Trump Unites the World in Support of the Palestinians Through His Call for Ethnic Cleansing and the US Takeover of Gaza

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Last Tuesday, the full delusional derangement of Donald Trump’s narcissistic opinion of himself as a god-like emperor entitled to reshape the world according to his whims was on full display.

At a press conference at the White House with the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — the first foreign leader that Trump has met with since he took office, despite Netanyahu being a wanted war criminal — he called for the complete ethnic cleansing, or, to put it another way, the forced displacement of the entire Palestinian population of the Gaza Strip, outrageous crimes under international law, which he nevertheless sought to dress up as a benevolent humanitarian intervention, and then, seemingly out of nowhere, pledged to take over the entirety of the Gaza Strip, and to rebuild it as “the Riviera of the Middle East.”

Middle East Eye helpfully transcribed and posted the whole of the press conference and the Q&A session that followed it, including the following section in which, in his typically rambling and frequently incoherent manner, Trump announced his ethnic cleansing plan:

I strongly believe that the Gaza Strip, which has been a symbol of death and destruction for so many decades and so bad for the people anywhere near it, and especially those who live there and frankly who’s been really very unlucky. It’s been very unlucky. It’s been an unlucky place for a long time.

Being in its presence just has not been good and it should not go through a process of rebuilding and occupation by the same people that have really stood there and fought for it and lived there and died there and lived a miserable existence there. Instead, they should go to other countries of interest with humanitarian hearts, and there are many of them that want to do this and build various domains that will ultimately be occupied by the million Palestinians living in Gaza, ending the death and destruction and frankly bad luck.

This can be paid for by neighboring countries of great wealth. It could be one, two, three, four, five, seven, eight, twelve. It could be numerous sites, or it could be one large site. But the people will be able to live in comfort and peace and we’ll get — we’ll make sure something really spectacular is done.

They’re going to have peace; they’re not going to be shot at and killed and destroyed like this civilization of wonderful people has had to endure. The only reason the Palestinians want to go back to Gaza is they have no alternative. It’s right now a demolition site. This is just a demolition site. Virtually every building is down.

They’re living under fallen concrete that’s very dangerous and very precarious. They instead can occupy all of a beautiful area with homes and safety and they can live out their lives in peace and harmony instead of having to go back and do it again.

And this, immediately after, was how he described his takeover plan:

The US 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 unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site, level the site and get rid of the destroyed buildings, level it out. Create an economic development that will supply unlimited numbers of jobs and housing for the people of the area. Do a real job, do something different.

When afterwards, a reporter stated, “You are talking tonight about the United States taking over a sovereign territory. What authority would allow you to do that?”, he said, without actually answering the question, and also bragging about non-existent support for his proposal, “I do see a long-term ownership position and I see it bringing great stability to that part of the Middle East, and maybe the entire Middle East. And everybody I’ve spoken to — this was not a decision made lightly. Everybody I’ve spoken to loves the idea of the United States owning that piece of land, developing and creating thousands of jobs with something that will be magnificent in a really magnificent area that nobody would know.”

And finally, towards the end of the Q&A session, he finally articulated his “Riviera” fantasy in response to another question, stating, “I don’t want to be cute. I don’t want to be a wise guy. But the Riviera of the Middle East, this could be something that could be so — this could be so magnificent.”

Trump’s comments provoke sweeping international condemnation

Reassuringly, Trump’s cynical defense of wholesale ethnic cleansing and forced displacement galvanized international support for the Palestinians on an unprecedented scale, and very evidently because of its outrageous flouting of international law. It was so extreme that no one even had the time or the inclination to ask how Trump thought the population of the Gaza Strip could be made to leave when there was no indication whatsoever that the overwhelming majority of them wanted to do so.

Saudi Arabia — a key player because of long-term efforts by the US to get it to “normalize” relations with Israel — immediately issued a blistering rebuke, stating that it remained “firm and unwavering”, with a dedication that was “non-negotiable and not subject to compromises”, in its “relentless efforts” to “establish an independent Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital”, adding that it “will not establish diplomatic relations with Israel without that.” The Saudis also reaffirmed their ”unequivocal rejection of any infringement on the rights of the Palestinian people, whether through Israeli settlement policies, land annexation, or attempts to displace the Palestinian people from their land.”

Other countries swiftly followed suit, with universal condemnation including not only the Arab world, but also, crucially, the west, where most countries had unequivocally supported Israel’s genocide for 15 months.

Egypt issued a statement that it “completely rejects any proposal that aims to uproot the Palestinian people or displace them from their historical land, whether temporarily or permanently”, while Jordan’s King Abdullah II stressed “the need to put a stop to settlement expansion, expressing rejection of any attempts to annex land and displace the Palestinians.”

Noticeably, Israel’s two biggest allies in Europe also rejected Trump’s proposals, with Germany’s foreign minister Annalena Baerbock stating that “Gaza belongs to Palestinians, and their expulsion would not only be unacceptable and contrary to international law, but would also lead to new suffering and hatred”, and Britain’s Keir Starmer stating that the Palestinians “must be allowed home”, and adding, “They must be allowed to rebuild, and we should be with them in that rebuild on the way to a two-state solution.”

The sharpest and most amusing response came from Brazil’s President Lula da Silva, who stated, “People need to stop saying whatever comes into their heads”, and who also noted that Trump’s plan “makes no sense”, calling it “incomprehensible to any human being.”

As for Trump’s “Riviera” fantasy, Sen. Lindsey Graham, a friend of Trump’s, poured scorn on the proposal when asked about it immediately afterwards. Evidently aware that it was inconceivable that it would take place in a landscape miraculously cleared of the entire Palestinian population, and recalling US troops mired in Iraq, Sen. Graham said, “I think it’s problematic. I think American troops being involved in that area, it seldom works out well.”

