US President Donald Trump may envision himself as a Middle Eastern puppet master only to find out that Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Arab and Muslim leaders have played him.
Even so, it is Hamas and the Palestinians who are likely to hold the bag, not Mr. Trump.
The fact of the matter is that no one in the Middle East and the broader Muslim world sees their interests minimally represented in the US president’s 20-point plan to end the Gaza war, but no regional leader is willing to get on Mr. Trump’s wrong side by telling him so.

US President Donald Trump may envision himself as a Middle Eastern puppet master only to find out that Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Arab and Muslim leaders have played him. Even so, it is Hamas and the Palestinians who are likely to hold the bag, not Mr. Trump. The fact of the matter is that no one in the Middle East and the broader Muslim world sees their interests minimally represented in the US president’s 20-point plan to end the Gaza war, but no regional leader is willing to get on Mr. Trump’s wrong side by telling him so.

Trump’s Gaza plan is a game of bluff poker

Dr. James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, co-director of the University of Würzburg’s Institute for Fan Culture, and co-host of the New Books in Middle Eastern Studies podcast. James is the author of The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer blog, a book with the same title as well as Comparative Political Transitions between Southeast Asia and the Middle East and North Africa, co-authored with Dr. Teresita Cruz-Del Rosario and  Shifting Sands, Essays on Sports and Politics in the Middle East and North Africa.

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Dr. James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, co-director of the University of Würzburg’s Institute for Fan Culture, and co-host of the New Books in Middle Eastern Studies podcast. James is the author of The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer blog, a book with the same title as well as Comparative Political Transitions between Southeast Asia and the Middle East and North Africa, co-authored with Dr. Teresita Cruz-Del Rosario and Shifting Sands, Essays on Sports and Politics in the Middle East and North Africa.

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Trump’s Gaza plan is a game of bluff poker

Trump’s Gaza plan is a game of bluff poker

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