Editorial: Trump’s bizarre plan

The brazen proposal of US President Donald Trump to take over Gaza, develop it and create employment is at best comical and at worst a grave violation of international law

If United States President Donald Trump’s statements on buying Greenland, annexing Canada and reclaiming the Panama Canal were not bizarre enough, here is an ultimate shocker from the maverick Republican leader. His latest formulation on the Gaza-American takeover and ownership of the war-torn territory, and packing off Palestinians to Egypt, Jordan and other countries takes the cake among all his weird public remarks. The astonishing proposal was made by Trump in the presence of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu soon after their bilateral talks. No American President, even in their wildest dreams, could have thought that solving the Israel-Palestinian conflict would involve taking over a chunk of Palestinian territory and evicting its population.

The brazen proposal to ‘take over the piece of land, develop it and create employment’ is at best comical and at worst a grave violation of international law. No wonder that his plan was met with shock and condemnation across the world, including Arab nations and America’s allies. Even for a President who spent much of his first term upending the US Middle East policy, including moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and recognising Israeli sovereignty over the occupied Golan Heights, this was an outrageous proposal. It came even as a ceasefire is underway between Hamas and Israel and amid questions about Gaza’s post-conflict future. They signal the largest shift in the US policy on the Middle East in decades, upending widespread international consensus on the need for a Palestinian State, comprising Gaza and the occupied West Bank, to exist alongside Israel.

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Trump’s remarks sound more like opening gambits in a real estate negotiation than expressions of the settled policy of the United States. The plan to push two million Palestinians out of Gaza and take ‘ownership’ by force is nothing but ethnic cleansing and a death knell for an already fragile ceasefire. The absence of a plan for Gaza’s future governance is already a fault line in the present arrangement. It goes without saying that the US has no legal claim to the territory and it is unclear how Trump intends to impose American rule. The international community must work to alleviate the severe suffering inflicted upon the Palestinian people, who will remain committed to their land and will not move from it. Many Gazans are descendants of people who fled or were driven from their homes in 1948 during the creation of the State of Israel. The thought of another forced migration will be too painful for many. They will cling to their lives in what remains of Gaza with a fierce determination. For Palestinians who dream of a State of their own, alongside Israel, the loss of part of it will feel like an amputation. Now, Trump is essentially telling the Palestinians to give up on Gaza once and for all.