Arab League chief rejects US President Trump’s plan to ethnically cleanse Gaza of Palestinians.

Trump’s comments on displacing Palestinians from Gaza faces strong opposition from Jordan and Arab countries.

As the US president announced controversial plans to “take over the Gaza Strip”, Euronews checked in with Arab American voters from across the political spectrum.

Two days ago, the president of the United States declared his intention to assume long-term ownership of the Gaza Strip, turn the coastal enclave into a real-estate-development heaven, and permanently remove its Palestinian inhabitants to other countries. The administration has already walked this proposal back, but not before touting the president’s “out of the box” thinking—a phrase that suggests ignorance of where, exactly, the box is.

The immediate social-media reaction of many Palestinians in Gaza was defiant: They do not intend to leave their homeland, although it is largely uninhabitable after nearly 16 months of a ferocious war. Many Gazans are furious with Hamas for the ruin it has brought to the Palestinian national project, and almost all said that they would love to see Gaza become a developed, prosperous, and secure home for the Palestinian people. But they also see Trump’s imperial plan as still more punishing blowback from the October 7 attack.

Trump is right to see Gaza’s potential. Twenty years ago, under Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Israel withdrew its settlements from the Strip, which was to be the first building block of Palestinian statehood. Gaza had a short-lived airport and plans for a seaport, offshore gas drilling, and development projects that would teach new skills and breed sustainability and self-sufficiency. Palestinians had an opportunity to create effective self-governance in Gaza and demonstrate what the West Bank, too, could become without the Israeli occupation.

[Read: Trump’s wild plan for Gaza]

Instead, Hamas has led Gaza to its destruction. The October 7 attacks led to the meaningless loss of tens of thousands of lives; the Strip has been razed and strewn with ordnance, and billions of dollars in aid money squandered, while Hamas proclaims divine victory for its resistance project. If Trump really means to take over this field of ruins, he could offer a stern proposal for dispensing with Hamas’s power and make clear that the United States will become responsible for recycling Gaza’s wreckage, disarming its unexploded munitions—many of which are American-produced—and providing drinking water to its people, much as Washington did for Yezidi communities persecuted in northern Iraq by “Islamic State” terrorists. The United States bears some responsibility for the apocalyptic destruction visited upon Gaza, after all, having provided Israel with much material support.

Trump opted instead for an outlandish and offensive proposal of forced displacement, land theft, and colonization. Many Arab and Gulf nations have condemned Trump’s plan and reiterated their commitment to the Palestinian people’s right to remain on their land. Saudi Arabia responded to Trump’s “real-estate solution” by emphasizing its commitment to the two-state solution, saying it would not normalize relations with Israel unless a Palestinian state is formed.

The United States is unlikely to commit tens of thousands of troops to battling Hamas in Gaza, with all of the consequences that would entail. But the announcement itself, made in the presence of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during his visit to Washington, is sure to inflame anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism in the region. Trump’s rhetoric in this regard both belittles the Palestinian people’s attachment to their homes and undermines Israeli security.

An American threat to take over Gaza and annex the territory will not be an effective negotiating tactic with Hamas or other Palestinian players. And no Arab country will participate in the forced displacement of Palestinians out of the Gaza Strip. The Gulf countries are having to reiterate their commitment to the Palestinian people in a manner that puts them in a difficult position vis-à-vis normalization and the Abraham Accords. Even Netanyahu initially seemed to tread carefully by not fully endorsing the idea but praising Trump for his “fresh” thinking.

If what Trump really meant to do was to shake up the stalemate in Gaza by refusing the ordinary terms of engagement, he could have proposed some constructive measures. With Arab support, the U.S. could push Hamas into signing a 50-year truce with Israel. Trump could persuade the wealthy Arab countries to finance a transitional police force for Gaza that includes elements of the Palestinian Authority, in order to challenge Hamas’s monopoly on power. Maybe the Palestinian Authority could be enjoined to help rebuild and transform Gaza. Certainly, the United States can contribute rubble-removal equipment and help dispose of unexploded munitions before Hamas recycles them into new weapons.

