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Trump’s Peace and the Palestinian Question: Individualism of 21st Century
Dalal Iriqat
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DOI:10.17265/2328-2134/2026.01.003
Arab American University Palestine, Jenin, Palestine
This paper analyzes the transformation of contemporary peace paradigms in relation to the Palestinian question through the conceptual lens of 21st century individualism, situating recent geopolitical developments within the broader evolution of American political thought. It argues that emerging initiatives—most notably the reconfiguration of the “Deal of the Century” framework into what may be described as the Kushner-Witkoff doctrine—reflect a deeper ideological shift rooted in Trumpist individualism. Rather than advancing a negotiated political settlement grounded in international law and collective rights, these initiatives reconceptualize the Palestinian cause as a technocratic, economic, and security file administered through internationalized managerial structures that exclude legitimate Palestinian representation. The study places this transformation within the intellectual trajectory of individualism from classical liberalism to contemporary populist nationalism. While classical liberal individualism emphasized universal rights, rule of law, limited government, and equality before legal institutions, Trumpist individualism selectively appropriates this language while subordinating its application to nationalist sovereignty, transactional governance, and identity-based politics. This hybrid configuration—combining rhetorical commitment to freedom with selective enforcement and institutional instrumentalization—reshapes both domestic American governance and foreign policy orientations, including approaches to protracted conflicts. Through a comparative analysis of classical liberal principles and policy practices under Trumpism, the paper demonstrates that contemporary peace proposals regarding Gaza and the West Bank reflect a politically mediated form of individualism: Rights are reframed as conditional privileges, sovereignty is recast as executive discretion, and international legal norms are treated as negotiable instruments rather than binding frameworks. In parallel, incremental structural changes in the West Bank—characterized by administrative integration, settlement expansion, and creeping annexation—further erode the territorial and institutional foundations of the two-state paradigm. The paper concludes that sustainable peace cannot emerge from managerial conflict containment or externally engineered governance models that bypass national self-determination. Instead, it requires coherence between liberal principles and their consistent application, reaffirmation of international legal baselines, and restoration of unified Palestinian political agency. Absent such alignment, both the liberal international order and the prospects for a just and durable resolution remain structurally fragile.
individualism, Trumpism, Gaza, American individualism, populism, MAGA
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