US President Donald Trump continues to raise eyebrows as he doubles down on his plans for Gaza. He now envisions the US playing a long-term role, which he calls “ownership,” and says it will bring stability.
The decision did not come lightly, Trump said, adding that he has discussed it with others and believes he has support for it.
Trump is advancing his ideas on Gaza and expanding them. The idea about Gazans leaving temporarily or developing Gaza into some kind of beachfront property is not exactly new, but he has added pieces to the puzzle of his doctrine with these latest comments.
Trump says he has seen Gaza from “every angle.” In the past, he has described it as a demolition site. “If the US can help to bring stability and peace in the Middle East, we will do that,” he said.
Trump has floated several parts of his plan. One part of it is that Gazans would leave and “wouldn’t want to return.” His point is that at the moment, no one can live in Gaza and be happy.
He hopes that Jordan or Egypt might take the Gazans and suggested in a sit-down with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the Gazans would be moved to several places abroad, where good housing would be built for them.
If this doesn’t happen, Trump said, then the conflict that has existed in Gaza for decades would continue “again and again.”
Trump is gambling that the countries he wants to accept the Gazans will not refuse. Some 1.7 million or more Gazans could be resettled, he said, because in Gaza, they have to worry about dying every day, and they will be willing to move.
“The best way to do it is you go out and get beautiful open areas, and you build something nice,” he said. “They are not going to want to go back to Gaza.”
The numerous ideas floated by Trump on Tuesday are sure to raise eyebrows. This is a hallmark of his doctrine. It is similar to how he discussed taking over Greenland or his views about the Panama Canal. It’s also how he was willing to throw down the gauntlet of tariffs with Canada and Mexico.
Trump is used to floating a radical idea and also following it up with policy. He usually asks for more than he thinks he will get, however, so when a deal is reached, he receives what he really wants.
The current discussion about Gaza has shifted a bit in recent weeks. It has gone from a concept of moving Palestinians temporarily to Egypt or Jordan to more solid discussions about the US playing a long-term role in Gaza.
“The US will take over the Gaza Strip, and we will do a [good] job with it too,” Trump said. The plan is that the US can help foster economic opportunity and development. Other countries in the region could pay for it, he said.
What is Trump's plan?
LET’S TRY to unpack what the Trump plan is. He initially said after his inauguration that Gaza was a “demolition site.” This came after he sent envoy Steve Witkoff to secure a hostage deal that ended the fighting in Gaza.
On January 26, six days after his inauguration, Trump said: “You’re talking about a million and a half people, and we just clean out that whole thing.”
“I don’t know, something has to happen, but it’s literally a demolition site right now,” he said at the time. “Almost everything’s demolished, and people are dying there, so I’d rather get involved with some of the Arab nations and build housing in a different location, where I think they could maybe live in peace for a change.”
The movement of Gazans could be temporary or long-term, he said at the time.
Jordan and Egypt have pushed back on the Trump plan over the last two weeks. Gaza could be rebuilt “without the Palestinians leaving the Gaza Strip, especially given their attachment to their land and their refusal to leave it,” Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty said. Saudi Arabia has said it continues to support a Palestinian state.
It is clear that Trump is proposing a radical break from the past. The idea of moving 1.7 million people would be incredibly difficult, even if countries wanted to take them. Even in peacetime, this isn’t easy.
That doesn’t mean in modern history there have not been large movements of people that have appeared to be semi-successful. Up to 15 million Germans and German speakers fled areas in Eastern Europe at the end of World War II. They left areas in Poland, the Czech Republic, the Baltic states, Russia, and other countries.
This was seen as a way to create defined borders and some kind of closure after the 1930s, when Germany sought to expand into countries and take over areas where German minorities lived. According to others, it was revenge for the war. Either way, the people moved and, in general, were resettled successfully.
There are also examples of people moving temporarily during wartime. In the battle for Mosul during the ISIS occupation of the city from 2014-2017, for instance, many local residents had to flee to IDP (internally displaced person) camps.
Iraq helped them flee. When the battle was over, the people were able to return to Mosul. This happened slowly, but in many cases, it appears to have happened successfully.
Gaza is not Mosul, and it is not the Sudetenland, which had been a German-speaking area in the Czech Republic. The question is whether Trump’s thinking about this goes back to discussions about WWII.
Netanyahu has channeled comparisons with WWII in the past to explain his views of this current war. He has questioned critique of the bombing of Gaza by citing how the Western powers carpet-bombed Germany.
Is the theory now that reconstruction of Gaza will be some kind of Marshall Plan pushed by the US but funded by others? It is not clear.
What is clear, however, is that Trump has continued to double down on this idea. He hasn’t walked it back. In fact, each time Trump discusses it, he expands the US role and his ideas about how it will happen.