President Donald Trump on Tuesday proposed that the United States take a “long-term ownership position” over Gaza, moving its residents to a “good, fresh, beautiful piece of land” in another country and developing the war-torn territory under US control, offering a vision of mass displacement likely to inflame sentiments in the Arab world.
Trump’s proposal, which he offered as he welcomed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the White House, was likely to provoke a furious reaction from many Palestinians as well as their Arab allies in the region, since it suggested permanently removing Gaza’s 2.2 million residents from Palestinian territory and settling them outside of their land. It would also pull the United States even more deeply into the conflict by taking over territory that belongs to Palestinians.
The idea was a first indicator of Trump’s swaggering approach to the region, as he waded into a generations-old conflict with the assurance that he could resolve what years of efforts by US diplomats have failed to accomplish. His proposal appeared to give little consideration to what Palestinians have said they want.
“I don’t think people should be going back to Gaza. I think that Gaza has been very unlucky for them,” Trump said. “They’ve lived like hell. They lived like you’re living in hell. Gaza is not a place for people to be living, and the only reason they want to go back, and I believe this strongly, is because they have no alternative.”
Gazan residents generally want to stay on their land. Trump did not specify where the new land for Gazans might be found, although he made his comments after repeating his desire for Egypt and Jordan to take in Gaza’s residents. Nor did he appear to grapple with the many Gazan residents who would not want to depart their home territory, nor with the practicalities of potentially forcing them to leave it.
“I do see a long-term ownership position, and I see it bringing great stability to that part of the Middle East, and maybe the entire Middle East,” Trump said.
Asked if US troops would be deployed to take over Gaza, Trump said that “we’ll do what’s necessary. … We’ll take it over and develop it.”
Netanyahu said that he was open to the idea.
“He sees a different future for that piece of land,” Netanyahu said of Trump’s proposal for the United States to take over Gaza.
“It’s worth paying attention to this. We’re talking about it,” he added. “It’s something that could change history.”
Ahead of the meetings with Netanyahu on Tuesday, Trump said he believed Palestinians in Gaza did not have a future there.
“Look, the Gaza thing has not worked. It’s never worked,” Trump told reporters. “I think they should get a good, fresh, beautiful piece of land, and we get some people to put up the money to build it and make it nice and make it habitable and enjoyable.”
The president, who said he will visit Gaza, suggested that it could be a “piece of land, or numerous pieces of land,” raising the possibility that Palestinians could spread across multiple places, potentially diluting their identity - another idea that would spark anger among advocates for the war-battered territory, which faced relentless Israeli bombardment for nearly 16 months until a ceasefire took hold just before Trump took office last month.
Gaza “has been hell,” Trump later told reporters. “You take certain areas and you build really good-quality housing, like a beautiful town, like some place where they can live and not die, because Gaza is a guarantee that they’re going to end up dying. The same thing is going to happen again.”
Trump added that he felt that Gaza’s residents would “love to leave Gaza if they had an option. Right now, they don’t have an option.”
After the meetings, Trump said that a US rebuilding effort in Gaza would create “economic development that will supply unlimited numbers of jobs and housing for the people of the area.” He didn’t specify which people he meant.
Netanyahu lavished the new US leader with praise.
“You say things others refuse to say,” Netanyahu said. “And after the jaws drop, people scratch their heads and they say, ‘You know, he’s right.’”
The two leaders have a complicated history. They were close allies during Trump’s first term, when he moved the US Embassy to Jerusalem. But in the aftermath of the 2020 election, the Israeli leader congratulated Joe Biden on winning the presidency. Trump then began publicly and privately criticizing Netanyahu.
But Trump’s decision to welcome the Israeli leader as his first international guest suggests an effort to patch up the relationship.
Trump’s blunt approach to Gaza’s future stood in sharp contrast with that of the Biden administration, which spent more than a year making painstaking, repeated visits to the region to try to devise a reconstruction plan that would satisfy the kaleidoscope of competing interests over the war-battered territory.
Egypt and Jordan have hotly resisted Trump’s attempts to cajole them into taking Palestinians during the reconstruction of Gaza, a process he has said could take 10 or 15 years.
