Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu smiled Tuesday afternoon as he visited the White House and met President Trump in the Oval Office, especially given that Trump said many things about the future of Gaza that the Israeli leader would welcome.
Trump, sitting next to “Bibi,” continued to impose the idea that Palestinians should be taken out of Gaza while chatting with reporters. “There are hardly any buildings standing and those that collapse will collapse. You can’t live in Gaza right now. And I think we need a different location,” Trump said, echoing previous comments.
Trump sparked further controversy, arguing that Palestinians “would like to leave Gaza” — comments that many pundits have already condemned as equivalent to a campaign of ethnic cleansing. Arab leaders have also cracked down any plans that would envisage the mass exodus or expulsion of Palestinians to neighboring countries.
“Who would want to go back?” Trump posed as he sat down with Netanyahu. The place has indeed been levelled, but the ceasefire has provided evidence of the mass return of tens of thousands of Palestinians to their largely destroyed communities in the north of Gaza.
“I hope we can do something really nice where they wouldn’t want to come back,” Trump reasoned, despite the current Israeli-Hamas truce calling for the future reconstruction of the Strip.
“It doesn’t have to be one area, but you take certain areas and build really high-quality housing, like a beautiful city, like somewhere where they can live and not die,” Trump said.
“The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip, and we’re going to work on it,” Mr. Trump said. “We own it and are responsible for dismantling all the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on site, leveling the site and getting rid of the destroyed buildings – leveling it. To create economic development that will provide the inhabitants of the region with an unlimited number of jobs and housing. Do a real job. Do something else.”
“You just can’t go back,” he continued. “If you go back, it will end the same way as a hundred years.” — CBS
The two leaders also discussed the state of the ceasefire in Gaza and the eradication of Hamas. “I support bringing out all the hostages and fulfilling all our war goals,” Netanyahu said.
“This includes destroying Hamas’ military and governance capabilities and ensuring that Gaza never poses a threat to Israel,” he added, broadly agreeing with Trump — though it’s unclear what details the two will see face-to-face on the next practical steps. According to more:
Turning to Netanyahu, who sat next to him, Trump said, “And he wants peace, too.”
“We’re dealing with a very complex group of people, situations and people, but we have the right man,” Trump added.
“We have the right leader of Israel. He’s done a great job and we’ve been friends for a long time.”
As far as some kind of plan for the mass resettlement of refugees is concerned, the reality is that earlier historic waves of Palestinian refugees and armed groups that flooded nearby Arab countries have literally erupted in wars and street battles, which Lebanon, in particular, can attest. Jordan has also seen its country destabilize at times – black September is the main case.
There is also logistics – as the Palestinians now rush back to their largely destroyed communities in northern Gaza, they defiantly tell the world that they have no intention of leaving their homeland. A ceasefire in Gaza would likely collapse if the Palestinians were suddenly pushed into Egypt and Jordan in big waves.
Meanwhile, a little damage check…
There are already several million Palestinians in Jordan, building on previous historical large waves of refugees and mass displacement due to various Arab-Israeli wars.
If Jordan goes along with Trump’s plan, it is likely that there will be some kind of armed Palestinian uprising in Jordan itself.
Such a plan would be almost impossible to implement, or at least it would be deeply difficult from the very beginning. And ultimately, it can be seen as the definition of a textbook on the ethnic cleansing of the territory.
