'Sick joke, greedy heart, very valuable': 5 takeaways from Trump's radical Gaza plan
President Donald Trump said he wants to see the Gaza Strip become the "Riviera of the Middle East" as part of a brazen proposal to transfer millions of Palestinians out of the war-shattered enclave and make it a U.S. territory.
Trump made the assertion during Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's visit to the White House on Tuesday.
"We'll do a real job. Do something different," Trump said.
Some Trump watchers wondered if he was being serious. If he is, his remarks not only amount to the most radical U.S. policy shift on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in recent history, the idea may also breach international law. U.S. partners and officials around the world have denounced it, and so have Palestinians.
Here's five takeaways from Trump's out-of-left-field suggestion.
The U.S. would 'own' Gaza
Trump said the U.S. would "take over" Gaza and lead its reconstruction for the "long-term." He didn't say how this would happen, who specifically would pay for it, or under what legal authority it could take place. Gaza is still controlled by Hamas 16 months after it attacked Israel and Israel launched a retaliatory Gaza military campaign and invasion.
The United Nations estimates that about 70% of Gaza's buildings and infrastructure have been destroyed in the war. Trump said the 1.8 million Palestinians who still live in Gaza should move to neighboring countries with "humanitarian hearts" and "great wealth." He said the U.S. would level any remaining buildings and "create an economic development that will supply unlimited numbers of jobs and housing for the people of the area."
Trump did not rule out sending U.S. troops to Gaza, though White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Wednesday he "has not committed" to putting boots on the ground there. Leavitt also said the U.S. "is not going to pay for the rebuilding of Gaza."
Trump's Gaza plan was widely condemned
Hamas called the idea "absurd." The Palestinian Authority, which governs the West Bank, a separate Palestinian territory, said it "strongly rejected" Trump's proposal, adding that "legitimate Palestinian rights are not negotiable." Jordan and Egypt, two countries where Trump suggested Gazans could go, also said they opposed it.
Still, Trump said "everybody" he's spoken to "loves the idea of the United States owning that piece of land." He didn't name names, though on social media, Secretary of State Marco Rubio posted "Make Gaza beautiful again."
Meanwhile, senior officials from China to Russia lined up to call it a bad and unworkable idea. Turkey said it was "unacceptable." Saudi Arabia said it "rejected" the plan outright and would not consider establishing formal diplomatic ties with Israel, currently being discussed, if it went ahead. Britain said its "position is there must be a scenario where Palestinians are able to return home." France said it would destabilize the region.
In the U.S., Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn, said Trump had "totally lost it" and that a U.S. invasion of Gaza would lead to the slaughter of thousands of U.S. troops and decades of war in the Middle East. "It’s like a bad, sick joke," he said. Republican Sen. Lindsay Graham, a Trump ally, was lukewarm on the concept. "We’ll see what our Arab friends say," he said. "I think most South Carolinians would not be excited about sending Americans to take over Gaza."
There's no plan for a two-state or one-state 'or any other state' solution
Trump's idea appears to completely run counter to and wholly unravel the concept of the "two-state solution," which is the longtime U.S. and the internationally-backed formula for peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
A two-state solution is the idea, though Israel's current government opposes it, that an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, with East Jerusalem as its capital, would exist alongside Israel.
Trump didn't give a clear answer when asked about it. "It doesn’t mean anything about a two-state or one-state or any other state. It means that we want to have, we want to give people a chance at life," he said. "They have never had a chance at life because the Gaza Strip has been a hellhole for people living there. It’s been horrible."
Rachel Brandenburg, a fellow at the Israel Policy Forum, a U.S.-based think tank that advocates for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, said the notion that the U.S. "would take over Gaza and transfer Palestinians off that piece of land is unrealistic, immoral and has no legal basis." Amnesty International Executive Director Paul O'Brien said removing all Palestinians from Gaza is "tantamount to destroying them as a people."
Strong − not good − reaction from Palestinians
Forcibly displacing civilians can constitute a war crime and the issue is a sensitive one among Palestinians. Many have long feared, amplified by the war in Gaza, that they could suffer from another "Nakba," when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were dispossessed of their homes in a war in 1948 at the birth of the state of Israel.
Sami Omar Zidan is a 36-year-old Gazan who left the territory first for Egypt, and now for Oman, last year after his home was destroyed. He is married, has a five-year-old daughter and his wife is pregnant.
Zidan said in a WhatsApp message that while he was lucky to have escaped Gaza when he did, he has always wanted to return to the territory to rebuild his home, find work and start his life over again. Zidan, like a lot of Gazans, is angry at the U.S. government for supplying Israel with weapons and for backing its leaders politically.
He called Trump a "businessman with a greedy heart" and believes he "only sees money and how to get it." He said it would not surprise him if Trump eventually seeks to control the West Bank as well.
On Tuesday, Trump said he would probably announce a position on Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank in the next month. "We haven’t been taking the position on it yet," he said.
Trump's Gaza idea? Or Jared Kushner's?
According to Puck News, it was former White House senior adviser Jared Kushner, who is married to Trump's daughter Ivanka and worked on Middle East policy in the first Trump administration, who was reportedly behind his father-in-law's plan.
Kushner helped craft his remarks. In fact, in February last year Kushner suggested in an interview that Israel should remove civilians out of Gaza while it "cleans up" the area.
"Gaza's waterfront property, it could be very valuable, if people would focus on building up livelihoods," Kushner told the Middle East Initiative, a program at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government.