On the first point, it seems to have come from Trump himself. It’s clear that he did discuss it with some of his close affiliates, but essentially this was an initiative from Trump himself. It probably stems from some of the things he was doing in his first term, and it seems to him that this is a logical thing to do. He is, after all, a real estate person, and I think this is one of the areas where he believes that this is worth doing.

It was certainly a sudden announcement, and the indications are that contact with the Netanyahu government in Jerusalem about it in advance was quite limited. They did know that something was going to happen, but the extent of that knowledge was very limited. So as far as we can tell, this has come from Trump himself.

Is he serious about it? Yes, I think he probably is. From his point of view, this may seem a natural thing. People talk about Trump being an egotist or a narcissist. I think he’s more of a solipsist in the sense that he doesn’t care very much whether people agree or disagree with him — he’s absolutely certain that he’s right. If he comes up with this sort of idea, begins to follow through on it, and other people back him, then he becomes even more serious about it.

Of course, Netanyahu, who no doubt was surprised if not amazed at this offer, saw this as a way forward, particularly with the problems that he has been having with the far-right components in his coalition. I think it has to be taken seriously, and what happens next depends very much on how other states react — Arab states in particular.

I think much of this depends on understanding the reaction of ordinary people right across the Arab Middle East — obviously in Jordan and Egypt, but not just in those countries. What we’ve seen there is a much more detailed and much grimmer coverage of what has been happening in Gaza over the last sixteen months than you would get from the major European news channels.

The Israelis from the start have used the Dahiya doctrine, which basically means that when you have an insurgency that cannot be defeated by conventional means, you punish the entire society of which it is part. I can’t think immediately of any other conflict in the last twenty years where you have seen the same level of bombing as in Gaza, with the possible exception of Iraq, particularly during the final stages of the fight against ISIS from 2016 to 2018.

The indications are that the quantity of explosives dropped on Gaza by the summer of 2024 ran to about 70,000 tons — in nuclear terms, that is seventy kilotons. We’re talking about the equivalent of five Hiroshima-sized bombs dropped on Gaza. In practice, it’s much worse than that, because there are lots of small explosions. The degree of destruction is astonishing, and this has been seen far more by people across the Arab Middle East than in Western countries.

From the point of view of ordinary people, there is huge anger that stretches well beyond whatever is happening in their own countries. You’ll get the reaction from the leaderships across the region, which are mostly autocratic, and which are more concerned with the reaction of their own people than with international opinion. This is causing a great deal of concern, particularly in Egypt and Jordan. Approximately one-third of the population of Jordan is already comprised of Palestinian refugees.

There is a real fear on the Arab leadership side about what this is doing within their own countries. You can’t really predict how far that will go. This is a matter of Gaza being destroyed right in the heart of the Middle East. One has to remember that Gaza has a long history. The Omari Mosque was one of the main mosques in that part of the world, and it has been largely destroyed.

The countries at greatest risk from these political uncertainties are Jordan and Egypt, but it’s not just them. It goes right across the Middle East. Because of that, they’re in a very tricky situation. It’s quite possible that Saudi Arabia in the ordinary way would quietly work something out with Trump and allow something like this plan to go ahead. But I’m not even sure of that happening now.

We are now trying to work out how they’re going to react. I suspect it will have to involve holding the line. They are simply going to have to do it, because of fear of their own social disruptions if they don’t.

We tend to forget just how deep this goes. We remember the way in which so many Palestinians were removed — 700,000 of them, out of a much smaller population than today — in 1948–49. But this would be much greater than that, so they will be very reluctant to go along with it in any shape or form. Whether they succeed in holding the line against Trump is a different matter, though.

I think we are moving into an area of difficult speculation here. In terms of how they have reacted, the Saudis are staying out of Washington right now. That’s an exercise in symbolism, but quite a significant one. The same applies to the Egyptian leader Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.

As far as Saudi Arabia is concerned, I think this is going to cause them a great deal of concern. Saudi Arabia itself is obviously an immensely rich state. There are some big divisions within the Saudi kingdom involving minorities, particularly in the northeastern part of the country. They have had many problems of social unrest, which are not widely reported.

There’s some element of guesswork in thinking about their likely response. The Saudis will be looking for a way out that does not involve the clearance of Gaza, because that is what Trump actually wants. He just wants to clear it all out and start again and make a huge amount of money for his friends — one must always remember that there are some big gas supplies off the coast of Gaza.

If Trump does get away with pushing this through, I think we are in for a period of considerable instability across the Middle East, particularly in the form of paramilitary groups linked to ISIS or Al Qaeda, which will gain a lot of strength from this. The Saudis will be aware of that, which is another reason why I think they’re going to try and find a way out of this.

In terms of the wider issue, does this affect the whole idea of normalization? I think it probably does. This is a push too far and too fast by a long stretch. As a result, I think the whole idea of normalization may have to be rethought, particularly when it comes to the nature of the current Netanyahu government.

