Opinion: Trump’s Relocation Idea for Palestinians Is a Pipe Dream
The Gaza war should teach President Trump and both parties in the conflict that military force is no longer a viable solution
It all started in Hollywood. At least, that’s how it seems. In 1987, an episode of the TV show Golden Girls called “Empty Nests” spoke of giving Greenland to the Palestinians. Today, 38 years later, Donald Trump has come up with a similar idea.
Did he take the idea from that TV series? Was it born in his mind on one of those nights when he felt like he was floating over the universe riding Aladdin’s magic carpet? What matters is his idea to relocate, a soft term as opposed to “deport” or “expel,” hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, which he wants to turn into a promising tourism Riviera. This idea, being as hilarious as it was, turned half of the universe crazy or perhaps crazier than the president himself.
The 48 hours that followed Trump’s announcement of his intention to drive 1.8 million Palestinians out of the Gaza Strip kept almost every Palestinian stranded in front of their TV sets, anticipating the worst to come. Egyptians and Jordanians, too, felt threatened by this idea when Trump said both of these countries should host as many displaced Palestinians as possible. If not, he warned he would cut off US aid to them.
Neither King Abdullah II of Jordan nor President el-Sisi of Egypt gave in to Trump’s idea. They insisted they would not play any part in this unrealistic and conspiratorial move against the Palestinians. They also said that the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip should stay where they are on their national soil.
By the time Trump made his statement, King Abdullah was already in Washington, while President el-Sisi had enough time to say to Trump, “Thanks but no thanks.” He canceled his trip to Washington. Reports said the White House requested the cancellation. Either way, the el-Sisi-Trump meeting did not occur.
Within two days, Trump’s statement became the talk of the town. A shop owner in Ramallah said his eight-year-old son asked, “How can Trump move all these people out? Does he have enough buses to do so?” The shop owner laughed and explained that his laughter was the only response he had to avoid haunting his son with Trump’s deadly ideas.
Why doesn’t Trump use Elon Musk’s fleet of spaceships and send those Palestinians to Mars?
A more sophisticated response came from Khalil, a computer expert in Gaza whose main job these days is only fixing personal computers, as his shop and all its content were destroyed in the early days of the Israeli air strikes. “Why doesn’t Trump use Elon Musk’s fleet of spaceships and send those Palestinians to Mars?” His question reflected how stupid Trump’s idea was perceived.
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No matter the dark humor that engulfed this issue, worries are still there among the overwhelming majority of the Palestinians, not only in the Gaza Strip but also in the West Bank. The sense that something big is going to happen has preoccupied their minds. Those in the Gaza Strip, displaced repeatedly from one place to another upon orders from the Israeli army, felt the meaning of what Trump spoke about. In the West Bank, the people became more worried once they saw the destruction that the Israeli military caused in the refugee camps of Jenin and Tulkarem. They were convinced that once the Israeli army was done with the Gaza War, it would undoubtedly move to the West Bank.
In an interview over WhatsApp, Jamal, who preferred not to use his real name, is a political science professor in Gaza who has not attended his university since the Oct. 7, 2023, events. He ridiculed Trump’s statement and said businesspeople could not solve a complex national conflict using techniques or bargaining mechanisms as they do in their business. “Knocking down a building after expelling its dwellers to replace it with a new business or apartment tower is one thing, and moving or forcing 1.8 million Palestinians out of the Gaza Strip is something different, undoable and unbearable,” he said.
Like many others, Jamal was exposed to numerous articles analyzing Trump’s words. He sounded convinced with parts of what he read. “I agree that in psychological politics, leaders throw a few ideas in the air, make sure their constituencies or adversaries are overwhelmed with trying to decode their words while they aim at something completely different,” he said.
Jamal added that when an undoable idea becomes the main topic of public discussions, it penetrates people’s minds as if it is doable once the leaders involved intend to make it happen. In reality, this approach, said Jamal, means “forcing you to believe something terrible would happen and then offering a minor proposal that you have already rejected but might be ready to accept now because it sounds more acceptable than the insane proposal.”
