Part of the Series
Struggle and Solidarity: Writing Toward Palestinian Liberation
Since the moment President Donald Trump took office nearly two weeks ago, he has signed dozens of executive orders that will hurt each and every one of us at home and further isolate and erode the United States’ standing in the world.
Immediately following his inauguration, President Trump signed an executive order that rescinded sanctions on extremist settlers in the West Bank who committed violent crimes against Palestinians. He also reversed former President Joe Biden’s restrictions on sending Israel those 2,000-pound bombs that can erase entire neighborhoods, and moved to authorize shipping another billion dollars of weapons to the Israeli government.
More recently, President Trump signed orders imposing a freeze on USAID funding worldwide, banning future funding of UNRWA — the only agency capable of delivering desperately needed aid into Gaza — and withdrawing the U.S. from the UN Human Rights Council after accusing it of anti-Israel bias. He also issued an executive order cracking down on pro-Palestinian dissent and campus-based organizing against Israel’s genocide and threatened foreign students on student visas with deportation.
All these actions — coupled with the president’s staunchly pro-Israel appointments in key positions — reaffirm the U.S.’s unconditional support for Israel’s genocide and continue to shield the apartheid state from accountability.
And Now for the Mother of All Surprises
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was the first leader of a foreign country to be invited to the White House since Trump took office. Prior to their February 4 meeting, White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt described Netanyahu’s visit as a “working meeting” and emphasized the president’s “continued support for Israel, and ensuring that brutal terrorists in that region have hell to pay.”
During a press conference following this meeting, President Trump made a shocking statement, announcing that “The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip, and we will do a job with it, too. We’ll own it.”
Mere days after half a million displaced Palestinians made the arduous trek to return to their completely destroyed homes and neighborhoods in northern Gaza, President Trump recklessly advocated for the transfer of 2 million Palestinians to neighboring countries — though, of course, not to Israel.
Asked by a reporter if his proposed plan might involve military force, he said: “As far as Gaza is concerned, we’ll do what is necessary. If it’s necessary, we’ll do that.”
It’s not the first time Trump’s inner circle has alluded to turning Gaza into the “Riviera of the Middle East.” Back on February 15, 2024, during an interview at Harvard University, Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, praised the “very valuable” potential of Gaza’s “waterfront property.” He suggested that Israel should remove the Palestinians while it “cleans up” the Strip.
Trump claimed during his press conference that he had spoken to leaders in the region. “Everybody I’ve spoken to loves the idea of the United States owning that piece of land,” he said. But could it be that he has only spoken with one person — his son-in-law — and is acting on his advice?
It’s not the first time Trump’s inner circle has alluded to turning Gaza into the “Riviera of the Middle East.”
Anyone who saw the video clips on social media exhibiting the joy Palestinians felt upon returning home to northern Gaza despite its total devastation — and putting up tents on top of the rubble of their destroyed homes — will understand the meaning of Palestinians’ attachment to their homeland. It would be naïve for anyone, including President Trump, to believe that Palestinians will voluntarily leave their homeland and resettle elsewhere.
Bassam Muhammad Abdulraouf, 29, expressed the commonly held sentiment among Palestinians when he told NPR that he has no plans of leaving Gaza. He said: “Even if there was a place that was a million times better than Gaza, and even if I could be sure that life there would be luxurious, I would still be ready to live among the rubble and in tents here. If they come with the army, with military force, I will still never leave.”
Palestine belongs to its Indigenous people; it does not belong to those who have stolen the land, forcibly displacing its inhabitants and are now intent on ethnically cleansing those who remained.
U.S. Will “Own” Gaza and Transfer 2 Million Palestinians to Neighboring Countries
I can’t think of anything more ludicrous than this proposal, regardless of whether this shock announcement is a manufactured distraction designed to overwhelm us or a negotiating tactic to further the ultimate goal of a normalization agreement between Saudi Arabia and Israel. If this is the latter — a demand Trump intends to later retract to make it appear as a concession — it would be a chapter out of Trump’s first term, when he backed off his support for Israel’s annexation of the West Bank in exchange for the UAE’s normalization with Israel.
U.S. annexation of Gaza is a massively irresponsible proposal. It is not only a violation of international law and a war crime barred by the Geneva Convention, but if pursued will have negative real-world ramifications. It is a recipe for disaster and endless violence that will have destabilizing effects throughout Southwest Asia. It will trigger fierce opposition from the 146 countries — more than three-quarters of UN member states — who have formally recognized the State of Palestine and have extended diplomatic relations. And it will give rise to even larger anti-Israel and anti-American protests around the globe.
For starters, this proposal is bound to derail phase two negotiations for a ceasefire and withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Gaza Strip. It will give Netanyahu and his right-wing extremist government an excuse to resume its bombardment of Gaza and stop aid trucks from entering the enclave, continuing the intentional starvation and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their lands.
