Trump has proclaimed the end of the war and announced a new era in the Middle East, "an era of harmony." As always, everything about the American president sounds superlative and triumphant. It's undoubtedly very significant that the two years of hell in Gaza are over and the last Israeli hostages have been returned, exchanged for Palestinian prisoners. The ceasefire, of course, is a relief for everyone. But it's too early, and the announcement of a brave new world sounds naive and ridiculous. Trump's egotism is neither credible nor can it hide the harsh and unstable reality. The Israeli attempt at Palestinian ethnic cleansing has been as shocking as it is unfinished: amid the rubble, Gazans have returned to their destroyed homes.
There are more buts. The ceasefire agreement was reached after an atrocious genocide, an inhuman shame for which Trump himself has been a necessary guarantor, scorning the UN and any genuine multilateral diplomacy. From a distance and with logistical support, Trump has acted more as a pro-Israeli warlord than as a peace broker. As a result, thousands of innocent people in Gaza, many of them children, have died under bombs or from hunger, with little medical care. What they experienced cannot and should not be erased with any obscene promise of a luxury Riviera or with frivolous and forgetful reconstruction: the millions of Palestinians in the Strip who have survived the horror will not forget the hell they have endured. What future awaits them? Is there really a coherent peace plan on the table? To consolidate this stand-alone peace, everything remains to be done.
With arrogance and economic and military might, after allowing an unbridled Benjamin Netanyahu to literally annihilate Gaza, Trump, who in the process once again requested judicial pardon for the Israeli prime minister's corruption cases, has presented himself as the omnipotent architect. He showered himself with praise in the Israeli Parliament—the Knesset—and didn't even consider setting foot on the scene of the massacre. Immediately afterward, he surrounded himself in Egypt with European and Arab leaders to seal a peaceful future for the region. A future over which many doubts loom.
More than an agreement to end the war, it all seemed like an act of self-glorification by the bombastic leader who, after losing the Nobel Peace Prize, needed another personal triumph as compensation. He himself has been gifted this: he defined this Monday as "the end of the age of terror and death" and "the beginning of an era of harmony." Of course, there is not the slightest shred of self-criticism for the humanitarian disaster of a population and territory destroyed by blood and fire, nor for a State of Israel that, from its status as historical victim, has seamlessly transitioned to that of executioner.
It will be difficult to heal the wounds in the region. Nothing indicates that a lasting peace has yet to begin. Nothing presupposes that there will be humility and compassion among the winners, nor that the spirit of revenge will be rooted, dormant and buried, among the losers. The hardest part begins now. But Trump leaves satisfied: he has been respected. He has received his recognition.
