The Lasting Impact of Trump’s ‘Deal of the Century’ on the Question of Palestine

Abstract:In 2017 US President Donald Trump launched the ‘Deal of the Century’ (DoC) to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Although Trump is no longer in office, the impact of the DoC lingers and will continue affecting future approaches to the conflict and its resolution. This article argues that the Trump DoC profoundly impacted the colonial order in Palestine, destroying further the illusion that a just settlement addressing the plight of the Palestinians could be reached. The DoC’s impact has affected three significant areas: the vision of a resolution, the approach to conflict resolution, and the venue where the conflict occurs. It helped shift the vision from two-state solution to none, significantly undermining the approach that was based on negotiation and third-party mediation, and assisted in creating a new regional versus international venue for the conflict.Key Words: Deal of the centuryIsraelIsraeli-Palestinian conflictPalestineTrump Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 See Mounir Akash (Citation2013) The right to sacrifice the other, America and genocide. (Beirut: Dar Riad Al-Rayes) [in Arabic].2 See Robert Freedman, ed., Israel and the United States: Six Decades of US-Israeli Relations, (Westview Press, 2012). See also Khaled Elgindy. Blind Spot: America and the Palestinians, from Balfour to Trump. Brookings Institution Press, 2019.3 Yasser Arafat ‘may have been poisoned with polonium,’ BBC News, November 6, 2013, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-24838061. 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