[Read: Nobody wants Gaz-a-Lago]

But behind all of these efforts should be an iron-clad guarantee, through a binding United Nations Security Council resolution, of Palestinians’ right to repopulate the Gaza Strip. The Trump administration could address the people of Gaza in a speech acknowledging their pain and suffering—and promising U.S. support for a transformed Gaza so long as its people seek to live in peace and prosperity next to their Israeli neighbors.

Actual fresh thinking could lead to a reconstruction plan for Gaza that doesn’t activate the same old mechanisms that enabled Hamas to siphon off aid and resources in the past. A lawless grab for land and power, however, won’t do that—it will just delegitimize the United States and degrade its potential to do good in the world.

The Palestinian president, Hamas and neighbouring countries condemn the idea of resettling Gazans abroad.

Move over, Greenland. Donald Trump has his eyes on a new prize: Gaza. At a news conference with visiting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday, the president declared that “the U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip,” “level it out,” and “create an economic development that will supply unlimited numbers of jobs and housing for the people of the area.” These people would not all be Gazans, whom Trump suggested should be resettled elsewhere, at least temporarily. The president also expressed openness to deploying U.S. troops in order to turn Gaza into the “Riviera of the Middle East.”

Trump’s Gaz-a-Lago plan has just one minor defect: It is a nonstarter with pretty much all of the parties required to make it work. Fresh off failed forays into Iraq and Afghanistan, many Americans will balk at inserting themselves into one of the Middle East’s most intractable conflicts. “I think most South Carolinians would probably not be excited about sending Americans to take over Gaza,” Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, one of the most hawkish lawmakers in Congress, told reporters. Trump named Jordan and Egypt as two Arab countries that could take in displaced Gazans during the territory’s reconstruction, but both regimes would rather swallow broken glass than grant citizenship or even a foothold to large numbers of Palestinians, whose cause they celebrate but whose people they routinely denigrate.

Trump’s scheme also conflicts with an essential component of the Israeli ethos. The country prides itself on “defending itself by itself,” as home to a formerly persecuted people no longer reliant on foreign powers for its security. This pose is something of a polite fiction—Israel very much relies on American weapons and diplomatic support—but it’s true to the extent that the country has always fought its own wars with its own fighters. Trump’s proposal would upend that doctrine and risk turning Israel into a liability for the United States, rather than a strategic asset. As for the Palestinians, many Gazans would readily seek a new life elsewhere if offered the opportunity to escape their horrific circumstances, but many others would not. If done at the point of a gun, such a transfer would constitute ethnic cleansing—a far-right Israeli dream into which Trump just breathed new life, whatever his intentions.

[Read: Trump’s wild plan for Gaza]

But as flawed as Trump’s proposed solution is, it does identify a real problem. The U.S., Arab states, the European Union, the United Nations, and countless human-rights organizations all claim to care about Gaza. In the decades since Israel withdrew its troops and settlements from the territory, however, the international community has participated in a perverse cycle: It shovels money and aid into Gaza; watches that money get appropriated by Hamas to bankroll its messianic war against Israel’s existence; relegates the military response to Hamas to ever more hawkish Israeli governments, elected by voters pushed to the right by rocket attacks; rebuilds Gaza with more soon-to-be-compromised aid after yet another ruinous conflict between Israel and Hamas; then proclaims itself shocked and appalled when the cycle repeats.

The latest war has been catastrophic for the Palestinian people, and that is the culmination of years of bankrupt international policy. “The Gaza thing has not worked; it’s never worked,” Trump told reporters yesterday. “It’s a pure demolition site. If we could find the right piece of land or numerous pieces of land and build them some really nice places … I think that would be a lot better than going back to Gaza, which has had just decades and decades of death.” As is often the case, Trump accurately diagnosed a fundamental failure of the reigning policy elites, but offered a half-baked solution to the problem.

