Nations such as Australia must push back against Trump’s illegal Gaza scheme

US President Donald Trump has shockingly declared the US may “take over” and “own” Gaza, to transform it into “the Riviera of the Middle East”. He would permanently relocate Palestinians from Gaza to some “beautiful area with homes and safety”, perhaps Egypt and Jordan. A redeveloped Gaza would be populated with “the world’s people”.

Trump has not suggested Palestinians would have a choice. Credit: Bloomberg/Getty

It is not clear if the vague plan is a thought-bubble, a wishful real estate scheme, a ploy to extract concessions or the real deal. Already he has done the unthinkable on many fronts in his first month in office, and many countries are taking it very seriously indeed.

Trump expressed concern about Palestinian suffering in the current “hell hole” of Gaza and recognises the need for the massive reconstruction of a “demolition site”. But his proposal could shatter the fundamental rules of the international order since 1945, which the US was instrumental in creating to restore peace after a catastrophic world war.

Under international law, Palestinians have the right to self-determination, empowering them to freely choose their political future. Palestinians could certainly choose through a vote or referendum to become a sovereign part of the United States. That is almost certainly unlikely, and Trump has not suggested they would have a choice.

In the absence of Palestinian consent, any US “takeover” would be a violation of prohibitions on use of military force under the United Nations Charter, and on the annexation of foreign territory by force. These are the most basic rules of the international community, along with self-determination. Their violation replaces the rule of law – and the peace and stability it offers – with the law of the jungle and the survival of the fittest.

The rules were designed to stop predatory countries from violently colonising foreign lands and subjugating their populations, which frequently results in protracted violent resistance and grave human rights violations, endangering world peace.

The US would simply replace Israel as the unlawful occupier of Gaza. If Trump is so concerned about peace, it is not clear why he believes a US occupation would bring that about when over half a century of Israeli occupation has brought perpetual war, death and misery to Palestinians and Israelis alike. It would deepen the violence and spread it across borders.

Other recent US interventions did not go well. Two decades in Afghanistan resulted in a Taliban victory. A decade in Iraq provoked insurgency and probably killed hundreds of thousands.

Trump’s play for Gaza is part of a pattern of predation, including ambitions for Greenland and the Panama Canal. He has form. Previously as president, he illegally recognised Israel’s illegal annexation of East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, and Morocco’s illegal annexation of western Sahara in exchange for Arab normalisation with Israel.

Trump’s proposal to relocate Palestinians, if it were without their consent, would constitute the war crime of forcibly displacing the population of an occupied territory – a tactic honed by Nazi Germany in World War II. Ethnic cleansing is not a legal term, but it aptly describes the plan.

It would accelerate the continuous forced displacement of Palestinians from their homes since 1948, including today through home demolitions, evictions and the criminal building of illegal Israel settlements in the West Bank.

Most Palestinians, along with Jordan and Egypt, oppose resettlement. Jordan already hosts 2.3 million Palestinian refugees – about half of its population. If Trump is so concerned about the plight of Gazans, he should offer them voluntary resettlement and green cards in the US, or pressure Israel to resettle them.

If Trump is so concerned that Gaza is an uninhabitable wasteland, he should instead contribute generously to the $50 billion to $80 billion it will cost Palestinians to rebuild. He should pressure Israel to compensate Gazans for its many violations of humanitarian law during the war. He should stop shipping US weapons and munitions to Israel that have been so often used to violate humanitarian law and damage or destroy most housing and infrastructure in Gaza, rendering 85 per cent of the population, or 1.9 million people, homeless.

Instead, Trump recently banned all funding to the main UN relief agency for Palestine, UNRWA, which the General Assembly, Security Council and UN Secretary-General have insisted is indispensable to humanitarian relief in Gaza. He has also gutted the US development agency, USAID, whose mission to combat global poverty and human rights violations helps to prevent political violence.

Violations of international law of this magnitude by a superpower such as the US would have devastating ripple effects across the international system. Other predatory countries would be emboldened to seize territories they covet, knowing it is no longer taboo and that the US would not police the international rules. It aggravates the instability caused by Russia invading Ukraine.

Trump’s announcement is part of a broader strategy to dismantle international order and replace it with a unilateral, destructive “America First” agenda. Already he withdrew the US from the World Health Organisation, putting lives at risk, including Americans. He has disengaged from the UN Human Rights Council. This week he ordered a review of US participation in and funding of all international organisations, including the UN, and all international treaties the US is part of. He is proposing to sanction the International Criminal Court for pursuing impartial international justice and hoisting it above raw political power and brute force. He has ignited illegal trade wars.

Perhaps it is no surprise that Trump’s announcement occurred after he met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the US. They are fellow travellers in undermining international law, the UN and the International Criminal Court. Netanyahu is wanted by the ICC for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Trump is seeking to enable further Israeli lawlessness, which has deprived Palestinians of a free homeland for more than 75 years.

It is not too late to arrest the early signs of imperial darkness of the kinds that dominated the world in the colonial era or consumed humanity from the early 1930s. Countries such as Australia must courageously push back and recalibrate our relationship with the US as needed. We should never accept a lawless, violent world of unbridled hegemonic power. It endangers all of us.

Ben Saul is Challis chair of international law at The University of Sydney and the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights and counter-terrorism.

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