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DONALD Trump’s Gaza plan is as American as apple pie, given that it involves first slaughtering the indigenous population and then stealing their land for a profit. The process of decimation that was actively aided and abetted by former president Joe Biden is now reaching its logical conclusion under Trump. This provides further proof — if such proof was needed — that when it comes to Israel, America’s two parties aren’t just on the same page; they are on the same paragraph, the same sentence, the same word, the same full stop.
Naturally, Trump’s plan has been received with widespread condemnation. Interestingly, Germany, the sub-Scandinavian country that has been one of the most unstinting supporters of Israel’s war crimes, said ‘enough is enough’ and has not only stated that Gaza — along with the West Bank and East Jerusalem — belongs to the Palestinians, but that they would ‘do their part’ in the reconstruction of Gaza. Oh, and they also realised that such a move would be “in breach of international law”. Of course, this has less to do with some unlikely moral awakening and more to do with European antipathy for Trump and also the fear that their lily-white countries will be flooded with Palestinian refugees.
The Arab countries have also made the appropriate noises, with Jordan apparently going so far as to leak to media outlets their intention to go to war with Israel if Palestinians are forcibly displaced into their territory. While one shouldn’t take that seriously, given Jordan’s role over the past 17 months, it does signal how vulnerable Amman feels in the current situation and how fearful they are of public discontent. The same could be said for Egypt which, while it is happy to protect Israel’s flank and also extort money from Gaza refugees and evacuees, balks at the idea of a large-scale transfer of Palestinians into Egypt, deeming it a threat to national security.
Why would Trump propose such an outrageous step?
As for most foreign capitals that were supportive of the US-Israeli genocide, the change in US presidents seems to have also changed their narrative from “’Israel is waging a defensive war and is not deliberately targeting civilians’ to ‘Gaza is an uninhabitable wasteland’, without even pausing for breath. Similarly, Western legacy media has now also switched gears and have started interviewing actual Palestinians on the ground, something they were loath to do when Biden and the Democrats were in power.
What all these capitals and media outlets conveniently ignore, of course, is that the forced displacement of Gazan Palestinians was in fact floated by the Biden administration and its European allies soon after Oct 7 and was in line with an Israeli plan to expel Palestinians into the Sinai desert that was leaked to the press soon after the Hamas attacks.
So, Trump has merely said out loud what was previously privately conveyed through diplomatic channels and — being a property tycoon — added a high-end housing society to the mix.
Bu the real stumbling blocks to this ‘plan’ aren’t the supine Arab states or the mealy-mouthed Western capitals; the Palestinians will not leave their land because they know, from bitter experience, that once they do there is a zero per cent chance that they will be allowed back by Israel.
This certainly isn’t the first time Israel has tried to depopulate Gaza. They tried it in 1956, in 1967 and in 1970 … with less than stellar results. Not to be deterred, Israeli general Giora Eiland (architect of the infamous ‘general’s plan’) floated the idea of a demilitarised Palestinian entity in the Sinai that would be subject to Israeli control in 2000, 2004 and 2010. None of it worked out and it beggars belief that the Palestinians, who have survived an attempt to annihilate them, would now jump at the chance to be relocated.
So why then would Trump propose such an outrageous step? One explanation is that he is stark raving mad, a possibility no one should exclude. More likely is that he wants to be seen as stark raving mad. This would be the modern iteration of what was called the ‘madman theory’ during the presidency of Richard Nixon. This entailed deliberately depicting Nixon as ‘irrational and volatile’ so as to gain an edge in stand-offs and negotiations with the communist bloc. Nixon would bluster and hurl threats while his diplomats would convey to hostile leaders that Nixon was capable of anything and therefore should be appeased.
Then there’s also Trump’s penchant for going high only to strike a lesser deal while providing his followers with the spectacle they so deeply desire, and voted for. This also has the added benefit of distracting media and opponents by throwing so many outrageous statements their way that they end up wasting energy on what Trump is saying, while ignoring what he’s actually doing.
The writer is a journalist.
Published in Dawn, February 10th, 2025
