic’ or ‘a distraction’?
“Trump rolled out an ambitious plan for Gaza but was short on specifics,” Mr Shalom Lipner, a former official at the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem, told The Straits Times in an interview from Jerusalem.
Mr Lipner, who has served seven consecutive Israeli premiers including Mr Netanyahu, said the proposal was perhaps the opening gambit of Mr Trump’s negotiation.
“Trump may view this more as a negotiating tactic to induce greater flexibility from his interlocutors and less as a practical blueprint,” he said.
In Jerusalem, though, hearts skipped a beat. There was relief that Mr Trump was putting pressure almost exclusively on parties other than Israel. There was euphoria among those who actually believe that he will follow through, Mr Lipner said.
“The general sense, though, is that he has Israel’s back, regardless of the fine print.”
At the Arab American Institute in Washington, Dr James Zogby saw the plan as a distraction from the real issues. He said that neither Mr Trump nor Mr Netanyahu wants to act on pressing matters – sticking with the fragile ceasefire in Gaza, Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza and plans to begin reconstruction.
The three-phase ceasefire brokered by the US, Egypt and Qatar between Israel and Hamas took effect a day before Mr Trump assumed office on Jan 20. It paused bloodshed in a conflict triggered by a Hamas incursion into Israel on Oct 7, 2023, that resulted in around 1,200 deaths and the taking of 250 hostages. The Israeli military campaign that followed caused 47,000 deaths and the devastation of the Gaza Strip.
But the deal is now on the rocks; it may end in March as Hamas insists on Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza before further hostage releases, while Israel has openly declared it aims to destroy Hamas.
“They want the clock to run down… This would allow Mr Netanyahu to resume his war to achieve what he calls ‘total victory’ in Gaza. It would also ensure that he maintains his governing coalition and remains in office,” Dr Zogby wrote in a Feb 6 column in The National, a UAE newspaper.
“Instead of addressing real problems crying for our attention, Mr Trump wants us to fall for his game by debating an illusory distraction while the Israelis pursue their deadly game right under our noses,” he said.
In the US capital, Mr Trump’s plan has invited scathing criticism and ridicule. It has been called a disgrace, a sign of moral failure and madness by the Democrats.
Even by some Republicans.
But at least one section of the foreign policy establishment sees a tiny spark of potential in it.
“It’s just an idea without any backing – it can’t be called a plan or proposal,” said Dr Jon Alterman, director of the Middle East Programme at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies.
“But by raising it, the President has created pressure on all parties to come up with something better. He’s shaken loose what has gotten stuck for a very long time.”
Mr Elliott Abrams, senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, said the idea that the US could “take over” Gaza while its residents live elsewhere was plainly unworkable.
“But it might better be seen as a reflection of the fact that no realistic plan for Gaza exists,” he said in a Feb 7 article in Foreign Affairs magazine. He said American policymakers had pursued “stability” for two decades, resulting in Hamas’ control of Gaza, Hezbollah’s dominance in Lebanon and the advance of Iran’s nuclear programme. “Despite the outlandishness of Trump’s idea, its sheer iconoclasm might lead to a healthy rethinking of US strategy and perhaps of Arab and Israeli policies as well,” he wrote.
To be sure, Israel’s largely successful military campaigns since the Oct 7 attacks have weakened Tehran and its proxies Hamas and Hezbollah, presenting Mr Trump with the opportunity to reframe his Middle East policy.
To expand Abraham Accords
He wants to broaden the Abraham Accords, which have survived the stresses from the Gaza war. Notably, none of the four nations broke off ties with Israel or closed their embassies over Israel’s invasion of Gaza.
In the four years since the accords were signed, over a million people have travelled between the member countries on new direct flights. And new partnerships were launched in the space, tech and sustainable development spheres.
Of course, Mr Trump’s proposal might compel the Arab states to close ranks and demand a Palestinian solution.
And popular public opinion in both Israel and the Arab world unmistakably retains the entrenched shades of mutual mistrust.
Saudi Arabia has been seen as the next nation to join the Abraham Accords. But it has consistently tied normalisation with Israel’s progress on a two-state solution and Mr Trump’s week-old proposal has only given the prospect a rude jolt. It remains to be seen if there is weight in the Trump administration’s supposition that the prospect of defence agreements and civil nuclear cooperation could change minds in Riyadh.
Mr Trump’s gambit of a redrawn Middle East sidelines the Palestinian people, who “would have already been resettled in far safer and more beautiful communities, with new and modern homes, in the region”, he wrote on Truth Social. But it would be challenging and heartless to consign 2.3 million people to a footnote.
The issue also has resonance far beyond the Middle East, echoing across the entire Muslim world, including in South-east Asia.
What Saudi Arabia does will impact the entire Muslim world. Would Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei, for instance, take its cue?
Mr Trump’s Gaza proposal, as disquieting as it is, has shattered the status quo. Could a businessman’s play for a deal force a crucial conversation about one of the world’s most intractable problems? Or add oil to the fire?
- Bhagyashree Garekar is The Straits Times’ US bureau chief. Her previous key roles were as the newspaper’s foreign editor (2020-2023) and as its US correspondent during the Bush and Obama administrations.
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