Israel’s Been Fighting In Gaza Since Goliath & The Philistines— Trump’s Gonna Fix That?
On Tuesday, before meeting with war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump proposed “moving Gazans to a ‘good, fresh, beautiful piece of land’ in another country, offering a vision of mass displacement that would likely inflame sentiments in the Arab world. The land Trump is offering the Gazans is not in sparsely-populated American states Alaska (1.3 people per square mile), Wyoming (5.9 people per square mile), Montana (7.1 people per square mile) or one of the Dakotas (11 people per square mile). In a press conference after the meeting, Trump stunned everyone, including Netanyahu, by announcing that the U.S. would take over Gaza and make it into the "Riviera of the Middle East." So... Greenland, the Panama Canal Zone, Canada and now Gaza.
Matt Viser and Michael Birnbaum reported that “Trump framed the vision as a practical response to the physical destruction of Gaza after 16 months of intense bombardment from Israel. But given the decades-long history of the displacement of Palestinians in the region, as well as vows by the Israeli far-right to claim the Gaza Strip for themselves, Trump’s proposal 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 somewhere else. Trump did not specify where the new land 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 Gaza residents who would not want to depart their land nor the practicalities of potentially forcing them to leave it, suggesting that ‘they'd love to leave Gaza if they had an option. Right now, they don't have an option.’… Since reclaiming the Oval Office, Trump has repeatedly said that he expects Egypt and Jordan to take in Palestinians from Gaza as the territory rebuilds from the war— a process he has said could take 10 or 15 years. Egypt and Jordan have hotly resisted, saying that any resolution to the conflict needs to leave Palestinians on their own land.” Neither country has any “good, fresh, beautiful piece of land” that Trump was babbling about.
“Gaza, he said, is ‘a pure demolition site… a big pile of rubble,’ and a place with ‘decades and decades of death,’ he told reporters before Netanyahu arrived. ‘The Gaza thing has not worked. It's never worked,’ he said. ‘And I feel very differently about Gaza than a lot of people. 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.’ He suggested that the rebuilding effort would not ultimately involve a return to Gaza. ‘If we could find the right piece of land, or numerous pieces of land, and build them some really nice places with plenty of money in the area, that's for sure. I think that would be a lot better than going back to Gaza,’ he said… 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.’ Among other concerns, leaders of Egypt and Jordan oppose enabling what they say would be an Israeli takeover of the territory. But Trump has vowed to push for it given what he says will be the difficulty of reconstructing the area. One of his signature diplomatic tactics in a negotiation is to destabilize both allies and adversaries to gain leverage— as he has with threatened tariffs, for example, on Mexico, Canada and China. It is unclear whether he has similar aims in his rhetoric on Gaza, but he 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 leverage in the relationship.”
“In any city in the United States of America, if you had damage, that was 100th of what I saw in Gaza... nobody would be allowed to go back to their homes. That’s how dangerous it is,” Trump’s Mideast envoy, Steven Witkoff told reporters. “It is buildings that could tip over at any moment. There’s no utilities there whatsoever, no working water, electric, gas, nothing. God knows what kind of disease might be festering there. So when the president talks about cleaning it out, he talks about making it habitable.”
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.”
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.
A team of top NY Times reporters wrote that “Hamas, which has run Gaza for most of the past two decades and is now trying to reestablish its control there, quickly rejected Trump’s idea as well. Sami Abu Zuhri, a senior Hamas official, said that the president’s statement about no alternative but leaving was ‘a recipe for creating chaos and tension in the region. Our people in Gaza will not allow for these plans to come to pass,’ he said in a statement distributed by Hamas. ‘What is needed is the end of the occupation and the aggression against our people, not expelling them from their land.’… With Netanyahu’s right-wing government in jeopardy if the war ends with Hamas still in control in Gaza, and with no other plan for the area in place, analysts expect the Israeli prime minister to try to delay moving to the next stage of the deal, which calls for a permanent cease-fire.”
Trump thinks he can force or cajole or bribe Jordan and Egypt to agree with his absurd proposal. Jordan Fabian reported that while Netanyahu was with him in the Oval Office Trump said “They say they’re not going to accept— I say they will.”
The incredibly ignorant Trump, who treats everything like a real estate negotiation in New York City, “said ‘really rich’ nations will supply the land, and several areas could be built to permanently house Palestinians. ‘I think all of them, they’ll be resettled in areas where they can live a beautiful life,’ Trump said, adding that refugees wouldn’t need to worry about dying. The US president said he hoped the alternate site would be ‘really nice’ so that Palestinians also wouldn’t be concerned about their ability to return after reconstruction in Gaza. ‘Why would they want to return?’ Trump said. ‘The place has been hell.’”
Trump has repeatedly said he’d like to see the Gaza Strip cleared out in the wake of Israel’s devastating military campaign against the territory. Much of the enclave is in ruins after Israel’s 15-month war in response to the Hamas attacks of Oct. 7, 2023, which is now in a six-week ceasefire.
The idea faces long odds. Egypt and Jordan as well as the Arab League have pushed back on Trump’s idea, as have Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and the Palestinian Authority itself. Asked about the fact that Jordan has swatted down the idea, Trump pointed to Venezuela, which recently agreed to take back deportees from the US after refusing for a year.
“Look, the Gaza thing has not worked,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office earlier in the day. “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, somewhere.”
“I don’t know how they can want to stay,” Trump said. “It’s a demolition site. It’s a pure demolition site.”
Israel and Hamas remain far apart on crucial issues. Netanyahu has pledged to achieve total victory over Hamas, designated a terrorist group by the US, and return all the hostages taken in the group’s assault on Israel that started the war. Some right-wing members of Netanyahu’s coalition have been critical of the deal and have pressured him to resume the war.
Hamas has said it will not release Israeli hostages in a second stage of the ceasefire unless Netanyahu agrees to end the war and pull Israeli forces out of the Gaza territory it controls.
Trump has offered unorthodox solutions to ending the conflict. The US president has been outspoken in supported Israel but has also pledged to wind down the conflict and took credit for the deal, which was agreed to during the final days of his predecessor Joe Biden’s presidency.
“They will never give me a Nobel peace prize,” Trump said. “I deserve it but they will never give it.”
Today, as expected, Trump’s handlers desperately tried walking back the deranged rantings from yesterday. State Department officials, including Marco Rubio, said the U.S. isn’t “taking over” Gaza or driving out the Gazans and not using any U.S. troops there, all things the increasingly senile imbecile had cleared said in two televised press conferences. “Steve Witkoff, the special envoy to the Middle East, told Republican senators at a closed-door luncheon that Trump ‘doesn’t want to put any U.S. troops on the ground, and he doesn’t want to spend any U.S. dollars at all’ on Gaza, according to Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri.”