US President Donald Trump’s plan to take over Gaza, move the Palestinians out, and transform the enclave into a tourist haven won’t work. But that doesn’t make the proposal meaningless.
Critics are mistaken to dismiss it out of hand. Backers are just as mistaken to clamor for it to start right away.
First, let’s clear up some misconceptions: Not all the Israeli backers are West Bank settlers and hardline right-wingers. Jordan and Egypt cannot take in Gaza’s Palestinians. And Trump’s plan should not be examined line by line or word by word as if it’s an actual blueprint for the future. It’s not that—it’s a starting point for a new approach.
The trauma of the Hamas pogrom of October 7, 2023, when thousands of armed terrorists swept across the Gaza border into Israel, murdering, burning, and raping more than 1,200 Israelis and hauling 240 others into cruel captivity in Gaza tunnels, is reflected in Israeli reactions to Trump’s proposal.
Predictably, the most vocal supporters of removing Palestinians from Gaza are hardline right-wingers like ex-Cabinet minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, a follower of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane, a racist ultranationalist who advocated removing all Palestinians from Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza. But Ben-Gvir is far from alone.
Snap polls of Israelis by local news media show support for Trump’s idea of moving Palestinians out of Gaza at about 70%. An internet survey among the members of a large, moderate grassroots activist group produced these shocking results:
● Good idea, when do we start?—56%
● Good idea but impractical—23%
● Don’t celebrate yet; there might be hidden clauses—13%
● It’s an immoral plan—6%
So 94% of these mostly centrist respondents do not oppose the Trump plan in principle, even though it calls for ethnic cleansing and violates the Geneva Conventions ban on transferring populations, among other troubling issues. You might have thought that the results would be the opposite—6% of Israelis, about equal to the portion of West Bank settlers, would back Trump’s plan. But no.
That illustrates how fed up Israelis are with the worn-out “two-state solution” mantra, not only because of the Hamas pogrom of October 7 but also because of the Palestinian leadership’s repeated rejection of Israeli offers of a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza, and parts of Jerusalem. As recently as two years ago, about half the Israeli electorate said it could live with the creation of a Palestinian state under the right conditions. But as I wrote here, just a month after the October 7 atrocities, Hamas killed the two-state solution along with all its Israeli victims.
The main part of Trump’s proposal is resettling the Gaza Strip’s Palestinians, at least temporarily. Seen from afar, it looks like Jordan and Egypt, the enclave’s nearest neighbors, are the logical recipients of 2 million Palestinians. From here, though, it’s untenable.
Egypt, Israel’s neighbor and peace treaty partner, has been fighting a war against militants in the style of the Islamic State group in the Sinai Desert for many years. It doesn’t get much attention because, well, desert. The Islamist infestation always threatens to cross into Egypt proper.
Also getting little attention is Israel’s constant aid to Egypt in fighting the heavily armed Islamists.
The most publicized incident occurred in 2012. Islamists attacked an Egyptian border post near Israel and killed 15 Egyptian police officers. Then, the militants hopped into two Egyptian army vehicles and crossed into Israel, apparently planning to continue their killing spree. They didn’t get far before Israeli forces killed them.
That was publicized because it involved Israel. It’s far from the only such incident. Clashes happen almost every day. The bottom line—Egypt cannot take in large numbers of Palestinians who have been living under Hamas rule for the better part of two decades. Undoubtedly, some or many of them share the violent Hamas Islamist ideology. Such an influx could destabilize Egypt, which is already facing critical problems in other areas, primarily economic.
Jordan’s situation is even more serious. The small kingdom’s population is at least half Palestinian (exact figures are a closely guarded Jordanian secret). King Abdullah II faces constant challenges from Islamist elements in his own parliament, not to mention threats from outside, especially Iran. There are periodic reports of his regime teetering under these challenges. An influx of a million or even half a million Palestinians from Gaza would likely topple the king’s regime sooner rather than later.
Would sending the Palestinians to Jordan be good for Israel?
It’s a mantra among Israel’s right that “Jordan is Palestine.” Technically, that is correct—Jordan was part of what was British Mandatory Palestine. That doesn’t mean that sending more Palestinians to Jordan would be good for Israel.
Trump’s relocation of 2 million Palestinians to Egypt and Jordan would be disastrous. Instead of facing Gaza, a Hamas-run enclave hemmed in by Egypt, Israel, and the Mediterranean Sea, Israel could face two full-fledged Hamas-influenced nations on its borders. The first casualties would be Israel’s peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan, and it goes downhill from there.
So, if Trump’s plan is not only a nonstarter but also dangerous, what good can it bring?
Even discussing the plan moves the “two-state solution” formula to the back burner. Then, the focus can move to Saudi Arabia and the chance of normalizing its relations with Israel. Of course, the Saudis insist that the formation of a Palestinian state be an element in this, but Saudi pronouncements over the past few years have indicated that the actual creation of such a state (which the Palestinians themselves don’t want) is no longer a precondition to ties with Israel. Just starting Israeli-Palestinian negotiations yet again would be enough, even with the assumption that as in the past, they will go nowhere.
Involving the Saudis is the key to a different Middle East. They are the strongest Sunni Muslim element in the region, the only one that can build a regional coalition to take on Shiite Muslim Iran. That is clearly in the interests of Israel and the US.
And one day, that coalition could impose a solution on Israel and the Palestinians, drawing a border and enforcing it. Israel, as a member of the coalition, could have some input there, but however it turned out, an international force would be in place—not the toothless, biased, worthless United Nations and its tin soldiers who specialize in looking the other way.
Trump’s proposal could change the focus of Mideast diplomacy, looking at the region as a whole and not just focusing on a conflict between two of its smallest parties—Israel and the Palestinians.
In fact, that’s already happening.
Mark Lavie has been covering the Middle East for major news outlets since 1972. His second book, Why Are We Still Afraid?, which follows his five-decade career and comes to a surprising conclusion, is available on Amazon.