Making Sense of Trump’s Gaza Plan
On Tuesday evening, President Trump announced that the U.S. would take ownership of and rebuild Gaza while relocating the enclaves roughly 2.3 million inhabitants elsewhere. Previously the president had floated the idea of relocating Gazans to Egypt and Jordan to which Arab governments have flatly rejected. Trump’s announcement prompted a flurry of praise, criticism, and questions including: Was he serious?, Is this feasible?, What is the price tag? Who will live in Gaza after reconstruction?, etc. Trump’s vague comments gave pundits more than enough fodder to talk about, but perhaps what was left unsaid is as important as what was said.
Let’s Make a Deal
The brazenness of President Trump’s proposal prompted many of his most vociferous critics to question the president’s sanity. Sure he can’t be serious, can he? This is not the first time that Trump has voiced an absurd plan that had little chance of success. We didn’t really build much of a wall and Mexico surely didn’t pay for what was built. It doesn’t look like Greenland or Canada are signing up to become the 51st state. It is reasonable to see yesterday’s announcement as a negotiation tactic meant to push the second-phase of the ceasefire negotiations forwards.
From this perspective, it would be reasonable to assume that Hamas may be willing to cede some ground in negotiations if they believed a failure of the second-phase would result in a U.S. military occupation of Gaza and expulsion of Palestinians from the territory. After the 7 OCT attacks, Israel will not accept a ceasefire agreement that leaves Gaza under Hamas’ control. Trump (and the U.S. in general) is far from a neutral arbiter in these negotiations and could see this as a means for pressing Hamas in Israel’s favor. Could Trump’s threat push Hamas to accept some sort of Gulf-led Arab state control of Gaza? My gut says no, but many (and possibly Trump) would argue it can’t hurt to try it. Another plausible target could be Saudi Arabia, which has long pushed for an Israeli commitment to a future Palestinian state in exchange for normalizing diplomatic relations between the two regional powers. Trump may be hoping to press Saudi Arabia to drop this demand, which seems as equally unlikely as the Hamas gambit.
I’m not a Trump expert, but this seems to be the most plausible explanation. Trump has consistently advocated his “America First” stance and decried U.S. involvement in foreign entanglements. While he does seem to be fixated on adding a 51st state, it seems unlikely he would be willing to spill U.S. blood and treasure on a what amounts to a large real estate project, especially one which wouldn’t likely yield significant returns during his term or even in his life time.
OK, He’s Serious
Let’s take Trump at his word. He seriously intends to expel Gaza’s population and rebuild the 140 sq/mile territory and assume control for the foreseeable future. The first challenge is where would the 2.3 million inhabitants of Gaza go, but would they go willingly? This is highly unlikely. The vast majority of Gaza’s population, about eighty percent, are refugees or descendants of refugees who were expelled from their villages in Israel during the 1948 War and never allowed to return. Given their history and Trump’s own statements that relocation would be permanent, few Gazans would willingly relocate. While Secretary of State Marco Rubio walked back Trump’s earlier statements that indicated Palestinian relocation would be permanent, Palestinian trust in the U.S. and Israel is nearly non-existent.
At this point, I can’t think of a scenario in which Palestinians (either in Gaza or the West Bank) would willingly leave their land. So in order for Trump’s plan to work, the U.S. and/or Israel would have to forcibly transfer the inhabitants of Gaza. There is another phrase for this: ethnic cleansing. While ethnic cleansing is not explicitly designated as a war crime in international law, it would be impossible to do with extreme acts of violence that would likely count as war crimes and opens up a whole new bag of issues for both Israel and the Trump administration.
The U.S.’ Arab allies immediately rejected Trump’s proposal and Trump risks inflaming tensions between himself and his regional allies. There is a world where Trump unwittingly pushes Arab states closer to China if he doesn’t tread carefully around the issue in Gaza.
What’s Next
President Trump’s comments on Tuesday were vague and provided few details surrounding such a monumental task. The President’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff assured members of the Senate on Wednesday that Trump has been considering this plan of action for some time and that his comments were not simply an off the cuff stream of consciousness. Witkoff also told senators that the U.S. will not use its own troops or funds to carry out the plan and implied that Arab state would foot the bill for reconstruction of Gaza. According to a report in the New York Times, the plan was hastily put together and even his own staff and agencies hadn’t completed a rough feasibility study and few officials within the administration had any idea of the plan before the announcement. As one might presume, “there had been little beyond an idea inside the president’s head.”
A day after his initial comments, Trump hasn’t commented much on the proposal and rather has spoken with other U.S. officials through surrogates. Rubio portrayed the plan as “generous” and new Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth praised Trump for his unorthodox approach and out of the box thinking. However what Trump nor any of his officials has been able to explain is the how. The inability of Trump nor his surrogates to provide more than a few scant details surrounding the outlandish plan likely points to a future where the plan never moves beyond words.
