By Nikos Mottas
When U.S President Donald Trump addressed the Knesset on October 13, he did not merely deliver a diplomatic speech; he performed a spectacle of power designed to reassert U.S. hegemony in the region under the guise of peace.
His words, wrapped in a language of faith and reconciliation, revealed the fundamental logic of imperialism: domination disguised as partnership, subordination repackaged as sovereignty.
Trump opened his address with grand declarations about “a historic dawn for a new Middle East.” Yet this supposed dawn was nothing more than the spotlight of U.S. capital and arms shining on itself. The speech presented the United States not as one participant in a global community but as the universal arbiter of peace — the judge, financier, and enforcer rolled into one. In this theater, the peoples of the region are not subjects of history but props in a performance directed from Washington. Sovereignty becomes conditional upon compliance; gratitude replaces independence.
President Trump triumphantly proclaimed that “the long and difficult war has now ended,” as if words alone could dissolve structures of occupation, siege and economic strangulation. This narrative is a deliberate deception. The ceasefire has not altered the underlying relations of domination: Gaza remains besieged, reconstruction blocked by bureaucracy and political blackmail and the West Bank continues to bleed under settlement expansion and military rule. Trump’s claim of peace is an ideological maneuver to erase responsibility — to declare victory for imperial diplomacy while silencing the ongoing cries of the oppressed.
In perhaps the most grotesque passages of the speech, Trump cloaked his policy in religious symbolism, speaking of “an age of faith and hope” and “the hand of providence guiding this peace.” This invocation of divine authority functions as ideological armor. It presents his political program — rooted in economic coercion and militarized leverage — as a moral crusade. By blending empire with divinity, Trump converts political power into moral righteousness, rendering opposition not just political but blasphemous. From a Marxist viewpoint, this as the oldest trick in the imperial playbook: the sanctification of domination.
Trump’s effusive praise for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was perhaps the most telling moment of the entire address. He lauded Netanyahu as “a courageous defender of civilization” and “the architect of peace.” Such praise is not merely tasteless — it is obscene. Netanyahu stands accused by international jurists and human-rights investigators of grave war crimes committed during the Gaza campaign, including indiscriminate bombardment and collective punishment. By glorifying a figure stained with such accusations, Trump signaled full endorsement of impunity.
This was not the flattery of ignorance but of solidarity — the solidarity of ruling classes and military elites who recognize in each other the instruments of their shared project: to maintain order through violence and profit through domination. Trump’s embrace of war criminal Netanyahu is therefore not a personal gesture but a class alliance — between American imperial capital and the national bourgeoisie that benefits from occupation. It is a moral and political complicity that exposes the true face of the so-called “peace camp” of imperial diplomacy.
Behind the fanfare of “historic peace” lies the simple truth that the ceasefire is a reset, not a transformation. Trump declared that Israel “won all that it could by force of arms” and that now the time for peace had come. Such language naturalizes conquest as the legitimate path to negotiation; that's the very negation of justice. What he calls "peace" is merely the institutionalization of inequality under U.S. supervision. A genuine peace would dismantle systems of exploitation and restore the rights of those dispossessed; Trump’s peace consecrates the existing order and markets it as progress.
Even within the Knesset, the spectacle of unity was enforced by expulsion. When communist deputies of Hadash, Ayman Odeh and Ofer Cassif, raised placards calling for recognition of Palestinian rights, they were forcibly removed. The scene revealed the hollowness of Trump’s rhetoric about democracy. A parliament that silences its dissenters mirrors the world system that silences entire nations. In that moment, the choreography of applause met the iron discipline of censorship — a microcosm of imperial “peace”: consent through exclusion.
Trump’s pledges of reconstruction and regional partnership were little more than the old neoliberal catechism: build, invest, integrate — but never redistribute. He spoke of “opportunity and prosperity” but offered no means to dismantle the structures of dependency that keep Palestinian society captive to aid and debt. Reconstruction, in his vision, becomes another frontier of profit for contractors and donors, not a process of social liberation. The material basis of oppression — control over land, water, labor, and borders — remains untouched.
Perhaps the most insidious aspect of the speech is what it omits. There was no acknowledgment of the tens of thousands killed and displaced, no recognition of the blockade’s cruelty, no mention of the daily machinery of occupation. The Palestinian people appear in Trump’s narrative only as abstractions — beneficiaries of his benevolence. The absence of their voice is itself a form of violence, erasing the living subjects of struggle and replacing them with a passive silhouette that legitimizes the victor’s story.
Imperial Mediation as the New Colonial Logic
Trump’s posture throughout the address is that of an imperial mediator, the strongman who brings order to a turbulent periphery. The United States, in this script, remains the indispensable power whose approval alone confers legitimacy. It is the logic of neo-colonialism recast for the twenty-first century: domination through “mediation,” control through “cooperation.” The oppressed are invited to thank their oppressors for allowing them to breathe.
Trump’s Knesset speech was not an act of statesmanship but a ceremony of imperial self-congratulation. Beneath the flag-draped language of hope lies the naked calculus of power: preserve the regional order, protect capital flows, reward loyal allies, and suppress resistance. His praise for Netanyahu, his erasure of Palestinian suffering, and his sanctification of the U.S. role as savior all serve one purpose — to maintain the economic and political architecture of domination.
