Trudy Rubin
If there was any doubt President Donald Trump believes he is no longer bound by history or laws — either American or international — it was eclipsed by his astounding proposal that the United States “take over the Gaza Strip” and turn it into “the Riviera of the Middle East.”
Flying high from his demolition of America’s international aid agency and attempted gutting of the FBI and other key agencies — all engineered by unelected billionaire Elon Musk — and buoyed by GOP senators’ supine support for his dangerous cabinet choices, Trump has turned to what he knows best: land deals.
As if the world were his real estate pickings, Trump is demanding foreign nations hand over territory on his terms, irrespective of the people who live there. First came his harsh call to Denmark’s prime minister, insisting Copenhagen must sell him its autonomous territory of Greenland. Then came the command that Panama “return” its canal to U.S. ownership.
But his brazen proposal that “all of” 2.2 million Gazan Palestinians be “relocated” permanently to make way for international resorts projects his fantasy of U.S. land grabs in the Western Hemisphere onto the wider world.
“I do see a long-term [U.S.] ownership position,” Trump said about Gaza, at a Tuesday news conference alongside visiting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was smiling broadly. The president added, “Everybody I’ve spoken to loves the idea of the United States owning [and developing] that piece of land.”
Who is “everybody”? Perhaps he referred to far-right Israeli settlers who have been calling for all Gazans to be expelled. More likely he was recalling the real estate dreams of his son-in-law Jared Kushner, who in March praised the “very valuable” potential of Gaza’s “waterfront property.” (Kushner presumably could fund a Trump hotel project with some of the $2 billion the friendly Saudis poured into his new private equity firm in 2022.)
Yet, Trump’s words can’t simply be dismissed as venal or his usual hyperbole. In the Middle East, they have sent shock waves that won’t advance peace but will cause more chaos. They reveal a president who has lost touch with reality. Unless checked by courts or Congress, he will endanger U.S. security at home and abroad.
It’s true Gaza has been turned into a wasteland by Israel’s lax rules on bombing civilian structures in the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attack. The destruction of most Gazan housing and civilian infrastructure went far beyond the need to destroy Hamas tunnels.
But that wreckage doesn’t provide any legal authority for the U.S. to seize Gaza, a narrow strip of land along the Mediterranean about the size of Philadelphia that was run by Egypt from 1948 to 1967, but which has been under Israeli control one way or another since then, even though Israel pulled out its troops in 2005.
Moreover, the president wouldn’t rule out sending U.S. troops to handle the massive job of demolishing and clearing destroyed Gazan buildings and disposing of unexploded munitions. He insisted, “We’ll own it [Gaza] and be responsible.” What happened to Trump’s America First insistence U.S. troops would no longer be involved in Mideast wars or nation-building? Did it disappear with the vision of a Trump resort on Gaza beach?
The president also neglected to say whose troops would be responsible for forcing unwilling Palestinians to leave Gaza for good, an act of horrifying ethnic cleansing.
Can you imagine the TV shots of American soldiers dragging Gazan women and children to buses? Trump insisted Palestinians would be “thrilled” to leave the territory, and fantasized Egypt or Jordan would take them and build them “really nice places to live” with money from rich Arab states.
This is, to put it politely, baloney. With its struggling economy, Egypt is drowning under the burden of millions of jobless Sudanese and Libyan refugees, along with 100,000 Gazans. Jordan, which has taken in millions of Palestinian refugees from previous wars, along with hundreds of thousands of Syrians, can’t afford more refugees.
Neither country wants the burden of millions of desperate Gazans who will agitate to return home to Palestine.
Jordan’s King Abdullah and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi have turned him down flat. But Trump insisted Tuesday that he could make them obey him, presumably by threatening to cut off economic and military aid. “They say they are not going to accept,” he said. “I say they will.”
Trump is willfully ignorant of the politics of the region: Neither Jordan’s king nor Egypt’s president could afford politically to be party to new mass expulsions of Palestinians.
Moreover, even if by some miracle Egypt or Jordan could accept two million-plus Gazans, most would wind up living not in “really nice places,” but in refugee camps in the desert — the only place where cheap land is available. I have visited massive Syrian refugee camps in Jordan, where work is scarce and young men are desperate. No one would willingly move there.
Huge new Palestinian camps in Jordan or Egypt would destabilize those countries — not bring regional peace.
Most shameful, even as Trump poses as a humanitarian champion for Palestinians, Musk is dismantling the U.S. aid agencies that would be called on to help feed and shelter a new outflow of Palestinians. If Trump gave a hoot about Palestinian conditions, he would be strengthening the U.S. Agency for International Development (known as USAID), not letting Musk destroy it.
So why did the president toss out a Gaza bombshell that could explode in his face?
Perhaps he has truly convinced himself his Gaza plan is his ticket to a Nobel Peace Prize as a reward for “solving” the intractable Palestinian problem and normalizing relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel. But the Saudis quickly responded that the kingdom “unequivocally rejected” Trump’s proposal, and said recognition won’t come before Palestinians receive “their legitimate rights.”
This is not lip service: Trump’s friend, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, must consider the anger of his youthful population over the Israeli destruction of Gaza, a rage that would be further inflamed if Palestinians were expelled.
Or maybe Trump believes his pipe dream might convince the reluctant Netanyahu to continue to the next phases of the U.S.-brokered Gaza ceasefire. More likely, Trump’s endorsement of displacing Gaza’s population will embolden Netanyahu along with Israeli cabinet hard-liners who want to end the ceasefire and annex the West Bank. Moreover, the prospect of mass expulsions from Gaza will help revive the broken Hamas organization, along with the Iranian proxy militia Hezbollah in Lebanon. It will also inspire new anti-American terrorist attacks.
Yet, the most dangerous explanation is that Trump believes his own rhetoric. Drunk on his domestic successes, he is convinced he can pull off illegal land grabs via economic threats against friendly nations. He thinks he can operate like Russian President Vladimir Putin, without having to carry out physical invasions.
Such fantasies of swift solutions are so much simpler than the hard work of temporarily housing Gazans while reconstruction commences and negotiations proceed toward some form of Palestinian homeland. In the Middle East, there is no shortcut to peace.
The idea Trump would suggest a grandiose U.S. resort scheme as the solution for Gaza — as if he were back in Atlantic City — reflects the acute danger of leaving foreign policy solely in the hands of an egomaniacal president. It “risks the rest of the world thinking that we are an unbalanced and unreliable partner because our president makes insane proposals,” as Sen. Chris Coons, D.-Del., put it on Tuesday.
Yes, indeed.
Trudy Rubin is a columnist and editorial-board member for the The Philadelphia Inquirer. Readers may write to her at: Philadelphia Inquirer, P.O. Box 8263, Philadelphia, Pa. 19101, or by email at [email protected].
