Are we at a Turning Point? Trump, Israel, and America’s Endless Wars

As I write this Trump is lashing out at Israel in a way that no U.S. president ever has, saying they “don’t know what the fuck they’re doing” and stating the simple fact that they have violated the ceasefire he announced on his social media platform. Iran is also stating that Israel has broken the temporary truce announced by Trump, with the Mehr and ISNA news agencies saying there have been explosions in Babol and Babolsar cities in Mazandaran. The initial announcement by the U.S. president, which seemed to many to be tenuous at best, and a farce at worst, appears to have collapsed before it ever held.

The source of this immediate disintegration of the ceasefire is Israel, who clearly never wanted peace to begin with. Trump is now face to face with the reality that Israel is the belligerent in the region, attacking Syria and Lebanon and Iran all while never ceasing their genocide in Gaza and constantly and illegally encroaching further into the West Bank.

For his many flaws, Trump’s approach to politics sometimes brings contradictions into focus, and here he has brought the global mainstream conversation face to face with having to admit the simple basic truth, that no U.S. administration has confronted in decades: Israel is the primary source of violence and conflict across the Middle East.

All of this is not to say that Trump will suddenly hold Netanyahu and the Israeli government to account, but rather that he is now at a crossroads with the dominant Western narrative. We have reached a point, collectively, of the status quo no longer being tenable. The genocide in Gaza and the norm of endless war have collided with rapidly changing perceptions brought about by a shifting media landscape and by decades of organizing and dialogue by Palestinians, anti-Zionists across the world, peace activists and more. And Trump somehow finds himself operating near the center of this collision. He can either be embarrassed and dogwalked by genocidaires, or take material action to hold them to task. That has always been the calculus, under both parties. And in recent years both Biden and Trump have thus far chosen to willingly be undercut on the global stage rather than take any material action to halt Israel.

This calculation comes from the power of AIPAC, from the massive Christian Zionist lobby, from the way presidents and others have internalized Zionist propaganda, and above all from the typical convergence of interests where Israel’s constant violence aligns with, and is a tool of, the interests of the U.S. empire and the military-industrial complex. But we might be seeing something different right now. It’s too early to tell how intent Trump is on curbing Israel, although his recent public statements do deviate from his predecessors.

But what’s really different is public sentiment. The U.S. public is deeply fed up with endless war in the Middle East. It’s a sea change from 22 years ago where a few weak lies were enough to get Americans riled up about invading Iraq under false pretenses. We’re in a different era, and that may mean an opportunity for peace presenting itself.

So many of us remember the Islamophobia and bloodlust that swept the U.S. after 9/11. It wasn’t just a “natural” reaction to the attack, it was a deliberately manufactured fervor, a whipping up of hatred and anger and violence. It led to two endless and disastrous wars, and between 4-5 million people dead in the fundamentally dishonest “war on terror”.

But twenty years of those wars did change minds. Trillions were spent, civilians killed, soldiers died and lost limbs all for nothing. No good came from 20 years of slaughter, as the anti-war camp claimed from the beginning. Today staying away from endless wars is such a popular sentiment that Trump vaguely ran on it. Serious people never trusted him, but if that man has one skill it’s seeing which way the wind is blowing. He and his camp know what polling confirms: war is unpopular. Israel’s genocide is similarly unpopular. So the idea of going to war with Iran for Israel is, unsurprisingly, supported by only a tiny fraction of the population.

That doesn’t mean the efforts to manufacture consent didn’t come around again, of course. Trump world briefly tried to convince people that we needed to bomb Iran’s nuclear sites, and CNN, Fox, and other outlets gleefully took up the charge. Anderson Cooper, in his element, preached the virtue of bombing yet another nation in the Middle East. The calls for regime change (we need to bomb Iran to save the women of Iran!) rang out across the airwaves for a moment. But most people didn’t bite. Some Republicans rapidly followed their leader, like they always do, but most people stuck to their position.

Despite the efforts of Zionists and propaganda outlets, people are tired of endless war.

And people are sick of genocide. The impact of seeing amputee children on our phones, something that was not happening when the U.S. bombed and invaded Iraq 22 years ago, is immeasurable. The impact of independent media and critical, thoughtful, political alternatives to the corporate outlets and their narrative have had a profound impact on these conversations. Deep in our souls, with deep anger and conviction, millions and millions of people across the United States have rejected Israel, have rejected the logic of Zionism, have grown deeply sickened by the genocide Israel is carrying out. Public opinion, once firmly behind the state of Israel because of a lopsided and dishonest narrative and media environment and political establishment, has seen the truth and rejected the false story we’ve been fed.

I have no faith in Trump. His comments about Israel could mean something, or they could mean nothing. Any meaningful change can only be measured through action. But it matters that the people no longer consent to war. It matters that the majority of this country doesn’t consent to genocide. Authoritarians, and all governments, find themselves on dangerous footing when they try to act without the consent of the people.

Now it’s up to us to take this opposition to war and violence and sending bombs and money to Israel and turn it into tangible actions. It’s up to us to build pressure and build power. It’s up to us to stand against the military-industrial complex and take away the massive power they currently hold. It’s up to us to make noise, to build alternatives, to create new media ecosystems, tell new stories, and forge a way out of the status quo of violence. But now the people are with us, and we can move forward with that knowledge, and with the power lent to us by millions of people opposed to endless war.