Trump’s new Middle East has one missing piece: Palestine

Do you remember Condoleezza Rice’s “new Middle East”?

During the 2006 war on Lebanon, Rice spoke as if war could give birth to a new regional order. Twenty years later, Washington seems to be returning to the same dream. Only this time, Donald Trump wants to assemble the pieces himself.

After the war with Iran, Trump wants something “much bigger” in the Middle East. According to recent reports, his administration is working on a post-war strategy built around three ideas: containing Iran, closing the open files left after 7 October, and expanding the Abraham Accords, especially through a possible Saudi-Israeli normalization deal.

At first glance, this looks like a grand strategy. In reality, it is an old map with new labels.

The United States is again trying to build a regional order from above. It wants allies to contain Iran. It wants Gaza, Lebanon and Syria managed through security arrangements. It wants Arab normalization with Israel to continue. And it wants all of this to happen while the Palestinian question is treated as a technical problem, not a political wound.

This is the mistake at the heart of the plan.

Washington wants to “solve” the Middle East without solving Palestine. It wants to close files without addressing the reasons those files remain open. It wants to normalize Israel’s position in the region while leaving Palestinians under occupation, siege, displacement and permanent uncertainty.

This is not strategy. It is avoidance.

The first pillar of the plan is Iran. Washington wants a tighter regional front to contain Tehran. This is not new. Since 1979, every American administration has tried in one way or another to limit Iranian influence through alliances with Gulf states, Egypt, Jordan and Israel. What is different now is the attempt to make this containment more organized, more military, and more directly linked to Israel’s regional position.

But containment after war is not the same as containment before war. The war with Iran did not produce a clean victory. It exposed the weakness of American assumptions. Iran was hit hard, but it was not erased. Its regional networks were damaged, but not destroyed. Its ability to pressure energy routes and regional actors remains a central fact.

So, the question is simple: can Washington build a stable order by treating Iran as the only problem?

The answer is no.

Iran is part of the crisis, but it is not the whole crisis.

The region is not unstable only because of Tehran. It is unstable because of occupation, failed states, foreign interventions, authoritarian bargains, economic collapse and the absence of a just settlement for Palestine.

The second pillar is the attempt to close the files opened after 7 October. This includes Gaza, Israel-Syria security arrangements, and the Israel-Lebanon track. Here again, the language is technical: ceasefire phases, transitional administration, disarmament, security guarantees, border arrangements.

But Gaza is not a technical file. Gaza is a destroyed society. It is a human and political catastrophe. Talking about Gaza only through disarmament and administration avoids the central question: what future do Palestinians have after the destruction?

If reconstruction becomes another tool of control, and if Palestinian political rights are postponed again, then Gaza will not become stable. It will become a pressure cooker under international supervision.

Lebanon and Syria also cannot be reduced to Israeli security needs. Any arrangement that treats Arab states only as buffers for Israel will not create peace. It will create temporary silence, then another explosion.

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The third pillar is the Abraham Accords and the “big prize”: Saudi-Israeli normalization.

This is the dream Washington still refuses to abandon. The idea is simple: if Saudi Arabia normalizes relations with Israel, the region changes. Israel becomes more accepted, Iran becomes more isolated, and the United States can claim a historic diplomatic success.

But normalization cannot erase Palestine.

Saudi Arabia cannot normalize in a vacuum. The Gaza war, settlement expansion, forced displacement, and the collapse of any serious two-state horizon have changed the political environment. Any Arab leader who tries to normalize with Israel while Palestinians remain trapped under destruction and occupation will face a legitimacy problem, even if the agreement brings economic or security benefits.

This is why the Palestinian question keeps returning.

Washington may try to manage it. Israel may try to bury it. Arab governments may try to lower its temperature. But the issue does not disappear, because Palestinians themselves do not disappear.

This is the lesson America refuses to learn.

A regional order cannot be built by bypassing the people most affected by it. You cannot build peace by excluding Palestinians, weakening their institutions, delaying their statehood, and then asking the region to move on.

The plan also depends on Israel itself. Trump appears to need a different Israeli political moment, maybe even a different face in Tel Aviv, to implement his post-war strategy. This reveals another weakness: the entire regional project is still hostage to Israeli domestic politics.

If Netanyahu remains, the plan may collapse under the weight of his wars, his coalition and his need for permanent confrontation. If a new Israeli leadership comes, the language may change, but the question will remain the same: will Israel accept a political solution with Palestinians, or only security management over them?

Without that answer, no American plan will succeed.

The “new Middle East” failed before because it confused force with order. It believed that destroying enemies would automatically create stability. It did not. Iraq did not become a model. Lebanon did not become quiet. Palestine did not disappear. Iran did not collapse.

Now Washington is tempted to repeat the same mistake.

Trump may believe he can redraw the region after the Iran war. But maps drawn in Washington often ignore what people on the ground already know: no regional order can survive if it is built on Palestinian erasure.

The Middle East does not need another American design that protects Israel, contains Iran, and asks Arabs to normalize around an open wound.

It needs a political settlement that begins where every serious peace must begin: with Palestinian rights, sovereignty and freedom.

Without that, Trump’s “something much bigger” will not be a new Middle East.

It will be the old Middle East, rearranged for another round of war.

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The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.