President Trump’s idea that the US might remove and relocate some two million Palestinians from Gaza and then “own” and rebuild the strip isn’t going to happen soon, if ever. But the idea, however preposterous, does have the virtue of forcing the world to confront its hypocrisy over the fate of the Palestinian people.
The reaction to Mr. Trump’s flyer was predictably hyperbolic. Some called it “ethnic cleansing,” as if the U.S. military would round up two million Gazans against their will. Others criticised Mr. Trump for U.S. imperialism, contrary to his campaign theme of deriding foreign interventions. For those reasons and more, his Gaza daydream is fanciful.
But note that Mr. Trump expressed admirable sympathy for the Palestinians and their plight. The Gaza Strip “has been a symbol of death and destruction for so many decades and so bad for the people anywhere near it,” he said Tuesday at a press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Who could disagree with that?
He went on to say “we should go to other countries of interest with humanitarian hearts, and there are many of them that want to do this and build various domains that will ultimately be occupied by the 1.8 million Palestinians living in Gaza, ending the death and destruction and frankly bad luck.
“This can be paid for by neighbouring countries of great wealth. It could be one, two, three, four, five, seven, eight, 12. It could be numerous sites, or it could be one large site. But the people will be able to live in comfort and peace and we’ll get — we’ll make sure something really spectacular is done.”
It’s easy to dismiss this as the fantasy of a presidential huckster who imagines Trump condos on a Gaza Gold Coast. But is his idea so much worse than the status quo that the rest of the world is offering?
The famous “two-state solution,” with a Palestinian state next to Israel, won’t happen as long as Hamas still runs Gaza and could run the West Bank. The Arab states aren’t clamouring to send in peacekeeping forces to eradicate Hamas or govern the strip. The best the world can come up with is to mouth the “two-state” platitude and let Gaza remain a hell-hole where Hamas will revive its reign of terror, and Palestinians who want something different will be tossed off buildings.
The reaction to Mr. Trump’s brainstorm highlights in particular that the Arabs don’t really care about the Palestinians. Egypt refused to take over Gaza when Israel offered it along with the Sinai Peninsula after the 1978 Camp David Accords. Egypt wouldn’t even let Palestinian civilian women and children leave Gaza for a temporary refuge at the height of the recent Hamas-Israel war.
As for Jordan, in 1971 King Hussein killed and expelled Palestinian nationalists who threatened Hashemite rule. “No refugees in Jordan, no refugees in Egypt,” said Jordan’s King Abdullah II after the Oct. 7, 2023 massacre. Neither country wants Palestinian migrants who might bring jihadist impulses backed by money and guns from Iran.
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We doubt Mr. Trump has any appetite to send in the 82nd Airborne to occupy Gaza. We know the American people don’t. But perhaps his pitch will cause the rest of the world to do more to support a post-Hamas government in Gaza that would let Palestinians live in a territory that is better than hell on earth.
The Wall St Journal
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