Analysis

Why did Trump say the US will ‘take over’ and redevelop Gaza?

Trump has a recent history of making maximalist claims to secure a speedy settlement. But if the Palestinians are faced with the potential for mass expulsion, what deal is Trump trying to make to follow up this shocking pitch?

Frank
Wright
Frank Wright
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Help bring aid trucks into Gaza: LifeFunder

(LifeSiteNews) — Having been ruled by lawyers for so long, it is quite a shock to see the world reimagined by an estate agent.

Last night, President Donald Trump proposed a new deal for Middle East peace: the United States will “take over” Gaza and redevelop it.

“The U.S. 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, unexplored bombs and other weapons on the site,” he said Tuesday.

In a statement that stunned a visibly delighted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump said the move will “create an economic development that will supply unlimited numbers of jobs and housing for the people of the area.”

Who those people will be remains to be seen – if this deal is ever closed at all. Trump said before the meeting with the Israeli leader, “The Palestinians have no alternative but to leave Gaza.”

The shocking announcement that the U.S. will “own” a Gaza strip minus 2 million Gazans came alongside the rejection of military action against Iran, and an assurance that the next stage of Trump’s hostage deal will be completed.

Why has Trump thrown Netanyahu a lifeline – and the Palestinians under the bus? Is he simply a tool of the Zionists as many claim? Or is this simply another example of the total departure from the old liberal-global system?

Real estate diplomacy

In place of 60 years of talk about international law being the basis for the establishment of a Palestinian state, we now have a beachside brochure for the “Monaco of the Middle East” – with mass deportations. When asked in a fireside chat with Netanyahu how many Palestinians should leave Gaza, he said:

“All of them! We’re talking about probably [1.7 million] people, maybe [1.8 million]. But I think all of them, I think they’ll be resettled in areas where they can live a beautiful life and not be worried about dying every day.”

This stunning break with precedent simply ignores the conventional thinking of the 20th century.

Whether this deal is the real deal remains to be seen. Trump has a recent history of making maximalist claims to secure a speedy settlement. The tariffs he threatened on Mexico and Canada have been “paused.” This is what his threats promise: swift resolutions. If the Palestinians are faced with mass expulsion, what deal is he trying to make to follow up this shocking pitch?

If this is indeed the real deal then it reinforces the historic shift from the old world order – to one in which real estate realism is possible. This would be the neorealist view – which has led Trump to announce the United States will promote world peace as a matter of U.S. national security. It seeks to cut costs, cut government, and destroy the old globalist order.

Trump issued orders yesterday withdrawing the U.S. from another pillar of the 20th century liberal consensus – the “anti-American”  NGOs of the United Nations.

As Congressman Warren Davidson said in July 2024, even NATO is a partner in this liberal-global system, pushing social revolution under the guise of human rights:

“It is time we stopped using NATO and other supporting organizations to wage a radical progressive culture war on values around the world. People don’t want what the globalists are selling.”

This is what the people in charge now believe. They do not believe in international law, nor in international institutions. They believe in nations, in the national interest, and in the realistic recognition of those interests abroad to avoid war where possible. We live in a different world now.

Getting real about Israel

To Catholics, the value of human life is not found in liberal rights but is essential, and God-given. A break with the make-belief of liberal utopians is welcome. But what does this mean for the Palestinians for Israel – and for the U.S.?

Whether the Israeli tail wags the U.S. dog or not, the fates of both nations rely on a route out of permanent escalation to war.

This dramatic performance is Trump’s first gambit in rebalancing a region whose rogue state – Israel – has dragged the U.S. into decades of war. In reality, the neocon network which powered this is being dismantled at home. Abroad, an architecture of peace is being imaginatively pitched by a man who likes building.

It remains to be seen how much of this is more than words. Can Trump sell his real estate deal to the Arabs? Where will the Palestinians live these “beautiful” lives? Or is this all just a smokescreen – the fog of a permanent war state governed by the enemies of peace – given a green light to conduct business as usual?

