US President Donald Trump gave Israelis on Tuesday something many could only have dreamed of.
He aligned himself fully with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s war aims: Dismantling Hamas’s military and governing capabilities, securing the return of all the hostages, and ensuring that Gaza would never again pose a threat to Israel.
He made clear, after signing an order resuming “maximum pressure” on Iran, that Tehran will never acquire a nuclear weapon.
He did not pledge allegiance to the idea of a Palestinian state and said his administration would weigh in within a month on whether Israel should extend sovereignty over Judea and Samaria.
He reaffirmed his intent to broker an Israel-Saudi normalization agreement.
And, most shockingly – in the sense that no one saw it coming – he said the US would take over Gaza after all its residents were relocated elsewhere.
Trump's answer
With that, Trump provided the answer to a question that has bedeviled everyone since the war began on October 7: What happens the day after? Who will take control of Gaza?
Trump’s answer: We will. The United States of America.
“The US will take over the Gaza Strip, and we will do a job with it, too,” he said. “We’ll own it and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site, level the site and get rid of the destroyed buildings, level it out. Create an economic development that will supply unlimited numbers of jobs and housing for the people of the area. Do a real job, do something different.”
Predictably, there were scores of scoffers and mockers around the world. Predictably, the Arab world rejected the idea out of hand.
Also, predictably, Israel’s airwaves were filled with commentators laughing it off, explaining why it would never work, and wondering whether it was not just lip service and a ploy to ultimately get Netanyahu to do what the president wants.
In other words, many Israelis – and Jews in certain circles in the Diaspora – did what they often do when faced with good news: Look for dark clouds behind any silver lining.
And Trump’s proposal is a silver lining. It presents a fresh, out-of-the-box approach to a problem that experienced diplomatic minds have spent years trying to solve – only to recycle the same solutions that fail time after time.
Along comes Trump, and he offers up completely new ideas. Are they realistic? Maybe not. Are they implementable? Maybe not.
But why not give them a hearing? Why pooh-pooh them as unworkable right off the bat?
There are enough people out there who will characterize Trump’s ideas as ridiculous without Israelis or Jews needing to add their voices to the chorus.
An alternative approach
We recommend a different approach: Welcome the ideas, flesh them out, refine them, and test their feasibility.
But don’t summarily dismiss them or shut them down before they’ve had a chance to take shape.
As former president Joe Biden recommended to Netanyahu last year in an entirely different context: Take the win.
And this is a win. The most powerful leader in the world has stood up and unapologetically aligned US policy with Israel’s interests. That is no small thing. Celebrate it – don’t deflate it.
The unvarnished truth, as Trump said in his press conference, is that the same solutions for Gaza have been tried repeatedly, but nothing has changed, and nothing has moved.
“You have to learn from history,” Trump said, adding, “You can’t let it keep repeating itself,” something that has been the case in Gaza for generations.
“You can’t keep doing the same mistake over and over again. Gaza is a hellhole right now. It was before the bombing started, frankly. And we’re going to give people a chance to live in a beautiful community that’s safe and secure.”
Is the idea of relocating Gaza’s people elsewhere unconventional? Of course.
Is the idea of the US taking control of the Strip revolutionary? Certainly.
Is the vision of Gaza becoming a Middle Eastern Riviera a bit too rosy? Undoubtedly.
But nothing else has worked.
This, at least, is an attempt to shake things up and break paradigms that have failed time and again.