Trump and Hugo’s tilted “Justice” in “Les Misérables”

“A poor boy steals a loaf of bread” to fight starvation. The tilted justice sends him to prison where he could "eat for free". This surreal scene triggered Victor Hugo’s timeless gem “Les Misérables” back in mid-19 century.

Today, US President Donald Trump’s whimsical stunt to force the migration of war-stricken Gazans revives a tailored “Justice” on earth, where the victims must bear the brunt of the culprit’s genocide.

Recipe for regional upheaval 

Trump appears bent on shifting the penalty of the longest occupation in recent history from the myopic rightwing rulers of Israel to Jordan and Egypt; Washington’s strategic bedrock allies in this volatile region. Moreover, they are virtually amongst the rare stable countries outside the Gulf States orbit, and the only two Arab states bound by peace treaties with Israel. 

Trump’s seemingly off-the-cuff statement during his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is a recipe for turmoil across the region. 

It recalls a similar slide in US foreign policy back in 2004, when Republican President George W. Bush pledged a serious of anti-peace concessions and far-fetched “guarantees” to Israeli Prime Minister then Ariel Sharon. 

Crisis management 

His Majesty King Abdullah rushed to contain the damage then by prodding the Bush Administration into reconsidering his irrational statement. The King cautioned the US that any oversight to the peace pillars rooted in international legitimacy would set the region on fire.       

Bush retracted his statement and took part in Aqaba summit – with Egyptian, Palestinian and Israeli leaders – under the King’s auspices. The summit put the peace process back on track then - with the creation of a quadripartite committee - until Netanyahu’s destructive policies drove the region again into a deadly stalemate.  

The King asked the US Administration then for “guarantees” that Sharon’s declared plan to withdraw from Gaza and evacuate trivial West Bank settlements must be part of a roadmap towards the creation of Palestinian state alongside Israel.

Reminiscence

The King is due to present Jordan’s strong argument when he meets Trump on February 11, for the first time since mid-2018. Armed with his in-depth networking with the deep state policy-making circles, King Abdullah is expected to explain the repercussions of evicting 2 million bereaved Gazans from their homeland, 70 per cent of them already the grandchildren of refugees chased away from their Palestinian towns and villages back in 1948 and beyond. 

King Abdulllah lands in Washington with a collective Arab stance, having coordinated steps notably with Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, Kuwait and the Palestinian Authorities.

The Arab voice alerts Trump to the risk of irreversible mayhem across the shaky region should he insist on relocating the indigenous people of Palestine.

Damage control

The deep state in the US has rushed to alleviate the shocking reverberations of Trump’s remarks across a region steeped in instability for decades.

Secretary of State Mike Rubio and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt sought to explain that the planned deportation of Gazans would only be “temporary.” 

Leavitt argued “it is evil to suggest that people (of Gaza) should live in such dire conditions." 

She must have forgotten, however, how Gaza turned into "a demolition site" – in her words – after Israel showered this densely-populated strip of 340 km2 with heavy US bombs for 15 months.  

Secretary of State Marco Rubio attempted to walk back Trump’s bombshell by explaining Wednesday: Gazans would live somewhere else in the “interim” as the enclave is rebuilt.

“Interim?” “Temporarily?” 

Are you folks joking at the White House and the State Department? 

Irreversible schemes 

A few months after the West Bank fell under Israeli Occupation in 1967, a bitter Prince Hassan Ben Talal – Crown Prince then – protested against setting up a Palestinian Camp in Beqaa, the richest water basin in central Jordan. 

“It is only temporarily, as the refugees/ displaced will return to their homeland in a few weeks,” came the hideous answer from Western and UN officials then. 

After nearly six decades, Beqaa camp has swelled to a quarter million dwellers; the third or fourth generations of the uprooted Palestinians.

Similar circumstances surround the hosting of 1.5 million Syrian refugees on rich water basins; Za’atri and Azraq. 

Two months after the downfall of the Assad Regime, only 20 thousand of the Syrians opted to return.     

Decades of lies and procrastinations have submerged this region into endless cycles of violence and instability.  

Yet, peoples of the region still chase a phantom on the hope of final peace and stability, as much as “les Misérables” seek real justice in Hugo’s iconic novel.