With significant revisions, this proposal could contain a semblance of something workable. Temporarily housing Gazans in dignified conditions elsewhere while the devastated territory is rebuilt under the watchful eyes of America and its allies would provide the Gazan people with much-deserved relief while depriving Hamas of its source of power and income. The civilians would no longer be shields for Hamas to place between itself and Israel, and Hamas would no longer be able to skim funds from the population’s aid. Ultimately, the Gazan people could then return to a home no longer hostage to either Hamas or Israeli blockade. Should Trump’s Arab allies talk him into something like this, it would certainly be better than rerunning the old playbook and expecting a different result.

Trump’s proposal could be a negotiating tactic—a grandiose plan intended to be bargained down to something practical. It could be a flight of fancy that won’t survive contact with the regional players, or a vision he intends to push through with American might. No one honestly knows. More immediate questions also remain unanswered: Does Trump intend to ensure that the current Israel-Hamas cease-fire holds through its second phase, which is scheduled to begin in March, or will the war reignite? If the president is unable to strike a new accord with Iran, Hamas’s weakened patron, will he back Israeli strikes on its nuclear sites? Trump also dropped another surprise toward the end of his press conference, when he said that his administration would announce its policy on potential Israeli annexation of the West Bank—territory that Palestinians claim for their future state—in the next four weeks.

Whether Trump will follow through on any of the ideas he tossed like grenades into the discourse yesterday is anyone’s guess. What’s certain is this: The old rules of the Middle East no longer apply, and no one knows what the new ones are.

Netanyahu's far-right allies will cheer the proposal, but Arab nations will see it as ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.

President Donald Trump, who campaigned on a promise to put America First, just proposed the wildest and most improbable intervention by the United States in overseas affairs since the invasion of and occupation of Iraq, more than 20 years ago.

At a joint press conference with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump promised that the U.S. would become the occupier of Gaza.

“The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip and we’ll do a job with it too. We’ll own it,” Trump said. “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.” Trump suggested that U.S. troops would be used, if needed, to implement his vision for Gaza.

He presented this idea, one never before suggested by a U.S. president or Middle East peace negotiator, as a way to end generations of conflict between Israel and the Palestinians and, also, as a bonus, an opportunity to create sweet real-estate development opportunities. The idea was breathtaking in its audacity, and it would be fair to say that its implementation would run into myriad obstacles at home and abroad, except that the overwhelming likelihood is that the U.S. would never come near implementing this notion.

Trump’s proposal to displace 2.2 million Palestinian residents from their homes, which he expanded on today, has already angered  the Arab world. A direct American intervention in Gaza would radically expand the U.S.  footprint in the Middle East, giving it possession of a territory devastated by 15 months of fighting between Hamas and the Israel Defense Forces, ignited by the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. And it could further destabilize a region never known for its stability.

Trump, as is his practice,offered few details as he outlined the expansive idea at a White House press conference, standing next to a smiling Netanyahu.

The president—who has long been vociferously opposed to U.S. military intervention abroad—did not rule out sending the American military to secure Gaza while it was being rebuilt. Asked if U.S. troops would be deployed, Trump said that “we’ll do what’s necessary. … We’ll take it over and develop it.”

The plan would permanently remove Gaza’s residents from Palestinian territory and settle them outside of their land. Trump did not specify where homes for the new refugees might be found, though he again repeated his desire for Egypt and Jordan to take in Gaza’s residents. Both of those nations have firmly declined, their leaders quietly panicking, according to regional diplomats, at the thought of Trump forcing them to take radicalized Palestinians as refugees.

The displacement would presumably be met with outrage across the region. Palestinians, like Israelis, want to stay on their land. Neighboring Arab nations—even those with close U.S. ties—would not want to abet an Israeli expulsion of Palestinians from the strip. The Saudi foreign ministry released a statement offering its “unequivocal rejection” of any attempt “to displace the Palestinian people from their land.”

