Trap of ‘Interfaith Dialogue’ in Trump’s Gaza Plan
In an article on the US President’s Gaza ceasefire plan, published on the Al-Arabi Al-Jadeed website, Jordanian writer and analyst Lamis Andoni wrote:
We may not reach the 18th paragraph of US President Donald Trump’s plan to stop the genocidal war in Gaza and pave the way for “peace” between Israel and the Palestinians, or even begin negotiations. However, including the so-called “interfaith dialogue” as one of the pillars of “opening the horizon for the Palestinian people to exercise their right to self-determination” is not just innocent rhetoric. Rather, it aims to change the roots of the conflict and distance itself from the consequences of a racist colonial project and the uprooting of a nation from its homeland, and to address the issue of religious differences and conflicts; a stereotype that leads to hatred and hostility that has nothing to do with injustice, occupation, or genocide.
According to the eighteenth paragraph of the “Twenty-Step Plan,” Washington will initiate interfaith dialogue to understand the parties to the conflict – Jews and Muslims – in order to change ways of thinking and narratives and instill the values of “peaceful coexistence” in the distorted concept of “accepting the other”. In this plan, and in the case of Israel and Palestine, accepting the other does not require a change in the Zionist project, but rather it is the Palestinians who must prove their willingness to abandon hatred and accept what Israel imposes.
Even if the negotiations do not reach this stage, its inclusion in the plan confirms that the United States wants to eliminate the roots of the conflict and absolve Israel of any commitment to Palestinian rights and international laws and norms, since it has refused and continues to refuse to hold Israel accountable for its crimes and to recognize the rights of the Palestinian people. In other words, this view, regardless of who formulated it for Trump, does not recognize or lead to the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, but rather views this right as a favor and gift that Israel has granted to the Palestinian people after they showed good behavior.
Most importantly, our acceptance of the US initiation of interfaith dialogue protects Israel from any legal or international sanctions. Because in that case, the Palestinian issue would become a religious conflict, resolved not on the basis of international law and Security Council resolutions, but through interfaith dialogue.
The attempt to suppress the Palestinian people required a devastating two-year war. When that attempt failed, the American sponsor of the war turned to the sponsor of interfaith dialogue to complete the cycle of imposing the Palestinian people’s surrender, and in this case there would be no need for the International Court of Justice or the International Criminal Court, nor their rulings; For there is “interfaith dialogue that purifies souls and washes away sins”.
The call for interfaith dialogue as a necessity for achieving the desired American peace is nothing new. Such sham dialogues, organized by Zionist and Arab groups willing and able to participate, had begun before, but did not spread and remained largely confined to the United States. The peace treaties between Israel and Egypt and later Jordan, along with the Oslo Accords, were followed by meetings, seminars, and conferences that succeeded in attracting a small number of Arabs, including Palestinians. However, the Abraham Accords, signed in 2020 between Israel, the United Arab Emirates, and a number of other Arab countries, shifted the concept of dialogue and “peace among the children of Abraham” into a completely different realm. Israel and the United States, in cooperation with the United Arab Emirates, have moved to institutionalize and implement this concept and move from political normalization to “mental normalization”.
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But the issue does not end with the acceptance of Israel; it extends to “Israel’s historic and sacred right to the land of Palestine” or any other Arab land. The goal is not simply to have a dialogue, but to institutionalize the concept of “the Abrahamic religions”. This is part of a policy and public statement perhaps best expressed by David Friedman, the former US ambassador to Israel, who called for unity among the followers of the three Abrahamic religions.
He was not talking about unity of rituals and holidays, but rather calling on followers of other religions, even Jews who oppose the existence of Israel, to accept the Zionist regime or state, its expansion, and its domination as a religious duty, and that followers of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam should respect and even defend it. He meant the annexation of the West Bank and Jerusalem (al-Quds) to Israel as a sacred duty, as he declared on April 29, 2024, that any peace plan must be based on the recognition of “Judea and Samaria” (the West Bank) as part of the “Land of Israel”.
This does not mean that Trump’s call for interfaith dialogue is intended to legitimize the annexation of the West Bank. However, initiating interfaith dialogue before any action or arrangement to enable the Palestinian people to exercise their right to self-determination paves the way for the dismantling of all human rights frameworks and strengthens the voice of those who promote the lie of the “Abrahamic Faith”. Former US ambassador Friedman remains close to Trump and a strong ally of his Christian Zionist successor, Mike Huckabee (current US ambassador to Israel).
We cannot accept that the door is opened to a fraudulent scheme called interfaith dialogue, pursued by a US administration that has extremist Zionists in its senior ranks, that claims to seek the right to self-determination for the Palestinian people. This plan is just one of several traps that Hamas was forced to accept under pressure from Arab and international powers to stop the massacre in Gaza. We must be vigilant and thoughtful. The focus must remain on the national and historical rights of the Palestinian people, and we must not fall into the trap of proving the worthiness of the Palestinian people to build a state.
When Zionism and Christian Zionism unite in an Israeli-American alliance, racism takes on very ugly dimensions. The alliance between Zionism and Christian Zionism is not a purely political alliance, but a capitalist alliance that is profiting from the Zionist project. This is a topic that requires a separate and detailed article, but it should be noted that the American plan was not formulated by Trump himself, but by those with strategic thinking. The sequence of data-x-items and steps in this plan is deliberate, and this is not limited to the time when interfaith dialogue began. The hierarchy that leads to Palestinian self-determination begins with steps that are more like preconditions, which is not surprising. The Trump administration was forced to accept the illusion of a Palestinian state because it wanted to end the war.
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The term “interfaith dialogue” in this plan should not be accepted by the Palestinians, nor should the proposed process be treated as promoting humanitarian principles. The plan is full of pitfalls, and this is one of them. However, without a united Palestinian leadership and without distancing ourselves from defeatist and submissive thinking, we will not be able to escape this trap.
The Palestinian people have paid a heavy price for not surrendering to the will of Israel, and the destruction of the Palestinian cause through negotiation mistakes or Trumpian heresies in the name of “interfaith dialogue” is unacceptable.
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