If there was any doubt President Donald Trump believes he is no longer bound by history or laws — either American or international — it was eclipsed by his astounding proposal that the United States “take over the Gaza Strip” and turn it into “the Riviera of the Middle East.”
Flying high from his demolition of America’s international aid agency and attempted gutting of the FBI and other key agencies — all engineered by unelected billionaire Elon Musk — and buoyed by GOP senators’ supine support for his dangerous cabinet choices, Trump has turned to what he knows best: land deals.
As if the world were his real estate pickings, Trump is demanding foreign nations hand over territory on his terms, irrespective of the people who live there. First came his harsh call to Denmark’s prime minister, insisting Copenhagen must sell him its autonomous territory of Greenland. Then came the command that Panama “return” its canal to U.S. ownership.
But his brazen proposal that “all of” 2.2 million Gazan Palestinians be “relocated” permanently to make way for international resorts projects his fantasy of U.S. land grabs in the Western Hemisphere onto the wider world.
“I do see a long-term [U.S.] ownership position,” Trump said about Gaza, at a Tuesday news conference alongside visiting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was smiling broadly. The president added, “Everybody I’ve spoken to loves the idea of the United States owning [and developing] that piece of land.”
Who is “everybody”? Perhaps he referred to far-right Israeli settlers who have been calling for all Gazans to be expelled. More likely he was recalling the real estate dreams of his son-in-law Jared Kushner, who in March praised the “very valuable” potential of Gaza’s “waterfront property.” (Kushner presumably could fund a Trump hotel project with some of the $2 billion the friendly Saudis poured into his new private equity firm in 2022.)
Yet, Trump’s words can’t simply be dismissed as venal or his usual hyperbole. In the Middle East, they have sent shock waves that won’t advance peace but will cause more chaos. They reveal a president who has lost touch with reality. Unless checked by courts or Congress, he will endanger U.S. security at home and abroad.
It’s true Gaza has been turned into a wasteland by Israel’s lax rules on bombing civilian structures in the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attack. The destruction of most Gazan housing and civilian infrastructure went far beyond the need to destroy Hamas tunnels.
But that wreckage doesn’t provide any legal authority for the U.S. to seize Gaza, a narrow strip of land along the Mediterranean about the size of Philadelphia that was run by Egypt from 1948 to 1967, but which has been under Israeli control one way or another since then, even though Israel pulled out its troops in 2005.
Moreover, the president wouldn’t rule out sending U.S. troops to handle the massive job of demolishing and clearing destroyed Gazan buildings and disposing of unexploded munitions. He insisted, “We’ll own it [Gaza] and be responsible.” What happened to Trump’s America First insistence U.S. troops would no longer be involved in Mideast wars or nation-building? Did it disappear with the vision of a Trump resort on Gaza beach?
The president also neglected to say whose troops would be responsible for forcing unwilling Palestinians to leave Gaza for good, an act of horrifying ethnic cleansing.
Can you imagine the TV shots of American soldiers dragging Gazan women and children to buses? Trump insisted Palestinians would be “thrilled” to leave the territory, and fantasized Egypt or Jordan would take them and build them “really nice places to live” with money from rich Arab states.
This is, to put it politely, baloney. With its struggling economy, Egypt is drowning under the burden of millions of jobless Sudanese and Libyan refugees, along with 100,000 Gazans. Jordan, which has taken in millions of Palestinian refugees from previous wars, along with hundreds of thousands of Syrians, can’t afford more refugees.
Neither country wants the burden of millions of desperate Gazans who will agitate to return home to Palestine.
Jordan’s King Abdullah and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi have turned him down flat. But Trump insisted Tuesday that he could make them obey him, presumably by threatening to cut off economic and military aid. “They say they are not going to accept,” he said. “I say they will.”
Trump is willfully ignorant of the politics of the region: Neither Jordan’s king nor Egypt’s president could afford politically to be party to new mass expulsions of Palestinians.
