Jerusalem – The new United States diplomat, Marco Rubio, faces a dilemma.
To the Secretary of State, he received a couple of seemingly contradictory policy objectives in the Middle East, by a boss who has shown little patience with subordinates who cannot reconcile their own objectives sometimes conflicting.
President Trump has said that he wants to empty the Gaza Strip with the war of its Palestinian residents and create a “Riviera del Middle East.” But few believe that it is compatible with their objective of regional peace anchored by ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia.
Rubio began his first visit to the Middle East in his new position when he met Sunday in Jerusalem with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Subsequently, Rubio and Netanyahu used a similar language to describe the surprising initiative of Gaza, Trump threw himself in the White House earlier this month with the Israeli leader at his side.
“The president has been very bold on his vision of what Gaza's future should be,” Rubio said. Netanyahu, on the other hand, acclaimed Trump's “bold vision for Gaza, for the future of Gaza”.
Trump has continued talking about the plan in recent days, leaving aside the questions not only about his viability in practical terms, but also objections of human rights groups and others that would equal ethnic cleaning.
But Rubio's posterior stops on this tour will take him to the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, which drastically reject the notion of mass displacement of the Palestinians as a means to solve the 16 -month war in Gaza between Israel and the Palestinian Group Militant Hamas, a conflict now arrested for a high fire.
Before the Gaza War, which exploded when Hamas attacked southern Israel on October 7, 2023, Saudi heir prince Mohammed Bin Salman, the facto de facto leader of the kingdom, “could have been willing to do normalization with Israel” Change of sufficient concessions from the United States, according to Aaron David Miller, a Middle East veteran negotiator for Republican and Democratic Administrations.
But now, with the efforts of Trump and Netanyahu to “finally bury” the objective of an independent Palestinian state that would include Gaza, “the price has risen,” Miller wrote in X.
For Netanyahu, Rubio's visit brought a welcome confirmation that the Trump administration shares its goal of eliminating Hamas.
“Hamas cannot continue as a military or government force” after the Gaza War ends, Rubio said. “They must be eliminated. It must be eradicated. “
Even if that could be achieved, the Arab states and even the members of the Israel Security establishment have expressed doubts, there is little agreement on what should happen next.
“Israel, the United States and Arab countries have very different approaches to the broader solution,” wrote analyst Zvi Bar'el in the Haaretz newspaper in Israel.
Trump's burning desire for a general regional agreement that includes standardized relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia dates from his first term as president. He has publicly reflected more than once on the acclamation than such a negotiated agreement in the United States.
But the Arab world has strongly rejected Trump's Gaza Plan. Saudi Arabia says that such regional peace is not possible without a Palestinian State, and that it has been assumed for a long time that Gaza would be an integral part of such an entity.
The Trump administration has heard objections directly, but in private, of King Abdullah II of Jordan, who also walked to the White House and firmly opposes the Palestinian refugees in his country. Jordan already has a large population of descendants of Palestinians who fled or were expelled from their land from the foundation of Israel in 1948.
Rubio's task, then, seems to be maintaining a drum of public praise by Trump's initiative by trying to silence that the president's regional ambitions do not go wrong as a result.
Like other Trump allies, Rubio has tried to issue the president's proposals as a way to break the previous negotiation failures.
Trump is asking for “not the same tired ideas of the past, but something bold and something that frankly took courage and vision to delineate,” Rubio said. “And many may have surprised and surprised many, but what cannot continue is the same cycle in which we will repeat again and again and end in exactly the same place.”
Trump gave a little maneuver margin challenging the Arab states to create their own plan for postwar gaza. On February 27, Egypt will organize an Arab Summit, and there have been conversations about what to offer instead of Trump's call so that the town of the enclave moves.
Meanwhile, Netanyahu has its own agenda: try to emphasize that the United States and Israel share a key objective of reducing Iran's influence.
That is also a complicated effort, because the Israeli leader frequently telegraphy .
After his meeting with Rubio, Netanyahu sought to paint an image of solidarity, saying all the problems that the two discussed, none was more important that they will go.
“Israel and America are shoulder shoulder to counteract the threat of Iran,” said Prime Minister. “We agree that Ayatolás should not be able to have nuclear weapons. We also agreed that Iran's aggression in the region must be retreated. ”
In the last six months, Israel has obtained some impressive military successes against Iranian representatives in the region, including the hits the Chiíta Lebanese Muslim group Hezbollah and killing his leader for a long time, Hassan Nasrallah.
In Gaza, Hamas has weakened a lot, but it is still the dominant actor in the battered enclave, and retains the key leverage in the form of dozens of Israeli hostages he still has.
On Saturday, three more Israeli were released, and the families from those who remain alive in captivity, or whose bodies are still in the hands of Hamas, are desperately trying to prevent Netanyahu from abandoning the high fire, even in an initial phase that must be to conclude in early March.
Netyahu consistently accredits Trump for the releases that have taken place so far under the truce of almost a month, an agreement that was mainly expelled under Trump's predecessor, Joe Biden, although sometimes the rhetoric of the leader of the United States He has advanced Israeli leader and Israeli military plans.
Last week, Trump demanded the release of all the remaining Israeli hostages, stating that “hell” would be unleashed if they were not given on Saturday.
But the day arrived and it was only with the three releases ordered by the terms of high fire.
King reported from Jerusalem and Wilkinson from Washington.