There is no realistic chance that Netanyahu would accept a Palestinian state. Given the fact the Israeli parliament has passed a motion saying exactly this, is it any surprise that this is the reality on which negotiations are now based?

Netanyahu has created a reality on violent opposition to any chance of peace on these lines. He is still pursued by credible claims that he personally incited the murder in 1994 of Yitzhak Rabin, the only Israeli leader to move to create a Palestinian state. Since then, this dream has also been murdered, and its land absorbed by constant Zionist “settlement,” as is happening again now.

READ: The death of peace in Israel

We must wait to hear what Trump says about the West Bank and the Zionist violence underway to annex it.

Trump canceled U.S. sanctions on the “settlers,” and Bezalel Smotrich will be hopeful Trump will hand the West Bank to him.

The Palestinian Question

The deal does have another problem: the Palestinians themselves.

Ahmad Tibi, an Israeli Arab member of the Israeli parliament, said the Palestinians will not leave, adding that this move will see the extremist Bezalel Smotrich remain in power.

Smotrich has vowed to annex the West Bank and create a “Greater Israel,” minus non-Jews. He celebrated Trump’s election win, thinking it a “green light” for his plan to seize the West Bank. We must wait for Trump’s “statement” on the U.S. position vis-à-vis Smotrich’s plan.

READ: Is Trump planning to give Israel the green light to annex the West Bank?

After the meeting, Smotrich apologized to Netanyahu for threatening to collapse his coalition if the war on the Palestinians was halted. Religious Zionists like him see this deal as a dream come true.

Israeli heritage minister Amichai Eliyahu replied to Ahmad Tibi, saying the Palestinians’ homeland is outside of Israel: “This time you are right – those who do not like the situation are invited to return to their homeland.”

Eliyahu quoted from a passage of the Koran known as “the children of Israel,” saying, “The land of Israel is for the children of Israel.”

Eliyahu suggested, like Smotrich has in his “decisive plan,” that those who did not like it – or leave – will be killed.

Imagine there’s no Palestine

If we permit the vision of the real estate realist, then we can see how the Palestinians get to live “beautiful lives” as Trump said – without “being shot and killed”  – but just not in “Palestine.”

We get to envision an Israel which is empty of non-Jews – but who have not all been murdered. Hopefully.

We also get to imagine a world in which Israel’s toxic and vastly powerful lobby in the U.S., in Britain and across the West no longer has a reason to exist.

Its purpose is to whitewash Israel’s ceaseless crimes against other states including the U.S., to subvert the idea of Christianity itself to align it with the heresy of Zionism, and to secure a constant stream of weapons and funding into a permanent state of emergency.

If this is the price of goodbye to all that, then this may be the least worst deal we can get. The alternatives include periodic massacres, escalating war, and nuclear armageddon.

Who knows, perhaps something can be done about the plight of Christianity in its birthplace, too – if that is not too much to ask of the brave new realism. We shall all have to wait and see how much of this is art, and how much is in the real deal.

Meanwhile, the Palestinians themselves seem incidental to the question of how they are to live, or indeed whether they are to live at all.

It seems that their hope of a safe home in their homeland is simply no longer realistic. Let’s face it, neither is the plan to relocate 2 million people into a “beautiful life” elsewhere.

Back to reality

What really happened yesterday? Trump has caused international uproar. But what did Netanyahu actually get?

The hostage deal must hold, Netanyahu did not get his war on Iran, and Trump can sit back and watch whilst Netanyahu’s coalition slowly realizes it did not get the permission it wanted to resume the war in Gaza either.

There is no realistic chance for peace with Netanyahu in charge. Without war, his government will tear itself apart.

This is the reality of Netanyahu’s Israel. It has no place in a world ordered by the avoidance of war. Between now and the statement on the West Bank, which may be a month away, there is plenty of time for all this to sink in to his fractured coalition.

They have been sold an impossible dream by a real estate agent. Buyer beware, and watch out for the real deal. It’s coming.

Help bring aid trucks into Gaza: LifeFunder

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