By Khalil Abu Shammala

Mr. President:

Palestinians don’t pay much attention to presidential elections in any country, but they are always keenly following the presidential elections in the United States and the candidates’ campaign platforms. They believe that their prospects depend on the U.S. administration’s positions on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and they believe that the key to resolving this conflict lies with no country other than the United States.

We followed the competition between you and former President Biden, and we listened to the criticisms you directed at the previous administration’s policy, whether in its positions on the war between Russia and Ukraine, or the war in Gaza. I will not hide from you a secret when I tell you that most Palestinians were optimistic and even hoped that you would win the elections after they heard your electoral platform and your statements about what is happening in Gaza, and many of them expressed their admiration for your frankness and commitment to implementing the slogans you announced.

Most Palestinians were optimistic and even hoped that you would win the elections after they heard your electoral platform and your statements about what is happening in Gaza.

Mr. President, the Palestinians are not asking you to support or sympathize with them because they are Palestinians, nor are they asking you to stop supporting Israel. This is an American policy and an American affair in which no one has the right to interfere. But they are asking you to recognize them and their rights, as stipulated by international resolutions and recognized by the international community. No other American president has had the courage to do this.

The Palestinians expected that your first decision upon arriving at the White House would be to stop the war on Gaza, to stop the genocide that began on October 7, 2023, and to protect children, women and civilians in general as President Biden had proved too weak to do so. The Palestinians’ hopes were raised when they learned that you aspired to win the Nobel Peace Prize, which is awarded to those who contribute to achieving peace and intervene to stop conflicts in which civilians and innocents are victims.

Mr. President, you have declared your desire to transform Gaza into a model region for tourism and the economy, due to its geographical location, which qualifies it to become such a project if the necessary resources are available and investors are attracted. However, in order to implement this project in practice, you set a condition: the displacement of the indigenous population to countries willing to host Palestinians. This whetted the appetite of Israeli government leaders to adopt what you said and they consider it the ideal solution to get rid of the Palestinians in Gaza.

A rescuer looks on amid debris in the aftermath of Israeli strikes, in Gaza City, October 11, 2023. – Photo by Reuters

“You do not need to displace Palestinians so that they become a burden on countries they know nothing about.”

Mr. President, your new administration has put forward a proposal known as the American plan for distributing food to the population of Gaza. This is an acknowledgment on your part that the people of Gaza need the entry of aid, which has been halted since the beginning of March. The Gaza Strip is now suffering from a real famine, the price of which is being paid by civilians —children, women, youth, the elderly and even the sick. The plan requires the entry of specific quantities of food, measured in calories, that a person needs to survive.

Mr. President, if you have good intentions toward Gaza, you can transform Gaza into a model city, encourage investment and rely on its indigenous population to create job opportunities in these projects. You can empower Palestinians to live with dignity, allowing each person to focus on their own affairs and those of their families, and achieving better living conditions. Perhaps you know that Palestinians are creative in the fields of construction, economics and science, and they will add value to the global production wheel. You do not need to displace Palestinians so that they become a burden on countries they know nothing about.

Mr. President, you do not need to raise funds for a food distribution plan, which is unrealistic and does not meet the needs of citizens. Rather, it will leave more than two million Palestinians dependent solely on food aid provided to them. This will strain the budgets of the contributing countries and perhaps even the treasury of the United States, which is the proponent of the plan. Instead of this plan, I urge you to allow the opening of the crossings, allow the entry of goods and aid and encourage Palestinians to take care of their own affairs, including local agriculture and fishing, and develop their lives at the individual and societal levels.

“We Palestinians do not approve of Israel limiting the quantity of our food and counting the number of calories contained in a single meal.”

Mr. President, I write to you after having not eaten meat or a protein-rich meal for over two months. This is the same situation that all residents of Gaza are suffering. You can imagine the components of milk for a nursing mother, just as you can imagine the health conditions resulting from malnutrition due to the siege, closure, and the use of food as a weapon of collective punishment against Palestinians.

Mr. President, you have stated on more than one occasion that the Palestinians deserve better than the reality they are living in. We thank you for this understanding and approach, and I call on you to contribute to achieving the best for us by recognizing our rights in accordance with United Nations resolutions, and nothing more.

Mr. President, this is a moment of truth and testing. You may win the Nobel Peace Prize, but it will remain a prize that many others have won before. What will remain in people’s memories are the positions and steps that history will record for you, in achieving justice, stopping war, killing, starvation and genocide, and paving the way for Palestinians to continue living and producing, free from all forms of conflict. We Palestinians love peace, we love life, we love science and we love creativity.

With your support, instead of the Democrats’ weakness, we can achieve a better future and join the community of nations. This will not be easy as an independent presidential path will have detractors. But I believe you may well have the fortitude and independence that all your predecessors lacked to secure a Palestinian state based on international law and common sense. I encourage you to secure that future before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lays waste to that vision both in Gaza and the West Bank.

— Khalil Abu Shammala is a media advisor, former director of the AL-Dameer Association for Human rights and former head of the Palestinian non-governmental organizations network PNGO.