DONALD Trump’s grotesque proposal that the United States should take control of Gaza, exile its residents and redevelop it into some sort of Middle East Mar-a-Lago is as brazenly bonkers as it is dangerously destabilising.
It needs to be resisted in the strongest possible terms if further harm and suffering is not to be caused in a volatile region already pulverised by a merciless war.
Trump, not even three weeks into his second presidency, has already reminded us that he regards international relations as a board game or a round of fantasy geopolitics. His Gaza intervention takes things even further, treating it like a property deal; the US President should not be playing Monopoly with people’s lives.
Adding to the crassness of the Trump delusion was the fact that it was delivered from the White House in a cosy fireside chat with Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. No wonder Netanyahu, the architect of Gaza’s destruction and the deaths of more than 62,000 Palestinians, wore a stupefying grin as Trump outlined his “Riviera of the Middle East” vision.
Netanyahu said the US President deserved praise for cutting “to the chase” and “thinking outside the box”. But this was Trump being unhinged, not unboxed.
He talked about how he envisioned the US taking a “long-term ownership position” - an outrageous expression of Trump’s imperialist ambitions. “Everybody I’ve spoken to loves the idea of the United States owning that piece of land,” he claimed, though it is striking that no-one of any note loves it enough to say so publicly.
Trump’s remarks come at an already tense time, with the ceasefire and hostage exchange between Israel and Hamas still delicate. Cool heads will need to prevail in coming days to maintain the uneasy peace.
There is a kernel of truth in Trump’s plan. Gaza does need enormous and prolonged investment to rebuild it. The US can, and should, play a role in that. It was mostly American armaments, after all, which Israel used to grind Gaza into the dust of “a hellhole”, inflicting hunger and disease, orphaning children and turning an entire population into refugees. The US has a moral duty to repair the damage it so egregiously facilitated under Joe Biden’s dismal presidency.
If there is a role for American might in the Middle East, it should be directed at calming tensions, building an enduring peace and allowing all of the region’s people to live together in quiet and amicable prosperity.
It is absurd to suggest that around two million Palestinians should be forcibly relocated elsewhere to line US pockets. Gaza needs to be rebuilt to allow its own people to return to their own homes.
