Donald Trump’s remarks on the Gaza Strip after his February 4 meeting with Israeli Prime Minster Bibi Netanyahu precipitated enormous controversy and confusion. They were not idle musings, but written in advance. Typically, Trump wandered off-script, speculating about using US military force in Gaza, which White House handlers walked back the next day. Trump himself then promptly walked back the walk-back, insisting he was serious about American control of Gaza, although without force. (For the record, I have never advocated deploying the US military in Gaza.)
The ensuing furor has obscured the reality that Trump addressed two vastly different issues. First, and most bizarrely, he asserted that Israel would hand control of Gaza to the US, which would “own” it, and make it “the Riviera of the Middle East.” Second, and far more important, was Trump’s contention that resettling Gaza’s population in the Strip was the wrong way forward, at least near-term. This distinction is critical to evaluating Trump’s statements, until changes positions again, perhaps while you read this article.
Trump’s first idea is not going to happen. It springs from no underlying philosophy, national-security grand strategy, or consistent forward-looking policy. It derives instead from his first-term pitch to North Korean leader Kim Jung Un that his country’s untouched beaches could become major resort areas. That did not materialize, but the dream never died.
Wild as it was for North Korea, it is even more so in Gaza. The aphorism “capital is a coward” is directly applicable. Because of the ongoing cease-fire/hostage exchange, Hamas is reasserting control in Gaza, suggesting it may not be as debilitated by Israeli military action as initially thought. In turn, that means Israel will likely resume hostilities, rightly so, when the exchanges end. Until Gaza is fully secure, capital and labor necessary to build the Middle East’s Riviera, will be few and far between. “Gaza” itself is an historical accident, reflecting military reality at the end of the first Arab-Israeli war in 1948, simply a part of the ancient Mediterranean path leading to Egypt. Standing alone, it is not economically viable as far as the eye can see.
Trump’s second suggestion about Gaza’s future is not new, having emanated from multiple sources long before his February 4 comments. If adopted, it would fundamentally, permanently alter the Middle East. Among other things, it would be the final death knell for the “two-state” solution. Well before Hamas’s barbaric October 7 attack, the two-state solution had become simply an incantation. Afterwards, in Israel, it all but disappeared as a serious proposition. Nonetheless, absent any serious effort to create an alternative, the mantra has remained the default position.
Those days are over. The fundamental problem with the putative Palestinian “state” was its artificiality, a legacy of radical Arab leaders like Egypt’s Gamal Abdul Nassar; its lack of any economic basis; and its susceptibility to terrorist control. Nonetheless, if the two-state concept is dead, we must find an alternative. I once proposed a “three-state” solution: returning Gaza to Egypt, with Israel and Jordan dividing sovereignty over the West Bank. This approach would safeguard Israeli security while also settling Palestinians in viable economies, with real futures.
Palestinians, however, have for decades been so abused by the region’s radical, post-colonial ideologies that neither Cairo nor Amman welcomed having potentially subversive populations come under their jurisdictions. But the palpable difficulty of resolving the Palestinian issue should not lead regional states and concerned outside powers to fall back to reconstructing high-rise refugee camps in Gaza. So doing, involving enormous costs in clearing the rubble and unexploded ordnance, not to mention eliminating the Hamas tunnel network, and then reconstruction itself, would inevitably lead to another October 7. That is obviously unacceptable.
There is an alternative, however, namely changing the way Palestinians have been treated for over seven decades. UNRWA, the UN’s Palestine relief agency, which is functionally an arm of Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, should be abolished, and responsibility for Palestinian refugees transferred to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. In turn, UNHCR should follow its basic humanitarian doctrine, under which refugees are either repatriated to their country of origin, or, if that is not possible, resettled in other countries. There is nothing forcible about UNHCR resettlement, since both refugees and recipient countries must agree. But it is also true that, unlike UNRWA, UNHCR refugee camps do not last forever.
This is not to the detriment of Palestinians. Exactly the opposite. It means they will receive the same humanitarian treatment as every other refugee population since World War II. As difficult as switching to the UNHCR model may be, Trump’s comments, the first such by a major world leader, may finally ignite the debate that must occur to find a lasting home for the Gaza Palestinians.
This article was first published in the Daily Telegraph on February 10, 2025. Click here to read the original article.