Will Gazans speak English? Trump's 'takeover' model has been done before
Will the Gaza Strip join the American territories of Puerto Rico, American Samoa, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the US Virgin Islands? Unlikely. But there are very interesting formulas to make it work.
Dudi Kogan
Israel Hayom
Feb 7, 2025
President Donald Trump announcing his plan to relocate Palestinians on Feb. 4, 2025
"The US will take over the Gaza Strip and we will do a job with it too;
"we'll own it and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous
unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site, level the site and get
rid of the destroyed buildings,"
This is how Donald Trump announced to the world his plan for an American Gaza, or "the Riviera of the Middle East," as he called it. He repeatedly reiterated his proposal to transfer the Palestinians to one, two, three, four, five, seven, eight or twelve countries. When asked earlier if Gazans would be allowed to return, he said he hopes to build them a "nice enough place" so that they won't want to come back. Trump repeatedly spoke of "American ownership" of the Strip and said he envisions "long-term control" by the US in the area.
Palestinians
in the streets of Gaza City amid a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas,
Gaza Strip, February 6, 2025
The skeptical attitude
towards the plan is understandable. First and foremost, it depends on
the removal of masses of people from Gaza – Trump specified the number
1.8 million. Even in historical terms, this is a significant movement of
people, and throughout history, such movements have been accompanied by
widespread human suffering – although given the destruction in the
strip, it's understandable why Trump's proposal for new lives in
"brand-new" cities might seem appealing. However, as long as Egypt and
Jordan persist in their refusal, it's hard to see anything coming of it.
The sight of a US president declaring his intention to take control of territory, with the intention of holding it for a long time, was an almost inconceivable event for many in the US and around the world. Since World War II and the formation of the world order, territorial expansion has become a reprehensible aspiration. "An outside-the-box idea," was the superlative Trump gave to his plan, and his spokespeople in the media repeated it.
Professor Udi Sommer, an expert on the US, head of the Barak Leadership Center at Tel Aviv University, and a research fellow at John Jay College of Criminal Justice at the City University of New York, explains that "if this move indeed comes to fruition, it will be evidence of the cracks forming in the world order that the Americans built after World War II."
That order, sometimes called "Pax Americana" ("American Peace"), seems to have long since failed to deliver on its promise of peace – in the Middle East, Ukraine, and other places around the world, American diplomacy has failed to prevent the outbreak of widespread conflicts. The return of images of destruction from past wars symbolizes this more than anything. Has Trump decided to pull the rug out from under this supposedly crumbling world order and replace it with "Trump's world," as the British Guardian announced in one of the headlines after the president's declaration?
Still, Trump's world won't be entirely new. "The golden age of America begins right now," he said in his inauguration speech. Trump's Golden Age echoes the "Gilded Age," a term describing a period of rapid economic growth in the US at the end of the 19th century. This period also saw the last major territorial expansion of the US, led by the 25th President William McKinley. It's no coincidence that he is Trump's declared model for emulation – and the one he has often cited as his favorite president.
Alongside McKinley's fondness for tariffs, which was reflected in Trump's trade wars, it seems that the 47th president has adopted the desire to expand US territory: Greenland, the Panama Canal, Canada as the 51st state, and now, the Gaza Strip. During McKinley's time, the US annexed Hawaii, and after victory in the war against Spain, it also managed to gain control of the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Guam, and Cuba. "It seems that the words Trump uses are as if taken from the political lexicon of American imperialism of the late 19th century," says Professor Sommer.
Family conversation
Will the Gaza Strip join the American territories of Puerto Rico, American Samoa, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the US Virgin Islands? At least from the statements the day after the press conference, it seems this is less the direction of the president.
In today's post, the president wrote that "the Gaza Strip will be transferred to US hands at the end of the fighting, there will be no need for US troops." Yesterday, White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt claimed that the evacuation of Gazans from the Strip would be temporary and said that the President "did not commit to boots on the ground." Other senior officials expressed that it's just a negotiation tool. The New York Times saw this as somewhat of a retreat from the President's plan.
