President Donald Trump rarely bores. At a much-awaited press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on February 4, Trump was expected to discuss the prospects for the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, and potentially US policy on Iran. Would he take up the idea that the war would likely resume soon? Would he commit to a hardline policy on Iran?
Trump changed the subject entirely, shocking hawks, doves, and anybody watching with his big idea:
“The US will take over the Gaza Strip and we will do a job with it too. 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.”
Asked whether he saw a long-term US presence in Gaza, Trump doubled down:
“I do see a long-term ownership position, and I see it bringing great stability to that part of the Middle East and maybe the entire Middle East…. Everybody I have spoken to loves the idea of the United States owning that piece of land, developing and creating thousands of jobs with something that will be magnificent in a really magnificent area that nobody would know…. I don’t want to be cute. I don’t want to be a wise guy. But the Riviera of the Middle East, this could be something that could be so … magnificent.”
A few thoughts.
First, I really don’t want to put Trump on the couch, but there’s a weird psychological move happening. At bottom, the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians is a political problem, not a real estate development deal. Trump’s language here—“level it out,” “create jobs,” “ownership position”—evades the very real political problems underpinning the conflict, sounding instead as if he were wearing a hard hat overlooking a desolate rail yard outside Newark. Is Trump using the familiarity heuristic to render an intractable problem something familiar? I’ll leave that to the shrinks.
More practically, it is hard to see this plan going anywhere. It would require huge numbers of US troops on the ground to try to maintain order in the Gaza Strip. Does political support for this seem to be forthcoming? What would happen to the political support when US forces inevitably start facing attacks from Hamas?
Second, such a plan would involve somehow moving almost 2 million Palestinians away from their homes while construction firms haul away rubble and construct new buildings. Where would they go? The Arab states had made clear their opposition to this idea before last night—they fear Palestinians will never be allowed back and Israel will simply take the land over permanently. They reiterated their opposition after the press conference.
The Israeli right shares the Arab states’ analysis but views their bug as a feature: Israel’s expansionist Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich hailed the plan as “The true response to October 7. Those responsible for the horrific massacre on our land will face the permanent loss of their own.” There’s zero support from anybody who could help to transfer Palestinians from Gaza.
But to zoom out a bit from the particulars: Why are we still involved in this process at all? What is the US interest in taking another ride on the hopeless carousel of destruction that is the Israeli-Palestinian peace process?
Israel has turned Gaza into rubble—Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff visited the Strip and described it as “uninhabitable… What was inescapable is that there is almost nothing left of Gaza.” And yet the Jewish state is not close to achieving the war’s two strategic aims: the eradication of Hamas and the release of all the hostages held in Gaza. As Jon Hoffman and I note in a recent piece,
“Hamas remains the dominant political and military force inside the enclave, and former Secretary of State Antony Blinken recently said Hamas has recruited almost as many fighters as it has lost in 15 months of war. The Jerusalem Post has similarly reported that Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas combined are back to more than 20,000 fighters. As for the hostages, eight were rescued by Israeli soldiers, but more than 100 were released by Hamas because of diplomacy.”
So why should this be a US project at all? As George Kennan lamented in 1977,
“We have allowed ourselves to be maneuvered into a position where each of the two parties believes it can use us for its own ends, where each has the impression that it is primarily through us that its desiderata can be achieved, with the result that we are always the first to be blamed, no matter whose ox is gored; and all this in a situation where we actually have very little influence with either party. Seldom, surely, can a great power have got itself into a more unsound and unnecessary position.”
But to try to brighten things up a bit, Trump’s vision of a developed, peaceful Gaza next to Israel changed the subject from resuming the war, let alone broadening it to Iran. He expressed sympathy for people on both sides, as well as a desire to get out of this mess and create a future better than the one Israelis and Palestinians face today. But leapfrogging the very real, and potentially intractable, political problems sets a dubious foundation for doing anything more than changing the subject. Which, in fairness, might have been the best anyone could hope for.