In a September 2016 article in The Atlantic, Salena Zito offered what has become one of the most insightful observations about the Donald Trump phenomenon.
Reporting on one of his campaign stops in western Pennsylvania, Zito wrote: “The press take him literally, but not seriously; his supporters take him seriously, but not literally.”
That pearl of wisdom holds as true today as it did eight years ago. It also helps explain the significance of President Trump’s extraordinary photo op and press conference with visiting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday, when he revealed plans for the US to take over the Gaza Strip, once its citizens have been relocated, and transform it from being a “hellhole” into a little slice of heaven along the Mediterranean.
For days, diplomats, politicians, pundits, and everyday people have been trying to wrap their heads around this radical and revolutionary idea. Here is some advice: Take Trump seriously, not literally.
What does that mean?
It means, no, he does not literally mean – Teddy Roosevelt-style – that the 21st-century version of the US Cavalry will be storming the beaches of Gaza and taking over the Strip. This, even though – when he was asked at the press conference whether this means boots on the ground – he did not explicitly rule it out.
Nor does it mean that the US will be loading Gazans onto lorries and shipping them off to countries like Egypt and Jordan that don’t want them, or further afield to Albania or Indonesia.
That would be a literal interpretation of his words. And it is no more likely to happen than Canada – as Trump has said aspirationally – becoming America’s 51st state.
But do take him seriously – meaning that he believes new ideas are needed to address the Gaza issue, that old solutions need not be recycled repeatedly, and that creative thinking is required.
By suggesting that the US take control of Gaza, Trump did what he does best: he opened a door and threw 100 elephants into a room. When the dust settles, 95 may have left – but the remaining five will have fundamentally rearranged the furniture.
This is classic Trump.
Trump campaign promise
Take his most famous promise from his first campaign: “So we’re gonna build the wall [with Mexico]. It’s gonna be a great wall, and it’s gonna be paid for by Mexico.”
What happened? Some 450 miles of the 1,000-mile wall were built, but the US taxpayer – not Mexico – footed the bill, though Trump later claimed that better trade deals with Mexico more than made up for it. Trump did not deliver everything he promised, but he did leave an impact, and his focus on this issue significantly influenced and reshaped US immigration enforcement and policy.
Or consider his “Deal of the Century,” unveiled amid great fanfare in January 2020. After months of anticipation, Trump introduced a plan that would – among other elements – give Israel sovereignty over the settlements in Judea and Samaria while offering the Palestinians a pathway to a demilitarized state in parts of the West Bank and Gaza if the Palestinian Authority met certain conditions, such as renouncing terrorism and recognizing Israel as a Jewish state.
Did that reshape reality? Not exactly. But its collapse over whether and at what pace Israel should be allowed to annex the settlements and Jordan Valley gave momentum to the talks that eventually led to the Abraham Accords.
More recently, Trump has threatened to take over the Panama Canal because of concern about China’s growing influence; acquire Greenland; and impose 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico.
Is he going to do any of that? Should he be taken literally? Probably not. But those over-the-top declarations did lead to some results – Panama saying it will withdraw from China’s Belt and Road Initiative, Denmark willing to open discussions with the US regarding military and economic issues involving Greenland, and both Canada and Mexico sending troops to their borders with the US.
Do not take Trump literally
In other words, take Trump seriously, not literally.
While many were shocked by the audacity of his Gaza proposal, no one should have been surprised that he would shake up conventional thinking about Gaza or the Mideast.
Trump is an iconoclast in the true dictionary sense of the word: a person who attacks settled beliefs or institutions. In the Middle East, he is attacking decades-old received diplomatic wisdom, and in so doing, he is triggering loud guffaws from those who see themselves as the guardians of that wisdom.
This is exactly what Trump did in his first term. In February 2017, as now, Netanyahu met him at the White House within a month of inauguration. Here’s how The New York Times described their press conference: “President Trump jettisoned two decades of diplomatic orthodoxy on Wednesday by declaring that the United States would no longer insist on the creation of a Palestinian state as part of a peace accord between Israel and the Palestinians.”
That is also what he did on Tuesday – discarded decades of diplomatic orthodoxy and offered an alternative solution. Should that vision be taken literally? No. But does it indicate that he is serious about considering other solutions? Absolutely.
Trump made this clear in saying during his press conference, “You have to learn from history. You can’t keep doing the same mistake over and over again.”
In the uproar that followed his suggestion, the counterarguments were predictable: It’s unrealistic, fantastical, unworkable.
The head of the Democrats Party, Yair Golan, suggested that everyone begin to think in “real terms, and not all kinds of crazy ideas.”
Golan, of course, is a strong advocate of a two-state solution. But, one might ask: is a plan for the US to take control of Gaza and rebuild it any more fantastical or unrealistic than believing that peace will flow if a Palestinian state — linked by a safe passage — is created in Gaza and the West Bank, with its capital in Jerusalem?
Why is the idea of giving Gazans the chance to relocate elsewhere any less realistic than believing that those who wanted to murder you yesterday are going to live with you in good neighborly relations tomorrow, even though their leadership and ideology have not changed?
Within hours of Trump’s press conference, the administration walked back parts of it: the relocation of Palestinians would be voluntary, the US would not pay for it, and America would not commit soldiers to carry it out. Trump himself reiterated the last point in a social media post on Thursday: “No soldiers by the US would be needed.”
Beyond expanding the range of ideas on the table – breaking out of the binary choice between a two-state solution that preserves a Jewish majority and a one-state scenario that threatens it – Trump’s declaration also holds a mirror up to the world.
How can a world that decries Gaza’s humanitarian situation simultaneously insist that no Gaza refugees be allowed to leave? How can a world that long said Gaza was an “open-air prison” not assist those who want to leave that “prison”? How can the world force people to stay in an area where those who govern it use them as human shields?
But those are little more than debate points. Trump likely intended something more significant.
And he may just get it.
Visits from Jordan and Egypt
Jordan’s King Abdullah is coming to Washington this week, and Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi will be there in two weeks. One can imagine those visits will be used for more than just the reiteration of their opposition to taking in any refugees. They will also be expected to present alternatives for rebuilding Gaza without Hamas.
On Thursday, it was already reported that Egypt was in the process of drawing up a proposal to reconstruct Gaza. In other words, Trump’s audacious idea is compelling others – who hitherto were content to see Israel sink in Gaza – to proffer suggestions of their own.
WHILE THE talk about the US taking over Gaza understandably dominated the headlines, another crucial aspect of the meeting was the optics.
What everyone saw on Tuesday in the White House was Israel and the United States completely aligned: on the hostages, on Hamas, on Iran.
Any lingering questions about how Trump would treat Netanyahu after their reported falling-out following Trump’s 2020 election defeat were put to rest. While we don’t know what was said behind closed doors, what played out in public was unmistakable: no daylight between the two countries. None. And that is important for everyone to see: Americans, Israelis, and Israel’s friends and enemies.
That message matters.
Listen to what former secretary of state Antony Blinken said in one of his parting interviews last month about the difficulty of finishing a hostage deal with Hamas: “Whenever there has been public daylight between the United States and Israel and the perception that pressure was growing on Israel, we’ve seen it: Hamas has pulled back from agreeing to a ceasefire and the release of hostages.”
Hamas, obviously, is not the only party that draws conclusions from seeing US-Israel rifts. One key takeaway from Tuesday’s photo op and press conference is that if such rifts exist, they will not be publicly displayed.
And that message may prove just as significant as Trump’s comment about the US taking over Gaza. The latter probably won’t happen. The former is already having an effect.