Momentum for a Ceasefire in Gaza
Al-Ittihad, UAE, February 21
On February 4, US President Donald Trump declared that the Gaza Strip had become uninhabitable due to the war, suggesting that the territory’s two million Palestinians should be relocated to Jordan and Egypt. He proposed that the United States take control of Gaza and oversee its reconstruction, envisioning it as a resort destination along the lines of the French Riviera on the Mediterranean coast. However, he remained vague on whether the Palestinians would be allowed to return.
In the days that followed, the fallout from this extraordinary proposal, which caught even Trump’s foreign policy team off guard, was swift and overwhelmingly negative. Yet, Trump has not abandoned his plan, and it remains on his agenda. Would his “shock and awe” approach to Gaza push key Arab states and the Palestinians to formulate their own responses? If so, the widespread backlash might have served its intended purpose.
However, in reality, the plan was so extreme that its only true supporters were hard-line right-wing politicians in Israel. These figures have long sought to rebuild the settlements in Gaza, which Israel dismantled in 2005 as part of a unilateral disengagement agreement aimed at isolating Gaza and avoiding negotiations with the Palestinian Authority.
If Trump’s Gaza plan were to be implemented, it would pose an existential threat to both Jordan and Egypt. The influx of additional refugees from Gaza would disrupt Jordan’s delicate demographic balance, which could have disastrous regional repercussions, including for Israel. Egypt, for its part, has already had to absorb over a million Sudanese refugees, with more arriving every day. Adding nearly a million Palestinians from Gaza would understandably lead Cairo to oppose such a move, with officials warning that it could endanger the peace agreement with Israel that has been in place since 1979, a pact that is vital for the security of both countries.
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For Egypt, a realistic solution to the Gaza crisis is essential, as it would likely restore the normal operations of the Suez Canal, which has been heavily impacted by the war and the reduced revenue from international shipping.
Another unrealistic element of Trump’s proposal is the idea that American troops would participate in evacuating and occupying the territory while it was being rebuilt, with Arab states expected to contribute the vast sums needed to fund the project. Trump later denied that American troops would be involved, but given the vague and constantly shifting nature of his plans, no one can be certain of his intentions.
What is undeniable, however, is that the Palestinians in Gaza would oppose any proposal to relocate them, no matter the conditions, and any notion of forced evacuation would amount to ethnic cleansing—a concept that ultimately drew the United States into the wars over the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, with the primary mission of preventing ethnic cleansing.
Trump’s propensity for proposing unrealistic geopolitical solutions is not new. During his first term, he hoped to resolve the Korean conflict through a series of letters and a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
While it’s unlikely that the Gaza plan will ever come to fruition, it could still provide momentum for progress if the current ceasefire holds. On the other hand, Trump now faces what may be his toughest diplomatic challenge yet: the war in Ukraine, which he promised to end in a day. That, perhaps, will be the subject of my next column.
Geoffrey Kemp (translated by Asaf Zilberfarb)
