On Monday, 13 October, US President Donald Trump addressed Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, to mark the announcement of the Gaza ceasefire deal.
Framed as a celebration of “peace”, the self-congratulatory spectacle quickly became a brazen admission of US complicity in Israel’s genocidal war and an attempt to reassert its dominance in the region.
Standing in a chamber built on stolen Palestinian land, Trump spoke of “victory” as though Israel’s destruction of Gaza were not a human catastrophe but a historic triumph. His words aimed to close the chapter on Palestine, to declare the genocide over, as if a people could be bombed into silence.
But the purpose of his visit went beyond celebration. Trump came to rescue Israel, to lift it from the global isolation it now faces.
In his speech, he claimed: “The world is loving Israel again,” as if the illusion could be spoken into existence and erase the moral outrage of millions. His mission was to restore a crumbling narrative that has allowed the West to defend the indefensible.
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It was the launch of a campaign to salvage Israel’s image, powered by the machinery of western propaganda, misinformation, psychological warfare, and the weaponisation of artificial intelligence and social media to distort perception and bury the truth.
For two years, Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza has not only destroyed a besieged people but has also stripped Israel of its alleged moral standing. Its greatest defeat was not on the battlefield but in the hearts and minds of millions, especially the young, who now stand openly with Palestine.
Trump’s Knesset address was the opening salvo in a new war – not on Gaza but on truth itself, a fight to reclaim the narrative and silence a generation that refuses to forget.
Confession of complicity
During his address, Trump’s praise for Israel soon revealed itself as an open confession of US complicity in its genocide.
In one particularly revealing moment, he boasted: “We make the best weapons in the world, and we have got a lot of them, and we have given a lot to Israel.” With chilling pride, he added: “But you used them well. It also takes people that know how to use them, and you obviously used them very well.”
Trump applauded the two-year-long massacre of a besieged civilian population. Those ‘well-used’ weapons have killed nearly 70,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children
Trump applauded the two-year-long massacre of a besieged civilian population. Those “well-used” weapons have killed nearly 70,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children. Israel has dropped more than 200,000 tonnes of explosives on Gaza, levelling entire neighbourhoods, hospitals, schools and refugee camps.
He spoke of “ending terror”, but he did not mean the terror of siege and starvation, or that of a mother clawing through rubble to find her child. He meant the end of Palestinian resistance, the final surrender of a people who refuse to vanish.
Trump called for Israel’s strength and security, but not for the lives lost beneath its bombs. He spoke of peace, but what he offered was submission: the peace of graves and the silence that follows total devastation.
In a similarly telling moment, Trump’s praise of right-wing megadonor Miriam Adelson and her late husband, Sheldon, was another confession.
Recalling their visits, her billions, and how deeply they “loved Israel”, Trump spoke openly of the financial and political networks that sustain Israeli power and shape US policy.
There was no hint of shame in his tone as he openly embraced what others conceal: the comfort of moneyed influence on US foreign policy and the pride he takes in it.
His appeal to Israeli President Isaac Herzog to pardon Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who faces corruption charges, was another brazen call for impunity.
Display of US dominance
Trump’s address exposed what Washington’s “peace process” has always meant: peace without equality, coexistence without independence, silence in place of justice. It was an American president addressing his favourite garrison state, celebrating a “new Middle East” built on the destruction of Gaza and the graves of its children.
However, this “new Middle East” was more than a slogan; it was a coded message intended for multiple audiences.
To the Arab world, Trump’s words were a demand to reorder the region under US supervision and Israeli management. His vision binds Arab capitals not by solidarity with Palestine, but through security coordination, economic dependency on Washington and normalisation with Israel.
To Iran, the message was equally clear: the door to a “deal” remains open, but only on American terms. Re-entry into the global economy would come at the price of retreat, the abandonment of the axis of resistance that challenges US and Israeli hegemony.
To China and Russia, Trump’s arrival in Jerusalem was a marking of territory, a reminder that the US still views the Middle East as its protectorate. Its energy routes, waterways and reconstruction contracts remain under western control. His speech was not only a pledge to Israel but a warning to Beijing and Moscow to stay out of Washington’s domain.
That same message was echoed at the Sharm el-Sheikh signing ceremony in Egypt that followed the so-called Gaza “deal”. The guest list told the story: alongside normalising Arab states were Japan, Azerbaijan and European allies with no stake in Gaza.
Their presence revealed the Trump administration’s true aim of building a global coalition that upholds American power, not peace. The gathering inaugurated a new architecture of control, designed to secure US imperial interests and contain China’s rise.
The Knesset speech and the Sharm el-Sheikh ceremony were two scenes from the same production – a spectacle meant to reassert US dominance in a world increasingly resisting it.
A generation awakened
But history rarely ends where the empire wants it to.
Across the Arab press, the speech was seen as a display of American arrogance after two years of funding and arming the genocide in Gaza. Columnists also pointed to Trump’s invocation of biblical language to justify Israel’s genocidal violence, and to his wider effort to cement Israeli supremacy, neutralise Palestinian resistance and accelerate normalisation.
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Moreover, Trump’s boast about US weapons was cited as proof that “peace” was being sold through force.
In the West, and especially in the US, something has shifted. The images from Gaza, the unbearable suffering, and the dehumanisation of Palestinians reflected in western media and political discourse have shattered decades of propaganda. Increasingly, polls point to a “sea change” in US opinion on Israel.
The word Palestine is now being spoken across US cities and university campuses with a clarity and courage not seen in generations. From students and artists to clergy and workers, a growing number now recognise what their governments continue to deny: apartheid cannot be disguised as democracy and occupation can never be legitimised as defence.
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Indeed, Trump’s display of dominance has only deepened this moral reckoning. Each time he hails Israel’s annihilation campaign as a “victory”, he forces the world to confront what was destroyed and who still refuses to disappear. His arrogance has become our evidence, his indifference, our rallying cry.
The pro-Palestinian movement in the West still faces vilification and repression, yet what it has gained is irreversible: legitimacy, visibility, and, after two years of a live-streamed genocide, a generation that still refuses to look away.
Trump’s Knesset speech will be remembered for what it revealed: the moment the language of peace was unmasked as the language of power, with millions seeing through it.
From the ashes of Gaza to the camps of Lebanon, from exile to the streets of Chicago and London, our voice endures. It carries a truth no government can outlaw, no parliament can silence, and no propaganda can suppress.
We remain. We speak. And history – real history – marches with us.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
