Donald Trump’s plan for Gaza comes from a good place ... and makes no sense at all
Donald Trump’s blockbuster suggestion that the United States take control of the Gaza Strip isn’t malicious. It just doesn’t make any sense.
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Analysis
Right. So. Donald Trump’s suggestion is for the United States to take control of the Gaza Strip, deport its current residents to various Arab countries, and build some fetching condos and resorts upon the rubble of a would-be nation. What to make of this?
I think we should acknowledge, first of all, because it’s a noteworthy departure from the norm, that Mr Trump is not being remotely malicious. It is evident that he genuinely believes, with a sort of childlike innocence, that this would be the best outcome for the two million Palestinians who remain in Gaza.
“The people that have been absolutely destroyed that live there now could live in peace, in a better situation. Because they are living in hell. Those people could live in peace,” Mr Trump said today. With a hint of empathy! Miraculous stuff.
It’s a naive stance, maybe. One that spares no thought for what the Palestinians themselves might actually want. But at the risk of grading on a whopping curve, like a teacher giving the socially awkward student in Year 4 an extra mark or two just for showing up to class, it is hardly his most callous idea.
Put it this way. If a kid in your social studies class asked, “Why don’t we simply stop paying all federal government workers?” his name would, presumably, be Elon, and the teacher would struggle to concoct an answer that didn’t shame him for his stupidity.
If the student asked, “If the Palestinians are treated so hellishly in Gaza, why don’t they just go somewhere else?” it would merit a sincere answer. A functioning human brain could come up with that question.
Yes, I realise it is patronising to speak of an American president like he’s a particularly gormless primary school kid. I’m afraid he invites it.
Mr Trump is not a religious man. Sorry to the millions of people who have deluded themselves into thinking otherwise.
This twice-divorced serial philanderer, who has built a public persona out of violating pretty much every tenet of Christianity, and cannot quote a single Bible verse when pressed, and has somehow nevertheless turned himself into a champion of the evangelical right, while flogging Trump-branded holy books at exorbitant prices without any shame, does not much care about the various archaic, faith-based claims on strips of land in the Middle East.
This is, in the opinion of one jaded atheist, a good thing. We can argue about which religious sect occupied a particular slice of modern-day Israel two thousand years ago, or we can try to make life a touch more tolerable for those people’s descendants now. Mr Trump’s practicality here is actually refreshing.
Frankly, it might be long past time for an American president to ignore all the religious permutations of Middle Eastern policy, and instead focus on the basic human dignity of everyone involved.
And Mr Trump, more than any American leader before him, has both the areligious worldview and unquestioning loyalty of the religious right required to cross that tightrope.
But. But but but but but. The guy has no idea what he’s talking about. He’s obviously spitballing, not really caring what happens in Gaza one way or the other. He wants the Israel-Palestine problem solved, and he wants a Nobel Peace Prize for doing it, as he’s said quite explicitly for years.
“They will never give me a Nobel Peace Prize,” Mr Trump told reporters during that White House press conference today.
“I deserve it, but they will never give it.”
We can stipulate that Barack Obama’s Peace Prize, the catalyst for Mr Trump’s years-long obsession, was ludicrous. Still, by what logic does Mr Trump “deserve” one? What has the man done for world peace? He got swindled by Kim Jong-un. He tried prostrating himself before Vladimir Putin – a tactic that did nothing to stop the invasion of Ukraine or loosen Putin’s murderous grip on power.
Solving the Israel-Palestine conflict, though? That would be worthy of a nice little trophy, or certificate, or whatever it is you get when you win the thing.
So there’s the motive. Self-interested? Yes. A smidgen more productive than the vice of inaction into which many presidents voluntarily walk? Also, tentatively, yes. And morally reprehensible? That’s a firm yes as well.
We have said the kindest words possible, now. All that remains is to be blunt.
What Mr Trump is advocating, here, is the dictionary definition of ethnic cleansing. I repeat: Ethnic. Cleansing. Sounds ugly, doesn’t it?
