"Over the past year, United States President Donald Trump has pursued peace-making all across the world. A prominent feature of his efforts has been the belief that economic threats or rewards can resolve conflicts. Most recently, his administration has put forward economic development plans as part of peace mediation for Israel's genocidal war on Gaza, the war in Ukraine and the conflict between Israel and Syria."
"In the early 1990s, when the peace process was initiated, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres started advocating for economic peace as part of it. He sold his vision of the New Middle East as a new regional order that would guarantee security and economic development for all. The project aimed to place Israel at the economic centre of the Arab world through regional infrastructure transport, energy and industrial zones. Peres's solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was Palestinian economic integration."
"The Palestinians were promised jobs, investment, and improved living standards. His argument was that economic development and cooperation would foster stability and mutual interest between Israelis and Palestinians. But that did not happen. Instead, as the occupation continued to entrench itself after the US-brokered Oslo Accords and the establishment of the Palestinian Authority (PA), anger in the Palestinian streets grew and eventually led to the outbreak of the second Intifada."
President Donald Trump has promoted economic threats and rewards as tools for peace-making, applying development plans to Gaza, Ukraine's Donbas, and Syria's Golan Heights. The belief that economic incentives can resolve political conflicts mirrors longstanding Western neoliberal peace strategies in the Global South. In the early 1990s Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres promoted economic peace and regional integration, envisioning Israel at the centre of Arab economic infrastructure. Promises of jobs and investment to Palestinians did not produce stability; occupation deepened after Oslo, popular anger increased, and the second Intifada erupted. The neoliberal approach resurfaced under the Quartet and Tony Blair in 2007.
Read at www.aljazeera.com
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