Trump’s Gaza policy is bizarrely dangerous and breaks international law

President Donald Trump’s no-state solution for Palestine and his plan to occupy Gaza and turn it into an American zone is as startling as it is bizarrely dangerous.

Trump is selling his Gaza fix as a humanitarian solution, but his language is that of a real estate developer kicking out the poor and hawking the benefits of a slum reclamation project. “Owning that piece of land, developing it, creating thousands of jobs. It really will be magnificent,” he told a White House press conference. “I don’t want to be cute. I don’t want to be a wise guy. But this could be the Riviera of the Middle East.”

Nearby Beirut once used to be called the Paris of the Middle East. Before the bombs and fighting.

The Gaza proposal came after he met with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but Trump declined to say on what international authority the US would go into Gaza.

US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a bilateral meeting in the Oval Office of the White House.Credit: Bloomberg

Netanyahu was the US president’s first meeting with a world leader since becoming president. At times the Israeli prime minister looked like an organ grinder who could not believe his luck as Trump declared all “1.8 million” Palestinians should leave. Previously he had nominated Egypt and Jordan – two nations heavily dependent on US largesse – as resettlement destinations, but neither has so far volunteered to join his scheme.

Just as Trump played on voter fears about the intake of refugees in the US, Egypt and Jordan have taken a leaf from his book and do not wish to accept large numbers of Palestinians. On the other side of the equation, Gazans are unwilling to abandon the enclave where they have spent years and despite Trump’s promise of a better life, the unedifying spectre of forced evacuations would undoubtedly be condemned across the world.

Trump told the press conference that after the dispossessed Palestinians had left, a renovated Gaza could become home to the “world’s people”. It is an insensitive rejection of a people’s sense of identity and a thoughtless bit of Trump PR-speak that recklessly risks putting an end to the ceasefire, already hanging by a thread. Surely he should have asked himself why Hamas would continue handing over hostages if they think nothing will be left in Gaza?

As always with Trump, he obfuscated and backfilled. He warned Hamas would be hunted over the hostages and threatened Iran and various Middle East terror organisations with dire consequences. He blustered he was confident Saudi Arabia would come to the party. That prompted a quick reaction from the Saudi foreign ministry – the country would not establish ties with Israel without the creation of a Palestinian state.

Trump has reset the Middle East to more chaos. His announcement the US is prepared to send troops in to unilaterally seize Gaza has ended the bipartisan support for a two-state solution America has long shared with Australia. Trump does not know where he is going, and we are all being swept into his uncharted territory.

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