Cloak it in whatever euphemism feels most justifiable to you. What we are doing here is advocating for millions of people to be forcibly thrown out of their homeland to make way for ... what? A new Las Vegas strip, on the Gaza Strip?
“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 will be there,” Mr Trump said.
“Palestinians will live there. Many people will live there. But they tried the other, and they’ve tried it for decades and decades. It didn’t work, it will never work.
“We have an opportunity to do something that could be phenomenal. And I don’t want to be cute, I don’t want to be a wise guy, but the Riviera of the Middle East.”
Some of the President’s load-bearing beams of political support were less subtle.
“Let’s turn Gaza into Mar-a-Lago,” said Congresswoman Nancy Mace, for example, referring to Mr Trump’s resort and residence in Florida.
Now, to paraphrase Logan Roy, I should stress that Ms Mace is very much not a serious person. She entered America’s Congress in 2021 to much fanfare from political optimists – they still existed at the time – who felt she was talented.
No. She is the sort of politician who says whatever will get her on TV, no matter how loathsome or idiotic. No one, not even Mr Trump himself, better personifies the cynicism of our current politics.
Turning Gaza into a new Mar-a-Lago. For God’s sake. There are two million people in Gaza, and almost half of them are children. Your genius solution is to transform it into a humungous golf course, and to chuck its residents at other countries, all of which have a long history of talking a big game regarding the Palestinians and doing precisely nothing to support them.
This is not a proper, sober idea. It’s a lame sound bite. And Mr Trump has decided to turn that sound bite into official US government policy, overturning decades of bipartisan support for a two-state solution. No wonder Benjamin Netanyahu, opposed as he is to that solution, looked so chipper sitting next to him.
“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,” Mr Trump said.
“Everybody I’ve spoken to loves the idea of the United States owning that piece of land, developing and creating thousands of jobs with something that will be magnificent, in a really magnificent area, that nobody would know.
“Nobody could look because all they see is death and destruction and rubble and demolished buildings falling all over. It’s just a terrible sight.”
With the most generous intent possible, it must be said that “everybody I’ve spoken to”, from the mouth of Donald Trump, encompasses precisely zero people who would ever disagree with him. This isn’t the Trump administration of 2017. It’s a parade of people competing to tell the President exactly which striking shade of sunlight is emanating from his backside. Ms Mace has many rivals to elbow aside at the front of the queue.
If Mr Trump’s words today represent a real shift in US policy, then decades of hard, grafting diplomatic work in the Middle East have been pointless.
All that time, the goal has been a pair of states coexisting peacefully. At times it has felt close, and at other times depressingly distant, but that has always been the shared target of pretty much all reasonable people. Because what are the alternatives?
One is stasis, with the Palestinians remaining forever under Israel’s boot, living an existence of half-rights at best.
Another is genocide, one way or the other.
At number three we have a one-state solution, with both peoples merged into a single nation with equal rights – unworkable for a great many reasons.
Or the ethnic cleansing thing, with one group deported from its own country and the other taking full control.
We’re in a peculiar moment, now, when neither Israel nor Gaza is run by reasonable people. Hamas is a murderous, genocidal death cult. And in Mr Netanyahu, we have an Israeli Prime Minister beholden to his country’s far-right, who has worked tirelessly for years to sabotage the peace process.
That’s the forgotten lesson of the October 7 atrocities. The Israeli government had deliberately propped up Hamas and undermined the Palestinian Authority, the theory being that by keeping Palestinians divided, it could get away with offering no tangible progress.
Look what happened. And now Mr Netanyahu has the nerve to stand next to the American President with a smug grin on his face. As that President, that dupe, natters on about turning Gaza into a prime real estate opportunity.
You cannot force people to abandon their own country, on any moral or legal basis. Maybe you think they would be better off. Perhaps you’re right. Regardless, it is not your decision. The US president has no more right to toss locals out of the Gaza Strip than Mexico has to toss Americans out of Texas.
But of course, in Mr Trump’s mind, sovereignty is something only the United States enjoys.
Twitter: @SamClench
Originally published as Donald Trump’s plan for Gaza comes from a good place ... and makes no sense at all
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