When President Trump announced his proposal to the US to acquire ownership of Gaza on Tuesday, he shocked his White House and even senior members of the government.
His announcement seemed formal and thought-he read the plan from paper – his administration, according to four people with knowledge of the debate, examines the feasibility of an idea I didn't even have a basic plan. You are not allowed to speak publicly.
It wasn't just Americans scrambling. The announcement was equally surprising to Trump's Israeli visitors. Just before they headed out for a joint press conference held on Tuesday, Trump told him that he plans to announce the idea of ownership in Gaza, according to two people who described their interaction. He surprised Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by saying that.
There were no meetings within the US government with the State Department or the pentagon. Not to mention one of such magnitudes, as usually occurs in a critical foreign policy proposal. There were no working groups. The Department of Defense had not prepared an estimate of the number of units needed, a cost estimate, or even an overview of how it would work.
There was nothing in the president's mind that was beyond ideas.
Unlike major foreign policy announcements with past presidents, including Trump, the US concept of controlling Gaza was not part of the public debate by Tuesday.
But personally, Trump has been talking about ownership of the enclave for weeks. And his thinking accelerated, according to two administration officials after his Middle Eastern envoy, Steve Witkov, returned from Gaza last week to explain the horrifying situation there.
But no one – not Israeli, not the White House, but the hope was that Trump would develop the idea until just before he did that Tuesday. The idea was filled with immediate opposition from the Arab world from Saudi Arabia, a key US ally. And in a comment to a reporter on Wednesday, White House press secretary Caroline Leavitt tried to soften some of Trump's statements.
Trump was wondering why he wanted to return to Gaza after the Palestinians moved, suggesting that the area could become a tourist paradise, but Trump simply said he was in Jordan He claimed he wanted to “temporarily” bring Palestinians to Egypt. And she minimized the idea of US financial investment, despite Trump's assumption of “long-term ownership” benefits.
She also said the president had not promised to put his boots on the ground, but Trump said: Do that if necessary. ”
It is unclear whether Trump previously discussed the issue in detail with Israelis. A spokesperson for the Israeli Embassy did not respond to a message asking for clarity.
His presentation left more questions than answers. How many US troops are required to clear up the Hamas and the mountains of tile rub and all the unexplosive weapons should be mitigated? How much does it cost to rebuild a demolition site that is the size of Las Vegas? How is the seizing of Palestine territory justified under international law? And what about 2 million refugees?
Hours after the announcement, senior administrators were particularly lacking in substantial responses. The reasons for avoiding them became clear soon. No actual details were present.
On Wednesday, Trump's national security adviser Mike Waltz appeared on “CBS Morning” to sell his Gaza ideas. However, as Trump explained the idea of healthcare policy during his 2024 campaign, it was clear from the conversation that this is less of a plan than a “concept of planning.” That plan never came to fruition.
“The fact that no one has a realistic solution, and he has a very bold, fresh new idea on the table, so I don't think he should ever be criticized,” Waltz said. I did. “If we don't like Trump's solution, we'll be offering our own solutions across the region.”
Trump has publicly pressured Jordanians and Egyptians to bring Gaza people for weeks, but so far, leaders from both countries have refused. Forcing the removal of Gaza Palestinians would violate international law, but Trump said at his press conference on Tuesday he was keen to leave the land because they were unresided. He said he was expecting it. He said they could probably return in the end.
He said it all while standing by Netanyahu, whose military campaign wiped out much of Gaza after Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel on October 7, 2023.
“The US will take over the Gaza Strip and we will work with it,” Trump said. “We own it and are responsible for dismantling any dangerous mis-explosive bombs and other weapons on the site. We level the site and remove any destroyed buildings. We level it.”
Netanyahu, who was about to clear Hamas from Gaza from a massacre of over 1,200 people on October 7, appeared to be happy as Trump said.
