Azra Hoosen | ah@radioislam.co.za
4 April 2025 | 13:00 CAT
4 min read

Former United States President Donald J. Trump is expected to visit the Middle East in May, with Saudi Arabia as the anchor point of his trip. Analysts suggest that this visit could bring about renewed pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to bring an end to the war in Gaza.

Speaking to Radio Islam International, Dr James Dorsey, award-winning scholar, journalist, and senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore, said the logic behind this is tied to massive potential Gulf investments in the United States.

Dorsey suspects Trump is also going to go to Qatar and most probably the United Arab Emirates. “He is going there on the basis of there being at least $2 trillion in potential Saudi and UAE investment in the United States in the coming years in issues like energy and aluminium smelter, artificial intelligence — all the issues that Trump is interested in,” he said.

While Gulf States have not explicitly tied these investments to foreign policy demands, the timing of Trump’s visit is no coincidence. “It is obviously clear that they want the Gaza war to end as quick as possible, and that that is going to be an issue they raise when Trump comes visiting. Clearly, Trump will have to be more attentive to demands to end the war than he has been until now,” he said.

Dr Dorsey noted developments on the ground – the United Arab Emirates is reportedly banking on rising anti-Hamas sentiment in Gaza to strengthen the position of exiled Fatah official Mohammed Dahlan in a potential post-war administration. “Both the UAE and Israel are hoping that the protests that we saw last week — two days of anti-Hamas protests demanding an end to the war, blaming Hamas for what has happened in Gaza over the last eighteen months — may change the tide in the war. It is probably far too premature to say that,” he said.

He pointed out that while resentment against Hamas exists within Gaza, it is unlikely that the group will be entirely sidelined. “What the Emiratis are hoping is that as this plays out, and once you get to a ceasefire and a post-war administration of Gaza that would be made up of Palestinians not necessarily related to either Hamas or the Palestine Authority on the West Bank, that their candidate, Mohammed Dahlan, would potentially play a major role,” Dr Dorsey explained.

According to Dorsey, Dahlan, who was born in Khan Yunus, served as Fatah’s security chief in Gaza until Hamas took over the territory in 2007. A recent statement by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, offering amnesty to Fatah members previously expelled, has opened the door for Dahlan’s return.

On the broader trajectory of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Dr. Dorsey noted a fundamental disconnect in the political evolution of both sides. “If you look at the cycle that we have seen from 1948 to 1967 and even into the 1970s, the Israelis were saying they wanted to have a peaceful resolution and the Palestinians were saying, we want a resolution, but it is not going to be a resolution in which the Israeli state continues to exist,” he explained.

He stated that since the 1970s, and certainly since the 1980s, we have been seeing exactly the opposite. “Israel has moved to the right, has become far more uncompromising, to the point that today it rejects the notion of a two-state solution. On the other hand, you have seen the evolution within the Palestine Liberation Organisation towards recognition of Israel, denunciation of the armed struggle, creation of the Palestine Authority, and even within Hamas since 2017, an evolution away from a one-state towards a two-state solution,” he said.

According to Dorsey, this divergence leaves little room for a peaceful resolution. He believes that, much like Gaza, Iran is expected to be a major talking point during Trump’s Gulf tour, with regional leaders set to dissuade him from taking military action. “During Trump’s first presidency, the Gulf States were not averse to military action against Iran in an effort to take out its nuclear program. What we have seen since is a rapprochement between Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Iran, and other Middle Eastern states in an attempt to essentially not resolve their differences, but freeze and manage their differences so that you get a more stable Middle East,” he said.

With Israel now pushing for military confrontation and Trump issuing fresh threats, the Gulf is hoping to keep tensions at bay. “What the Gulf States are going to tell him is they do not want to see a military conflagration that could drag them into it, disrupt their economic diversification plans, and in fact, make them targets,” said Dr Dorsey.

LISTEN to the full interview with Ml Habib Bobat and Dr James M. Dorsey, here.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dr. James M. Dorsey is an award-winning journalist, scholar, and Senior Fellow at the National University of Singapore’s Middle East Institute. He is the author of ‘The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer’.