In addition to rebuilding Gaza, Trump and Netanyahu discussed the tenuous ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, how to handle Iran, and normalizing relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia. The two leaders held a series of meetings at the White House, and planned to hold a private dinner there too.
Ahead of the meeting, the foreign ministers of Egypt and Turkey - another country that has been involved in brokering an end to the conflict - released a joint statement rejecting any proposal to displace or resettle Palestinians to “countries outside the Palestinian territories, either for short-term or long-term purposes.”
Many Gazans also rejected it.
“Our Palestinian people, and the people of Gaza in particular, are rooted here and will not go anywhere. If Trump wants to pave something, he can go pave the sea,” Mustafa Ibrahim, a Gaza-based political expert, wrote on Facebook.
So did Hamas, the militant group that attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, and retains control of significant parts of Gaza.
“Trump’s statements are racist, and a blatant attempt to liquidate our Palestinian cause and deny our established national rights,” Izzat al-Rishq, a member of the Hamas political bureau, said in a statement.
Trump has invited Jordan’s King Abdullah II for a meeting in Washington next week. Egypt, meanwhile, is deeply dependent on the United States for military aid, giving Trump significant power in the relationship.
Trump, a former real estate developer, last month referred to Gaza as “a phenomenal location, on the sea, the best weather,” and added that “some fantastic things could be done with Gaza.” On Tuesday, he referred to the area as the “Riviera” of the Middle East and “something that could be so magnificent.”
He added: “I envision world people living there. The world’s people. I think you’ll make that into an international, unbelievable place. I think the potential in the Gaza Strip is unbelievable. And I think the entire world, representatives from all over the world, will be there, and they’ll live there. Palestinians, also, Palestinians will live there. Many people will live there.”
The visit comes at a difficult moment for Netanyahu, who has faced domestic criticism from members of his coalition for agreeing to a ceasefire, as well as international condemnation for his role in creating a humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
Netanyahu’s meeting with Trump was one part of several days of meetings as he adjusts to a Washington that has changed politically over the past few weeks, with Republicans who are more aligned with him now more ascendant. In addition to meetings with Trump administration officials Monday and Tuesday, Netanyahu is expected to visit with congressional leaders Thursday.
Despite Trump’s campaign promises to back Israel more enthusiastically than the Biden administration, he and Netanyahu do not see eye to eye about all aspects of the conflict.
Among other issues, Trump favours a swift and final end to the war. Netanyahu is facing a domestic rebellion from his right-wing coalition partners if he does not resume the fighting in Gaza once the hostages are released as part of the first phase of the ceasefire deal. The Israeli leader will need to reconcile the differences.
The agreement, which was mediated by Egypt, Qatar and the United States, began Jan. 19 and includes an initial phase of 42 days. Phase-two negotiations are expected to start this week, with some issues still unresolved. The initial ceasefire is supposed to continue even if the second phase is not agreed on in time.
“We’re going to try” to get to the second phase, Netanyahu said Tuesday ahead of the meeting.
Over the past two weeks, Hamas and allied militants have released 18 hostages who were abducted in the October 7 attack, including 13 Israelis and five Thai nationals. Israel has also freed more than 580 Palestinian prisoners and detainees, allowed more aid to flow into Gaza and withdrawn its troops from key military posts in the enclave.
The Gaza Health Ministry says more than 47,000 people have been killed in the territory since the October 7 attack. About 40 people are believed to still be held hostage in Gaza.
The two leaders also discussed normalizing relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia. That was a goal during Trump’s first term, and something that Biden also made a priority.
Trump and Netanyahu also discussed Iran, which both US and Israeli officials believe is at its weakest point in years. After the collapse of its regional proxies, Tehran has been left without most of the tools it has used for decades to exert power throughout the Middle East.
That vulnerability could provide an opening to some sort of deal with the United States and the international community. But it also makes Tehran more of a target for Iran hawks in both Israel and Washington, and could spur Iranian leaders to go forward in their efforts to develop a nuclear weapon, policymakers said.
- Washington Post