America’s scheme for Gaza contains much to regret
DONALD TRUMP’S first two weeks in the Oval Office have featured plenty of jaw-dropping moments. Even so, his proposal of an American “takeover” of Gaza on February 4th was extraordinary. He combined sinister ideas—ethnic cleansing and a lethal indifference towards Palestinians’ rights—with unorthodox improvisation over one of the world’s most intractable problems. In his first term Mr Trump brokered the Abraham accords between some Arab states and Israel, and in January he helped bring about the temporary ceasefire in Gaza that had eluded the Biden administration for a year. It is possible his latest intervention also shakes up the Middle East. The danger is it will embolden hardliners and deter America’s allies from supporting his efforts to promote stability.
Mr Trump explained his plan immediately after a meeting in the White House with Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister. Diplomats had expected Mr Trump to press a reluctant Mr Netanyahu into advancing to the second stage of the ceasefire in Gaza, in which all hostages would be returned and Israeli forces would stop fighting and exit Gaza. Instead Mr Trump proposed that 2m Gazans be urged or forced to leave the strip for Jordan, Egypt or elsewhere. American troops might have a role, he said.
After the deportations, the president said, the enclave would be rebuilt by America, with outside cash, to become “the riviera of the Middle East”, at which point some Palestinians might return. He implied that, in return for prosperity, they should forget their historical dispossession and abandon their dreams of statehood. Mr Trump’s broader vision is to extend the Abraham accords to Saudi Arabia, and to use this new American, Israeli and Sunni Arab grouping to contain Iran’s regime, which is close to getting a nuclear bomb. Hours before his remarks on Gaza, Mr Trump issued an order reinstating his “maximum pressure” campaign on Iran by enforcing sanctions to squeeze its oil exports to zero.
It doesn’t take a Nobel peace prizewinner to spot the problems with Mr Trump’s plan. Morally, it is a call for conquest and ethnic cleansing that places no weight on the Palestinians’ right to self-determination or self-government. By proposing it, Mr Trump is giving succour to the might-is-right worldview of Russia and China. Practically, it is a non-starter. American voters have no appetite to send more troops to the Middle East. America’s record of nation-building there is poor, as Mr Trump has previously noted. The Arab nations being asked to host uprooted Gazans would struggle with the influx. The public backlash over a Palestinian displacement could even endanger their leaders’ hold on power. No wonder Mr Trump’s officials began to walk back his plan the next day, asserting that he had not promised to use American troops, and that the Palestinian displacement would be temporary.
Yet Mr Trump’s diagnosis also contains shards of truth. He is right that Gaza is a “hell hole”, shattered by war. And that this will not change so long as Israelis feel too insecure or emboldened to pursue peace, Hamas has a hold over Gaza, the Palestinian Authority (PA) festers in the West Bank and the world pays lip service to a two-state solution. “You can’t keep doing the same mistake over and over,” Mr Trump said.
He is also right that more taboo-busting thinking is needed to give Gaza’s young people space. For instance, the territory could lease land from Egypt in the neighbouring Sinai or even reclaim land from the sea. Falling back on the old formula of a flawed UN agency perpetuating Gazans’ hopeless refugee status, and pretending to prepare for the return of the PA, is to recreate the conditions that allowed Hamas to thrive and arm itself for war.
There is a narrow path to peace. It would require the transformation or recusal of Hamas’s leadership in Gaza, with an Arab-and-PA-led security force restoring order and Western and Gulf cash. In parallel, talks about two states could unlock the regional alliances and bargains Mr Trump dreams of.
The Middle East desperately needs new thinking, yet by blurting out a proposal that is impractical, unethical and unprepared, Mr Trump has sapped American credibility. He may end up causing turmoil and empowering extremists. Hamas is now arguing that America doesn’t care about Gazans. Israel’s hard right can cling to its dream of expelling the Palestinians from Gaza and building settlements there. And Mr Trump is also estranging the allies he needs to make peace. He may have hoped to use the threat of expelling Gazans to get Saudi Arabia to recognise Israel. More likely, the Saudis will find it impossible to reach a compromise. ■
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