For us, Marxists, the task is clear: to expose this illusion of peace as the continuation of war by other means. True peace will not come from the speeches of billionaires or the handshakes of generals, but from the organized struggle of workers, peasants and oppressed people reclaiming their history and their future. Only when the machinery of imperialism is dismantled will the words “peace” and “justice” cease to be propaganda and become reality.
President Trump triumphantly proclaimed that “the long and difficult war has now ended,” as if words alone could dissolve structures of occupation, siege and economic strangulation. This narrative is a deliberate deception. The ceasefire has not altered the underlying relations of domination: Gaza remains besieged, reconstruction blocked by bureaucracy and political blackmail and the West Bank continues to bleed under settlement expansion and military rule. Trump’s claim of peace is an ideological maneuver to erase responsibility — to declare victory for imperial diplomacy while silencing the ongoing cries of the oppressed.
In perhaps the most grotesque passages of the speech, Trump cloaked his policy in religious symbolism, speaking of “an age of faith and hope” and “the hand of providence guiding this peace.” This invocation of divine authority functions as ideological armor. It presents his political program — rooted in economic coercion and militarized leverage — as a moral crusade. By blending empire with divinity, Trump converts political power into moral righteousness, rendering opposition not just political but blasphemous. From a Marxist viewpoint, this as the oldest trick in the imperial playbook: the sanctification of domination.
Trump’s effusive praise for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was perhaps the most telling moment of the entire address. He lauded Netanyahu as “a courageous defender of civilization” and “the architect of peace.” Such praise is not merely tasteless — it is obscene. Netanyahu stands accused by international jurists and human-rights investigators of grave war crimes committed during the Gaza campaign, including indiscriminate bombardment and collective punishment. By glorifying a figure stained with such accusations, Trump signaled full endorsement of impunity.
This was not the flattery of ignorance but of solidarity — the solidarity of ruling classes and military elites who recognize in each other the instruments of their shared project: to maintain order through violence and profit through domination. Trump’s embrace of war criminal Netanyahu is therefore not a personal gesture but a class alliance — between American imperial capital and the national bourgeoisie that benefits from occupation. It is a moral and political complicity that exposes the true face of the so-called “peace camp” of imperial diplomacy.
Behind the fanfare of “historic peace” lies the simple truth that the ceasefire is a reset, not a transformation. Trump declared that Israel “won all that it could by force of arms” and that now the time for peace had come. Such language naturalizes conquest as the legitimate path to negotiation; that's the very negation of justice. What he calls "peace" is merely the institutionalization of inequality under U.S. supervision. A genuine peace would dismantle systems of exploitation and restore the rights of those dispossessed; Trump’s peace consecrates the existing order and markets it as progress.
Even within the Knesset, the spectacle of unity was enforced by expulsion. When communist deputies of Hadash, Ayman Odeh and Ofer Cassif, raised placards calling for recognition of Palestinian rights, they were forcibly removed. The scene revealed the hollowness of Trump’s rhetoric about democracy. A parliament that silences its dissenters mirrors the world system that silences entire nations. In that moment, the choreography of applause met the iron discipline of censorship — a microcosm of imperial “peace”: consent through exclusion.
Trump’s pledges of reconstruction and regional partnership were little more than the old neoliberal catechism: build, invest, integrate — but never redistribute. He spoke of “opportunity and prosperity” but offered no means to dismantle the structures of dependency that keep Palestinian society captive to aid and debt. Reconstruction, in his vision, becomes another frontier of profit for contractors and donors, not a process of social liberation. The material basis of oppression — control over land, water, labor, and borders — remains untouched.
Perhaps the most insidious aspect of the speech is what it omits. There was no acknowledgment of the tens of thousands killed and displaced, no recognition of the blockade’s cruelty, no mention of the daily machinery of occupation. The Palestinian people appear in Trump’s narrative only as abstractions — beneficiaries of his benevolence. The absence of their voice is itself a form of violence, erasing the living subjects of struggle and replacing them with a passive silhouette that legitimizes the victor’s story.
Imperial Mediation as the New Colonial Logic
Trump’s posture throughout the address is that of an imperial mediator, the strongman who brings order to a turbulent periphery. The United States, in this script, remains the indispensable power whose approval alone confers legitimacy. It is the logic of neo-colonialism recast for the twenty-first century: domination through “mediation,” control through “cooperation.” The oppressed are invited to thank their oppressors for allowing them to breathe.
Trump’s Knesset speech was not an act of statesmanship but a ceremony of imperial self-congratulation. Beneath the flag-draped language of hope lies the naked calculus of power: preserve the regional order, protect capital flows, reward loyal allies, and suppress resistance. His praise for Netanyahu, his erasure of Palestinian suffering, and his sanctification of the U.S. role as savior all serve one purpose — to maintain the economic and political architecture of domination.
For us, Marxists, the task is clear: to expose this illusion of peace as the continuation of war by other means. True peace will not come from the speeches of billionaires or the handshakes of generals, but from the organized struggle of workers, peasants and oppressed people reclaiming their history and their future. Only when the machinery of imperialism is dismantled will the words “peace” and “justice” cease to be propaganda and become reality.
* Nikos Mottas is the Editor-in-Chief of In Defense of Communism.