And as if this is not enough, Trump also said he would make a decision on Israel’s potential annexation of the West Bank within the next four weeks — a move favored by his appointee for U.S. ambassador to Israel, ultra-Zionist evangelical Christian Mike Huckabee. If Israel does officially annex the West Bank, it will be a massive step toward its endgame of an “out-of-state” solution, emptying the occupied territories of all Palestinians.
The time has now come for all remaining UN member states to come forward and recognize the State of Palestine and support the International Court of Justice’s ruling that declared that Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem — as well as Israel’s system of apartheid — is unlawful and must end immediately.
World Leaders Reject President Trump’s Plan
While the proposed Gaza excursion will deviate from their “America First” agenda, Republicans unanimously praised Trump’s plan as “fresh” and “thinking outside the box.” In a post on X, Secretary of State Marco Rubio parroted President Trump’s assertion. He wrote: “As @POTUS shared today, the United States stands ready to lead and Make Gaza Beautiful Again.”
But except for Republicans and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who praised Trump as “the greatest friend Israel has ever had in the White House,” President Trump’s plan to take over Gaza and send 2 million Palestinians to live in “peace and harmony” elsewhere — effectively ethnically cleansing them from their homeland — was condemned by leaders around the world.
In the U.S., Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib wrote on social media: “Palestinians aren’t going anywhere. This president can only spew this fanatical bullshit because of bipartisan support in Congress for funding genocide and ethnic cleansing. It’s time for my two-state solution colleagues to speak up.”
Trump also said he would make a decision on Israel’s potential annexation of the West Bank within the next four weeks.
In Israel, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told NPR: “Every party involved except for Israel is completely against it.” And former Israeli Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami told NPR: “It is utterly unrealistic, and it reflects a total lack of understanding of the historical process of where these Palestinians come from, what is their collective identity.”
Leaders throughout the Arab world categorically rejected Trump’s plan, including Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, who issued a joint letter condemning the forcible transfer of Palestinians out of Gaza as a threat to peace in the region, as reported in the New York Times.
On Tuesday, the Saudi foreign ministry issued a statement reiterating the nation’s “firm and unwavering” support for the creation of a Palestinian state and that it would not establish diplomatic relations with Israel without it. It said: “Saudi Arabia also reiterates its previously announced unequivocal rejection of any infringement on the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people, whether through Israeli settlement policies, the annexation of Palestinian lands, or attempts to displace the Palestinian people from their land.”
Similar opposition was swiftly expressed by European leaders, including those who, together with the United States, are complicit in the Gaza genocide. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said that Palestinians “must be allowed home. They must be allowed to rebuild, and we should be with them in that rebuild on the way to a two-state solution.” German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said in a statement that displacing Palestinians citizens from Gaza would be “unacceptable and against international law.” Reuters reported that the French foreign ministry issued a statement saying that Paris “reiterates its opposition to any forced displacement of the Palestinian population of Gaza.”
Gaza Was Not Struck by a Natural Disaster; It Was Destroyed by U.S. Bombs and Israeli Airstrikes
During his press conference, President Trump talked about Gaza as though it had experienced “bad luck” and was devastated by some natural disaster. He said that Gaza has been a symbol of death and destruction for so long and has been “very unlucky for a long time.” He added: “Being in its presence has just not been good. It should not go through a process of rebuilding and occupation by the same people that have stood there and fought for it and lived there and died there and lived a miserable existence there.”
“I don’t think people should be going back to Gaza. I think that Gaza has been very unlucky for them. They’ve lived like hell.”
When asked if Palestinians would be allowed back into Gaza, he replied: “It would be my hope that we could do something really nice, really good, where they wouldn’t want to return,” adding, “I hope that we could do something where they wouldn’t want to go back. Who would want to go back? They’ve experienced nothing but death and destruction.”
Neither the United States nor Israel has the right to ethnically cleanse an Indigenous population from its land. If President Trump goes forward with the forced expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza, he will be committing a war crime that could land him an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court, like his friend Netanyahu.
Palestine is in Palestinians’ DNA — our strong attachment to our land is steadfast. It is short-sighted to expect that after nearly a century of suffering and struggle for equality and freedom — not to mention the sacrifices of over 62,000 people massacred in Gaza over the past 16 months and the thousands of Palestinians still languishing in Israeli jails — that Palestinians are going to give up the fight for self-determination and an end to oppression, apartheid and occupation.
Despite Trump’s destructive proposal, the will of Palestinians the world over is crystal clear: Gaza — or any inch of the occupied territory — is not on the market. There will be no real estate development on top of the corpses of thousands of Palestinians. Rest assured that Palestinians will resist the U.S.’s “beautiful” colonization and occupation with everything they’ve got — we will refuse Trump’s vision of turning Gaza into the “Riviera of the Middle East” with golf courses, casinos and Mar-a-Lago-style resorts.
Keep your hands off of occupied Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.
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