Published: 6 February 2025
Last updated: 6 February 2025
At a joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on Tuesday, President Donald Trump declared that the US “will take over the Gaza Strip, and we will do a job with it, too.”
He did not rule out using US soldiers to redevelop the area. “We’ll own it and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site,” he said. “Level the site, get rid of the destroyed buildings, level it out, and create economic development that will supply unlimited numbers of jobs and housing for the people of the area. Do a real job, do something different.”
Trump has also supported resettling Palestinians from Gaza in places where they could live without fear of violence, saying that he and his team have discussed with Jordan, Egypt, and other regional countries.
His plan shocked the world and has already drawn opposition from Europe, Russia, China, and others. Here are our key takeaways from the plan and its aftermath:
The plan is not realistic
Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen from Axios describe the massive obstacles to Trump’s vision:
- The human toll: Two million Palestinians call Gaza home and have not consented to being forced out of their territory, despite the colossal destruction from 16 months of war.
- Opposition from regional leaders: The leaders of Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia have vehemently rejected Trump’s proposal.
- Contradictions in US policy: Trump campaigned on ending foreign wars but left the door open to sending US troops to Gaza “if necessary.”
- Concerns among Republicans: Trump’s "America First" allies in the Republican Party are privately sceptical, especially as his administration is actively dismantling USAID for using taxpayer dollars overseas.
Comments3
Ian Light11 February at 06:24 am
The Trump plan has been received negatively by Arab States but humanitarian people have to have been angry and betrayed by Egypt Turkey Iran and even the Palestinians in the West Bank in not granting refuge during the war to young children
their mothers and the elderly and ill under EU protections .
The UN General Assembly ought to have demanded this and the Security Council passed a Resolution.
A staged voluntary temporary refuge is still vitally necessary on basic humanitarian law .
Ramon Capel6 February at 08:44 am
Basically it is a very accurate summary.
It is a proposal that will divide and radicalise the world around the positions of Israel and Israelis, and as an unfair reflection, of Jews in general.
The position of the israelis is very important in terms of its image in the face of the Western European world which has been proposing for 70 years a different set of moral principles, written down in international law to avoid events such as those of World War II.
Didn’t we agree that one should not discriminate on the basis of religion or ethnicity, nor ghettoise groups of people, and that a democratic society does not exclude people for these reasons and does not kill them?
David Jackson6 February at 07:36 am
Trump has established a precedent on his tariff negotiations with Canada and Mexico to obtain his objectives, which is to ‘carry a big stick’ threatening to use it if you don’t help him achieve his goal, which is less pallatible than using his ‘big stick’. In regards to his Gaza plan he had 3 objectives. First objective was to get the Arab worlds attention. He has achieved this. The second objective will be to get those same Arab governments; Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Eygpt to come up with workable alternative solutions to be imposed on Hamas, Gaza. The third objective is his end goal, Abraham Accord, normalisation of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, which will only be achieved with a two State solution according to the Saudis. Watch this space.