This is the basic problem. You have within Israel people who would largely offer Netanyahu’s government some support in terms of the war in Gaza, although more and more Israelis are growing very concerned about that. At the same time, the government is really pushing the boundaries over the degree of religious fervor, which is worrying for many secular Jews in Israel.

Meanwhile, you have the actions of the Israeli military in the West Bank, which are hardly being reported on at present. The refugee camp in Jenin has been reduced almost to rubble, and very few of the ten thousand or so people who were living there before are even there now.

This is not being widely discussed in the mainstream media of Western countries, but it is receiving much more attention in the Middle East. That will be another concern for the Saudis, because they also see the possibility of Trump going along with the annexation of the entire West Bank, which will inflame opinion right across the region.

The three main countries in this regard are Germany, France, and Britain, with the last of those three states no longer in the European Union (EU), of course. Germany has been traditionally sympathetic to Israel because of the history going back to the Holocaust, France rather less so, and Britain is also pretty supportive of Israel.

That is certainly true for the current Labour government of Keir Starmer, partly because of all the controversy over antisemitism during the period that Jeremy Corbyn was the party leader — although I think most people now accept that much of that was put up in a political push to damage Corbyn’s reputation with the electorate in Britain. Be that as it may, I think you should expect that out of those three key countries, it will be France that is more likely to be independent-minded and less supportive of Israel.

You can see very strong support for the Palestinians in Britain, by no means restricted to the substantial Muslim minority. We have had a series of massive demonstrations in London — approximately twenty demonstrations over the last sixteen months, all of which were peaceful. There have been some attempts at disruption by right-wingers, but by and large the marches have been fairly peaceful.

Those demonstrations have really concerned the British government — both the previous Conservative government and the Labour government in office since July of last year — because this is something that they are finding very difficult to control. What is happening nationally is happening locally as well. I live near an industrial town in the North of England, and there have been frequent demonstrations there too.

There’s a chasm between what the states are saying and what ordinary people are thinking, particularly in Britain. Bit by bit, Israel is coming to be regarded as a pariah state in many parts of Europe, and of course much more so across the Global South. There is a lot of concern in Europe about this at leadership level.

At the same time, however, you have a number of states, notably Hungary and Italy, that have moved pretty far to the right. By and large, support for the Palestinians is much lower in those political quarters. The Israelis obviously recognize these divisions, and they are putting a huge amount of work into maintaining support in Western Europe, but it’s proving difficult for them.

What that means for the EU is that it does not have the unity or strength at the moment to come up with a common view that will hold. That may change, and it certainly could change if Trump comes anywhere near to going ahead with his scheme to clear Gaza. But again, these are very unusual times, and it is difficult to make predictions with the kind of certainty that you would hope for.

The problem for Europeans — and here I can speak mainly about what’s happening on the British scene — is that they’re not really sure how far Trump is going to go on so many of these different schemes. They’re almost taking refuge in the idea that Trump is not going to get away with some of the things that he is doing — there’s quite a lot of wishful thinking going on at the moment.

The problem with the British is they always think they’re much more powerful and significant than they actually are. The “special relationship” between Britain and the United States is incredibly one-sided, and Britain has had great difficulty in coming to terms with that.

I’ll be very pleasantly surprised if it does last and goes through to the next phase. I think the chances of that happening are pretty remote at the moment. It’s probable that Netanyahu and his people will try and make it so difficult for Hamas that Hamas will at some point respond by overstepping the mark, enabling Israel to say, “This is over — this is finished.”

Although it’s difficult to say for sure, Hamas and Islamic Jihad are quite well entrenched in Gaza in spite of all the destruction over the last sixteen months. The problem for Netanyahu is that from his point of view, he cannot go the whole way through with what is necessary to achieve a full deal. It will cost him his position for sure.

I’m afraid I think that a way will be found to ensure that the cease-fire does not last. Whether or not the Israelis intend to go back into Gaza with ground troops, I think there’s a very considerable chance that they will resume air strikes. If you look at what is happening in the West Bank, reliable Palestinian news sources indicated that the level of destruction in Jenin is quite astonishing — the number of people killed, the way in which Israeli Jewish settlers can treat Palestinians with impunity.

This indicates that Israel will go a long way to achieve what it thinks is necessary. We’re in a position where two parties that believe Israel has to be a purely Jewish state are part of the current coalition. That may not be a position that most Israeli Jews would support, but it is there under the current leadership.

This all points to the fact that it is not going to be easy to turn this into a long-term cease-fire. I think that the way in which the Israelis accepted the cease-fire had a lot to do with messages coming from the Trump administration before it took office indicating that Trump did not want any major problems appearing at the time of the inauguration. Since then, we have seen a return to more “normal” attitudes as far as Israel is concerned.