Although Donald Trump is thoroughly unpredictable on many issues, his support for Israel’s government remains firm for now, allowing Binyamin Netanyahu to continue with the devastating war in Gaza.

Israel aims to ethnically cleanse Gaza of its Palestinian population and repopulate it with Jewish settlers, according to work by the Washington-based Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.

A major element of this is already underway, with the Quincy report revealing that the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) has “carved out a nearly one-mile deep ‘buffer zone’ inside Gaza along the border with Israel.

“Almost all economic and residential infrastructure within this region has been demolished and Gazans living and working in the area have been forcibly relocated.”

This area includes much of the agricultural land within Gaza. The land is in the historic ‘fertile crescent’, meaning the potential for new Jewish settlement is high despite all the current destruction.

The plan is popular with Israel’s powerful far-right political elements and, according to the Quincy report, has a measure of support across much wider sectors of the Israeli public.

For now, relocated Palestinians have been moved to overcrowded, insecure and utterly inadequate camps within the Gaza Strip. Conditions are appalling, with frequent air and drone strikes, a rising death toll and shortages of food, water and energy. Medical facilities are minimal, made worse still by the recent air attack on the Ahli Arab Hospital, the last fully functioning hospital in what remains of Gaza City.

Even before the current war, Gaza was essentially a huge open prison. Yet there was a highly motivated local economy, illustrated by a powerful recent report in The Guardian on the experience of three Palestinian women, contrasting what they had done before the war with what remains.

It is unlikely that Israel will decide on any major policy change, even though it is trashing its reputation across much of the world. Considering the worldwide protests over its destruction of Gaza, it may seem surprising that the pro-Israel lobby in the United States remains so effective in ensuring continuing support.

That US support is massive, with the Watson Institute at Brown University reporting that “US spending on Israel’s military operations and related US operations in the region total at least $22.76 billion and counting”.

There are many reasons for this. People outside the US may forget that during the Cold War, Israel was long seen in Washington as a bastion of US security interests. This role retains relevance even a quarter century after the end of the Soviet system, particularly since after 9/11 this position as a ‘bastion’ was largely transferred to the perceived threat from political Islam.

Even in the present situation, there are many American think tanks and lobby groups, such as the Middle East Forum, that maintain outputs of intense pro-Israel analysis, even in the face of deeply controversial actions by the IDF.

Furthermore, perhaps the least recognised but highly significant element is the long-standing impact of Christian Zionism. Supporters of this evangelical perspective believe without question that Israel’s control of the Christian Holy Land is an essential part of God’s plan for the End Days.

Evangelical Christians are more likely to vote in US presidential elections than most Americans and they tend to vote for Republican candidates. They number in the tens of millions and, as such, are an important part of Trump’s support base – making it unlikely that he will do an about-turn on this issue.

So from where else might effective pressure on Israel come? One possibility is a cluster of oil-rich Gulf States, especially Saudi Arabia and the UAE, but they are unlikely to exert significant influence unless they come under direct pressure from within. That is hardly likely given the high levels of control of dissent.

An earlier column focused on whether Keir Starmer’s government in the UK was beginning to tilt against Israel, but any change seems small-scale, and the UK-Israel connections are very deep-seated.

In the absence of intensive pressure on Israel from Western states, the war will continue and probably intensify. This means that Palestinian suffering will endure, and the prospects for peace will remain minimal.

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