Western powers are complicit in crimes against humanity in Gaza

Military aid to Israel

According to the Costs of War Project, which tracks US military aid and expenditure, since the war began in October 2023, the US has provided Israel $22.76 billion in military assistance. In January 2025, Trump authorized the release of 1,800 MK-84 bombs (2,000-lb weapons) that the Biden administration had previously withheld as a protest against Israel's actions in Rafah.

Instead of realizing that this heinous Gaza war only reinforces the idea that only a two-state solution would end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Trump offered to take over Gaza and build a 'luxury riviera', which would only perpetuate the deadly Israeli-Palestinian conflict for another generation.

Instead of disabusing Netanyahu and his government of the notion of planning to rebuild new Jewish settlements in Gaza, Trump has been pushing the idea of relocating the Palestinians to a third country. This is nothing but music to Netanyahu's ear, praising Trump for his "ingenuity" because nothing will quench Netanyahu and his government's appetite more than seizing more Palestinian land and getting rid of the Palestinians once and for all.

Instead of insisting on an immediate ceasefire and developing a clear exit strategy from Gaza, Trump is still tiptoeing around, careful not to antagonize his political base, especially the evangelicals. For these religiously devout Christians, Israel can do no wrong, even though thousands of innocent women and children have been killed and hundreds more are added weekly to the roster of the dead, while Netanyahu is destroying what's left of Gaza's infrastructure to render it unlivable.

Now, the Netanyahu government is forcibly displacing the Palestinians in Gaza to the south and building a concentration camp on top of the ruins of Rafah. From there, the government is planning to commit a total ethnic cleansing by exiling the Palestinians to a third country. Yes, another Nakba (catastrophe), à la 1948, is in the making.

Trump Can End the War If He Wills It

Trump's focus on a ceasefire as a first step is imperative and immediately needed, but it must only be a first step. He must make it unequivocally clear to Netanyahu that, during the cessation of hostilities, he must develop and submit an exit strategy from Gaza. The war must stop and cannot be resumed under any circumstances, and the flow of humanitarian assistance must begin immediately in sufficient quantities to prevent mass starvation.

Yes, given Israel's dependence on the US on a host of issues, including political cover, economic assistance, and military aid, Trump is in a position not to ask but to demand that Netanyahu adhere to the US' demand to end this horrifying war, the ultimate consequences of which are hard even to imagine.

Trump, who is clamoring to win a Nobel Peace Prize, is facing a crossroad. At the first road, remaining silent in the face of this pending catastrophe. He will be complicit, before the law, in the war crimes being committed in Gaza. The other road could potentially help him to realize his dream by ending the war in Gaza and beginning an Israeli-Palestinian peace process that would lead to the only viable solution-a two-state solution.

Will he rise to the occasion and do what all of his predecessors failed to achieve?