Trump scored a minor achievement in that when the UAE, Bahrain and Morocco fell in his trap and exchanged normalization with Israel for [Israeli Prime Minister] Netanyahu backing down on annexing the Jordan Valley.
According to Jamal, the same happened with Trump at the beginning of his previous term eight years ago. Back then, Trump spoke of his ultimate deal and promised to change the Middle East by achieving peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors. “Trump scored a minor achievement in that when the UAE, Bahrain and Morocco fell in his trap and exchanged normalization with Israel for [Israeli Prime Minister] Netanyahu backing down on annexing the Jordan Valley,” said Jamal, adding, “God only knows what’s next from Trump. He is a leader that does not make you bored!”
Asked about the Abraham Accords and whether he considered them part of the peace plan that Trump promised, Jamal said those accords were only cosmetic, as nothing else was achieved and Israel’s intransigence never changed. “Moreover,” he added, “Israel’s extreme policy under the incumbent government made life difficult for the Arab countries that rushed to normalize ties with Israel.”
If anything positive came out of Trump’s intention to relocate the Palestinians out of the Gaza Strip, it was the new paradigm that he created in the minds of many Palestinians who seem to agree with what he said but with an entirely different perspective and angle.
One of those responses that floated in the air was calling on Israel to allow the entry of Palestinian refugees living in the Gaza Strip who wish to return to their towns and villages in Israel from where they were kicked out in 1948. This way, a considerable part of the refugees’ issue is solved based on the Arab Peace Initiative parameters.
Once Israel officially announces an offer like this, it will become a matter of choice for those Palestinian refugees to decide if they want to move and live in Israel as stipulated in UN Resolution 194. In doing so, such a move would become a game changer in the region and create an atmosphere of optimism after the awkwardness that spread throughout the Middle East and beyond during and after Oct. 7, 2023.
True, under Israel’s incumbent government, nothing realistic is relevant. Warmongers on Israel’s extreme right-wing edge of the political map look around and see nothing but airstrikes, artillery fire and mass killing of their Palestinian enemies in the Gaza Strip. In Gaza, the war destroyed 80% of the built area but kept one thing intact: It’s the mirror that reflects similar sentiments among Palestinians and Israelis.
For Palestinians, the war took away their families, homes, dreams, and aspirations. For Israelis, it took away their sense of security in their country, and left them feeling vulnerable to attacks, especially those who were killed on and after Oct. 7, 2023, in addition to the taken hostages; worst of all, the release of those still remaining in Gaza is not certain, given the current situation. What is no less worrying is that the war will resume, and more losses and pain will befall both sides. Only those who make political capital of this war seem to be winning.
When Hamas reiterates that its military option is still on the table, it means the group hasn’t learned the lessons from the terrible war that those in the Gaza Strip have suffered from so far. Moreover, it shows that Hamas has lost empathy toward the suffering of the 2.2 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, disregarding them as if they never existed.
Hamas wants the fighting to continue even though its armed fighters are almost absent. According to Gaza sources, the dozens of Hamas operatives who participated in the festivities of releasing Israeli hostages were not even members of the movement’s armed brigades but ordinary civilians whom Hamas dressed and equipped with unloaded rifles for the show.
When Israel’s warmongering ministers from the extreme right-wing demand that war must continue no matter what happens to the Israeli hostages held in Gaza, they show zero empathy towards the suffering of those hostages and their families. They, too, speak of the hostages as if they haven’t been taken to Gaza or never existed. These extremists spend most of their time on television screens and newspaper pages hailing a war they are not part of and sending others on their behalf to kill or get killed. No wonder they wish for the war to continue, regardless of how the plight of the Israeli captives in Gaza ends, if ever.
The extreme right-wing control of Israel won’t last forever. All international assessments span 15-20 years to rebuild the Gaza Strip. This period can help Palestinians and Israelis reflect on what they have gone through over the past seven-and-a-half decades. They must have realized that their thesis – “what cannot be achieved by force could be accomplished with a little more force” – was wrong, leading them down a suicidal track where both sides are stuck and badly in need of leaving.