Reports in the American media raise the possibility that these factors are not even aware of the president's long-term plans. According to a CNN report, Trump himself conceived the idea and the significant push came after Steve Witkoff told him about the destruction in the strip that he saw with his own eyes. White House officials, even those involved in plans for the Middle East, were surprised by it. According to CNN, the secretary of state heard about it for the first time in Trump's speech.
Still, it is possible to imagine what Trump envisions, even if the plan remains a collection of fragmented ideas. Some key principles have been laid out: No US troops, funding from regional countries, Palestinians will leave – but can return. Gaza will be an "international place where everyone can live," as Trump put it in his speech. But above all, the primary incentive appears to be money.
Trump had already considered Gaza's economic potential before presenting any plan. The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that last summer, Trump spoke with Netanyahu and told him that Gaza is prime real estate. At the time, as the Republican nominee, he asked Netanyahu to think about the types of hotels that could be built in the strip. In March 2024, Jared Kushner, his son-in-law and a key figure in his previous administration, told students that Gaza is a waterfront asset; it could be worth a lot if people focused on making it livable.
In that conversation, given Egypt's refusal to take in Gaza refugees, Kushner suggested that Israel relocate Gazans to a designated area in the Negev before completing military operations in the strip. He also added that Gaza only became a thing because of the wars in the region, implying that its existence as a separate entity is unnecessary. All these elements resurfaced in Trump's plan.
Gaza divided among shareholders
It seems that the plan's architects envision something resembling the commercial cities of the colonial era – places where business interests, corporate giants, and states jointly managed international port cities like Hong Kong, Singapore, Zanzibar, and Calcutta. It is also worth noting that the Gaza Marine natural gas field is located off the coast of Gaza, and its development could serve as another economic incentive for controlling the area, despite being a relatively small reserve.
Prof. Sommer suggests that the plan could involve dividing authority among three major stakeholders:
- Palestinians, who would likely be given some limited, symbolic governance.
- Gulf states and Saudi Arabia, which might fund the endeavor and, in return, receive strategic assets such as Mediterranean ports to facilitate energy exports.
- Trump's billionaire allies, such as the Kushner family and their real estate empire, who could participate in major tourism, real estate, and infrastructure projects through long-term leasing models like BOT ("Build-Operate-Transfer").
The Cunio home in Nir Oz
Professor Sommer points to the importance of the issue of the Gaza Strip's fate not only for the region but for the entire international system at this moment: "Alongside the logistical issues, the question of funding and the consent of the countries in the region, there are fundamental problems in the issue of transferring refugees from Gaza outside of it – mainly in the diplomatic arena of the receiving countries' consent, but also in aspects of international law."
"The question is whether the anchors of the world order that the Americans engineered after the war are strong enough to prevent the realization of Trump's plan, or at least cause him to fundamentally change it so that it fits the norms of that international system. If indeed the new framework he proposes materializes, at this stage without going into details, and as we know the devil is in the small details, if this indeed happens, it's not at all certain that a box will remain," says Professor Sommer, referring to the box that is the liberal world order.
US President Donald Trump and Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrive to hold a press conference in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC, on February 4, 2025
Trump promised again today to build Gaza in a project that will be one of the largest and most impressive developments of its kind on the face of the Earth, that the lives of Gazans in the "new and fresh" place will be wonderful and Gaza will cease to be a source of terrorism and violence. Will it happen or not? In Washington, Jerusalem, the region, and the whole world, the eyebrows raised during the speech have yet to return to their place, not everyone is willing to bet that Trump's world won't become reality. At the very least, the plan is now serving as a tool in the negotiations on shaping that world – and its principles can also appear in a permanent solution that will be far from the president's plan.
No comments:
Post a Comment