24 Donald Trump and the Palestinians Donald Trump’s first term in the White House was seen as a disaster for the Palestinians. This concept applies to all currents of Palestinian society, including the PLO, as well as the Iranian proxy organizations that operate within Palestinian society, Islamic Jihad and Hamas. The Trump administration was considered sympathetic to Israel and close to the views of the Israeli right. Trump transferred the American embassy to Jerusalem on May 14, 2018 (a symbolic date related to Israeli Independence Day), and also halted funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA) in September 2018. The stopping of UNRWA funding was meant to pressure Palestinian leadership to agree to the president’s peace vision, which he called the “Deal of the Century”. “I stopped massive amounts of money that we were paying to the Palestinians. We’re not paying until you make a deal,” Trump declared in September 2018. The Palestinians did not agree to the deal and opposed all other American proposals during Trump’s presidency. It is therefore hardly surprising to see mainly hostile reactions to his election among the Palestinians. Trump’s reelection forces the leadership of the Palestinian Authority, led byMahmoudAbbas, to try to open a new page in their relationship with him and avoid the mistakes of the past Lt. Col. (res.) Dr. Shaul Bartal is a senior researcher at the BESA Center. His research is focused on the Israeli-Arab conflict and Tunisian politics.
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