Other US officials were not very excited about the proposal. The two close to Trump claimed it was his only idea. He said he had never heard of U.S. military involvement before Tuesday.
Several senior officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to explain the delicate argument told the New York Times that they were still trying to understand the idea's Genesis, and thought it was fantastic for Trump as well. Ta.
This concept is difficult to square with Trump's criticism of his previous president for nation-building in the Middle East. His proposal to take responsibility for one of the world's worst disaster zones came as the main federal government agencies responsible for foreign development assistance were shut down.
But Trump's impulses were not as anti-interventionist as the isolationists in his party wanted them. When the Iraq War began, he cheered for it first before denounced it. When he considered running for president in 2011, he said the US should “take oil” from Iraq, and he promoted the idea that the US military would extract important minerals from overseas war zones. did.
In his second presidential term, he exhibited imperialist impulses. He says he wants the US to buy Greenland and refuses to remove military force despite the presence of US bases there. He says he wants to reclaim the Panama Canal and says Canada should become America's 51st state. He said he believes the US should be entitled to Ukraine's natural resources as a repayment of all military aid it sent to protect against Russians.
Trump sees foreign policy as a real estate transaction manufacturer. He never cared about international law, and never spoke to authoritarian leaders on human rights, as other US presidents did.
Instead, for decades, he has seen the world as a collection of nations tore America apart. He is obsessed with the question of how to gain leverage more than other countries, whether it is an ally or an enemy. He then looks for ways to use American power to control other countries and extract as much as possible. Trump does not believe in “win-win” diplomacy. Every transaction, whether it's business or diplomacy, has a clear winner and a clear loser.
Like Trump, his Middle Eastern envoy Witkoff is a real estate developer and investor who has done business in the area. And Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, is another real estate investor who worked in a Middle Eastern portfolio in his first semester, and the incredible development presented by Gaza Waterfront last year. I've riffed on the opportunity.
Several Trump advisers said the idea of ownership in Gaza would quietly die as it became apparent that it was infeasible. And it already seemed to be happening by Wednesday afternoon.
But Daniel B. Shapiro, who served as Israel's US ambassador under President Barack Obama, and more recently at the Pentagon, said that even just having that idea on him risks causing more extremism. “This is not a serious proposal. The US takes over Gaza at a massive cost of the dollar and the military, almost the same as Mexico paying the wall or the US seizing Iraqi oil.”
“The danger is that extremists and various striped terrorists within the Israeli government literally take it seriously and begin to act on it,” he said. “It could put further release of hostages at risk, placing targets deep within US officials and stealing prospects for Saudi Arabia's regularised deal.”
When the Trump team hears such warnings from former Democratic officials, they say Obama officials (though Shapiro was not among them) have said that after Trump moved the US embassy in Israel, He countered that the Middle East had mistakenly warned him that violence would come down. In 2017, he was in Jerusalem. They also point out that it was Mr. Trump who implemented the regularization agreement between Israel and the majority of Muslim countries in his first term. .
Trump's idea of buying Gaza has pleased Israel's hard rights and many people within the pro-Israel community of America. The Israeli government has long wanted to grab Buck Gaza from the Palestinians to ensure that the land could not be used to launch a terrorist attack on Israel.
David Friedman, who served as Israeli ambassador for Trump's first term, was surprised by the announcement, but he said the president's idea was “in 50 years, brilliant, out of the box, creative and frankly.” It was called the only solution. It could actually change dynamics in the troubled parts of the world.”
In an interview, Friedman said the challenge his team faced in Trump's first terminology was “the inability to answer basic questions. Not just in Israel, but in Gaza?”
He said it would be unbearable for Palestinians who supported staying in Hamas and Gaza. When asked who would live there instead, Friedman said that after 15 years of reconstruction it would become a “market-driven process.”
“I know I sound like a real estate guy,” he said, but he doesn't imagine the possibility that he was presented by “a beachfront on a 25-mile sunset surface.” I didn't get it.