A ceasefire took hold in Gaza just before Trump took office, bringing a tentative halt to a conflict that has reportedly killed more than 20,000 Palestinian civilians and as many as 20,000 Hamas militants, leveled much of the strip, and created a devastating humanitarian crisis. Trump’s plan would pull the United States even more deeply into the conflict by taking over the territory, which has been fought over since Egypt occupied it in 1948.

The region has already been reshaped by Israel’s response to the October 7 attacks that killed nearly 1,200 people and saw another 250 taken hostage. Israel has pummeled Hamas, destroying its leadership, and also delivered devastating blows to Hezbollah in Lebanon. Combined with the collapse of the Assad regime in Syria, the events of the past year have left Iran more isolated than it has been in decades, and Trump today ordered the return of the “maximum pressure” campaign to sanction Tehran.

Trump’s Gaza plan, were it to be carried out, would appear to be a remarkable win for the far-right members in Netanyahu’s governing coalition, who have longed for permanent Israeli expansion into both Gaza and the West Bank. Netanyahu—a longtime Trump ally, and the first foreign leader to visit the White House in the president’s second term—suggested he was open to the idea, noting that Trump “sees a different future for that piece of land.” He added: “It’s worth paying attention to this. We’re talking about it. It’s something that could change history.”

One White House official told me that Trump’s comments were not a spur-of-the-moment suggestion but reflective of a newfound, post-election confidence that he could put together the ultimate deal and change decades of history.

“Look, the Gaza thing has not worked. It’s never worked,” Trump told reporters. “I think they should get a good, fresh, beautiful piece of land, and we get some people to put up the money to build it and make it nice and make it habitable and enjoyable.” Trump has been buoyed by two first-term Middle East initiatives that Washington experts said would have devastating consequences for U.S. national security, but did not: The decision to move the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to the capital, Jerusalem, and the order to assassinate the Iranian Quds Force leader Qassem Soleimani.

Trump—who also has been publicly and privately musing about winning a Nobel Peace Prize—has been known to first take an outlandish position and then move to a more moderate stance. Sometimes there is a method to his madness, and sometimes there is simply madness in his madness. World leaders, from Denmark to Panama to the Middle East, have spent the past two weeks trying to discern the difference.  

“It occurs to me that Trump may have floated this idea to raise the stakes after Arab countries refused his request to take in Palestinians,” Mark Dubowitz, CEO of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, wrote on X. “Now, he’s cranking up the pressure: If you won’t take them, we’ll remove them ourselves and take control of Gaza. Classic Trump: Go to the extreme, making what once seemed outrageous suddenly look like the reasonable middle ground.”

Whatever motivated Trump’s comments, his proposal remains a repudiation of the principle of national self-determination, which has been a cornerstone of U.S. foreign policy for more than a century, albeit one that has been imperfectly honored.

Any direct U.S. intervention in Gaza would fly in the face of Trump’s long-standing desire to disengage from foreign entanglements; he began negotiations to withdraw U.S. forces from Afghanistan, wants to slash aid to Ukraine and has threatened to abandon military positions in Korea, Europe, and Syria. And it may face pushback from at home from some usually reliable allies.

“I think that would be an interesting proposal,” Senator Lindsey Graham told reporters on Capitol Hill after Trump spoke. “We’ll see what our Arab friends say about that. I think most South Carolinians would probably not be excited about sending Americans to take over Gaza. It might be problematic.”

The plan also, ultimately, was at least a little bit about real estate. Trump remains a developer at heart, and his son-in-law Jared Kushner said last year that Gaza’s “waterfront property could be very valuable” and that Israel should remove civilians while it “cleans up” the strip. The president today suggested that the appeal of Gaza’s beachfront property would be a draw for the strip’s future inhabitants, whether or not they be Palestinian, when asked whom he imagined living in the rebuilt region.

“I envision world people living there,” Trump declared. “The Riviera of the Middle East.”

Phase two of the Gaza ceasefire deal, Iran and its allies, and Arab neighbours in the Middle East are all on the agenda.

US president has suggested that Egypt and Jordan should to take in Palestinians from Gaza.