Oil on the Raging Waves

The Illusion of Pacification in Donald Trump’s Politics

Analytical Essay

(Translated from the article published in Russian on the website Kontinentusa.com)

By YAKOV FAITELSON

October 31, 2025

Иллюстрация: kontinentusa.com / AI

In the era of sailing ships, sailors caught in a storm near a bay entrance sometimes resorted to an unusual method: they would pour oil onto the water’s surface.

A thin film of oil would momentarily smooth the waves, create an illusion of calm and allow the ship to enter the harbor. But as soon as the oil dispersed, the sea would surge again with even greater fury, threatening to destroy the vessel that had barely escaped danger.

This ancient maritime practice aptly reflects the political thinking of President Donald Trump. Like the sailors trying to tame the elements for a moment, Trump seeks to calm conflicts through quick, spectacular solutions—guided by the logic and experience of business negotiations.

His diplomatic initiatives in the Middle East—aimed at resolving the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and stabilizing Gaza, or improving relations between Russia and Ukraine—are primarily attempts based on the concept of a “fast deal,” familiar from the business world, where every party seeks its own benefit but is willing to compromise.

The so-called Abraham Accords, brokered under Trump’s leadership to normalize relations between Israel and several Muslim nations, indeed created the impression of political calm. But it was only a thin layer of oil on raging waves—it did not change the underlying currents. Ideological wars, where faith, national identity, and a sense of historical destiny are at stake, cannot be resolved through businesslike bargaining; economics is powerless in such situations. Just as oil suppresses only surface ripples without touching deep currents, “deal diplomacy” cannot transform centuries of hatred into genuine reconciliation.

The 20th century has already shown what happens when deep contradictions are smoothed over without being overcome. A conflict subdued by a temporary peace treaty soon returns in a new, more dangerous form. A vivid example is the Lausanne Treaty of 1923 between Greece and Turkey, which achieved stability on most issues except for the status of Cyprus.

The unresolved Cyprus question resulted from British policy: Britain took control of the island and, instead of carrying out the agreed transfer of the Turkish minority, allowed those who renounced Turkish citizenship and accepted British nationality to remain.

In 1960, Cyprus declared independence from Britain. In 1974, Turkish forces invaded, captured the northern part—where Turks formed the majority—and carried out ethnic cleansing of the Greek population.

The illusion of “appeasement” in the 1930s led not to the “Peace for our time” proclaimed by British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain on September 30, 1938, after he and French Prime Minister Daladier signed the Munich Agreement with Nazi Germany (betraying Czechoslovakia), but to the catastrophe of World War II.

The image of sailors pouring oil on raging waves becomes a metaphor for a false sense of peace. It warns: peace built on illusion is more dangerous than open war. Every diplomatic compromise that fails to eliminate the causes of hatred and fanaticism is only a thin film on the ocean’s surface, whose waves are ready to rise again and sweep away those who believed in false tranquility.

True peace between nations comes not when the foam on the surface is stilled, but when the wind itself changes—when the spiritual, cultural, and moral foundations of enmity are transformed. Until that happens, any diplomatic “calm” will remain a deceptive lull before a new, more destructive storm.

A far more reasonable approach would be to draw on examples where the roots of similar conflicts were effectively resolved as was the case with Nazi Germany and imperial Japan. Israel should be allowed to decisively and swiftly repeat the experience of the Six-Day War, to finish off Hamas, and to establish a civil administration in Gaza adapted to the new reality.

Following President Trump’s proposal, the international community should have responded to the desire of most Gazans to leave the overcrowded enclave for other countries where many of their relatives and acquaintances already live. It would be fairer to assist their resettlement primarily in countries that supported Hamas all these years—Turkey and Qatar.

Turkey, home to about 30,000 Palestinians (many from Gaza), had even planned to resettle 250,000 Gaza refugees in southeastern regions of the country and in Northern Cyprus, which Turkey has occupied since 1974.

However, it would be far more logical to resettle the Gaza refugees in Qatar. Qatar’s territory, 11,581 km², is 10% larger than Lebanon’s and 32 times larger than the Gaza Strip. Its GDP in 2024 was estimated at $ 317.064 billion, making it the world’s third-largest holder of natural gas reserves and the sixth-largest exporter. Qatar’s population is approximately 2.55 million, of whom only 300,000 (11.6%) are citizens; the remaining 88.4% are foreign workers, primarily from India (24%), Arab countries (15%), and Southeast Asia. Notably, among Qatar’s total population, only about 590,953 are women.

Given these figures, Qatar could easily replace some of its foreign workforce with compatriots from Gaza—people who share the same religion and language as the Qatari natives.

Another possible destination for resettlement is Russia. On November 1, 2023, a petition signed by more than 40,000 residents of Dagestan was presented to President Putin, asking for assistance in evacuating refugees from Gaza to Russia. The petition stated, among other things:

“We have many villages that are empty because people have moved to cities. Many are willing to provide their homes. By resettling refugees, we will help both them and our country by developing agriculture. We are ready to live alongside them, to create jobs, and provide any assistance needed. Given the cultural and religious similarity, Palestinian refugees will easily integrate into the Caucasian community and benefit our nation.”

On November 25, 2023, the first group of Gazan refugees arrived in Dagestan, as reported by the republic’s head Sergey Melikov. By December 1, 2023, over 500 Palestinian refugees had arrived in Russia, with reported arrivals in Chechnya, Dagestan, Tatarstan, Kaluga, Chelyabinsk, and the Krasnodar Territory. According to a report dated June 22, 2024, Russia was prepared to accept up to 43,000 Palestinian refugees and had allocated funds for six months of temporary accommodation.

The demographic issue raised by Dagestan’s residents is relevant to much of Russia. As The Economist reported on March 4, 2023, Russia is undergoing a “demographic tragedy”: between 2020 and 2022, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine, and emigration, the population loss exceeded normal levels by approximately 2 million. Life expectancy for 15-year-old males dropped by nearly five years, to the level of Haiti. By April 2022, the birth rate had returned to a comparable level to that during the German occupation. Due to mobilization and emigration, there were 10 million more women than men.

A labor shortage was predicted by 2025, with the working-age population expected to decline by 12% by 2030 and by over 26 million by 2050. Thus, Russia could actually benefit from accepting Palestinian refugees—helping both the refugees and its own economy.

As for the territory of Gaza itself, Trump once proposed transforming it into a kind of Riviera. Once Israel liberates the entire area, it could rebuild the 22 destroyed Jewish settlements and turn Gaza City into its third major Mediterranean port. By this action, Israel would revive the earlier idea of building the port city of Yamit, begun under Yitzhak Rabin’s government but handed over to Egypt and demolished by Ariel Sharon following Menachem Begin’s peace agreement.

If such initiatives gain support from the Israeli government with Trump’s help, they could lead not only to the emergence of an “Israeli Riviera” in Gaza and the resolution of the refugee issue, but also to a new regional reality—just as, after World War II, 15 million German refugees from Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Russia resettled in Germany.

One may expect that the resettlement of Gaza’s population could eventually make relations between Israel, and its Arab neighbors resemble those between today’s Czechia, Poland, and Russia on one side—and Germany on the other.