How we got here, and the role of Steve Witkoff, Trump’s envoy

Even if we set aside for a moment the overwhelming lawlessness of Trump’s ethnic cleansing proposal, the impossibility of imagining how it might be put into effect, and the equal impossibility of imagining how the US might secure the Gaza Strip to reshape it into a “Riviera”, everything about Trump’s performance last Tuesday undermined the ceasefire deal that he had been involved in establishing just three weeks before, via the involvement of his Middle East Envoy, the Jewish American property developer Steve Riskoff, “working seamlessly” with his Democratic counterpart, Brett McGurk, to secure the deal in time for Trump’s inauguration.

Witkoff, who had no previous diplomatic experience, got the job, as Sen. Lindsey Graham told NBC News, because he and Trump “were longtime golf buddies.” As he described it, “Steve and I would be the two guys who would play Trump and somebody else, and lose.” He added that Trump “made the decision to appoint his friend after Witkoff broached the idea of working on the Middle East over lunch” with Trump.

“That stunned me”, Graham said, “because I didn’t know he was that interested in the Mideast”, but, as he added, “Trump looked at me and said, ‘Well, a million people have tried. Let’s pick a nice guy who’s a smart guy.’”

While the Israeli commentator Meron Rapaport has pointed out that domestic Israeli politics probably had more to do with the ceasefire deal being agreed than any outside pressure, there is no doubt that Witkoff brought a palpable enthusiasm to securing a deal that would finally prioritize the release of the hostages, which, he made clear, was the prime directive delivered to him by Trump — “Get the hostages home, and if you don’t, come back and explain why.”

Interviewed the day before the ceasefire deal came into effect, Witkoff said that he planned to be “a near-constant presence in the region over the coming weeks and months to troubleshoot flare-ups on the ground” that he believed “could unravel the agreement and halt the release of hostages held by Hamas.”

Refreshingly, he pointed out that there were “a lot of people, radicals, fanatics, not just from the Hamas side, from the right wing of the Israeli side, who are absolutely incentivized to blow this whole deal up.”

At the time, Witkoff was unwilling to be drawn too much into discussions about the future of Gaza in the longer term, noting only that, “If we don’t help the Gazans, if we don’t make their life better, if we don’t give them a sense of hope, there’s going to be a rebellion.”

Unfortunately, he also mentioned “relocation” plans during the rebuilding of Gaza, in which he noted that Indonesia was “among the locations under discussion for where some of them could go.” This, of course, was an absurd proposal if subjected to any kind of scrutiny, as it involved imagining the logistics required to move, let us say, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, even if they were willing to leave, who would then have to be flown in vast numbers of planes to a far-off destination.

As NBC News added, rather breezily touching on the ethnic cleansing scandal that has taken center stage since Trump’s press conference with Netanyahu, “Even the question of whether Gazans would be willing to relocate is up in the air. The idea of relocation is deeply controversial among Palestinians and fellow Arabs. Many believe that relocating would be the first step in Israel forcing them off their land.”

Unfortunately, barely a week after the ceasefire took effect, as hundreds of thousands of Palestinians made their way back from the south, where they had been forcibly relocated, to the devastating ruins of their homes in the north, demonstrating their unbreakable commitment to their land, and prompting Haaretz to endorse, in an editorial, the vision of “a people clinging to their right to live on their land with dignity, like any citizen in any sovereign state”, Trump invited Netanyahu to the White House, and started talking about pressurizing Egypt and Jordan to take in Palestinians “temporarily or long term.”

Foreshadowing his comments at the press conference with Netanyahu, he stated, “You’re talking about a million and a half people, and we just clean out that whole thing. It’s literally a demolition site. Almost everything is demolished and people are dying there, so I’d rather get involved with some of the Arab nations and build housing at a different location where they can maybe live in peace for a change.”

Trump didn’t care that both Egypt and Jordan are, always have been, and always will be implacably opposed to accepting the Palestinians, and not just because it would be an endorsement of ethnic cleansing and forced displacement, and would constitute an end to the Palestinians’ long and just struggle to establish their own state. In both cases, given the widespread support for the Palestinians amongst their own populations, it would quite demonstrably lead to massive political destabilization, very possibly threatening the future of both regimes, which would be deeply ironic given the extent to which the US and the west rely on President Sisi and King Abdullah to preserve their interests in the Middle East, and very specifically including Israel’s security.

Nevertheless, Trump doubled down after being rebuked by both countries, claiming, absurdly, “They will do it. They will do it. They’re gonna do it, okay? We do a lot for them, and they’re gonna do it.”

On February 3, when Marco Rubio was confirmed as Trump’s Secretary of State, the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE, Egypt and Jordan, along with a senior Palestinian official, sent a joint letter to him, strongly opposing any plans to displace Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, but just two days later, as we all saw to our horror and disbelief, Trump not only promoted the Palestinians’ ethnic cleansing and forced displacement to the whole world; he also shamefully used the occasion to launch his ludicrous “Riviera” proposal.

Why the ceasefire deal cannot be so easily dismissed

In his addled, simplistic mind, Trump may have only wanted a ceasefire because of his desire to be seen as a decisive and triumphant leader at the start of his second presidential term — and also as a way to humiliate his predecessor Joe Biden, who, of course, had been instrumental, with his Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, in unconditionally supporting Israel’s genocide for 15 months, and failing to make any effort to use the US’s obvious leverage to push for a ceasefire.

However, the ceasefire deal, which had involved extraordinarily intense negotiations, and which had taken over a year to approve, almost entirely because of stonewalling from Netanyahu, with the full support of the US, isn’t something that can be tossed aside as an irrelevance, just because Trump wants to be seen as a humanitarian ethnic cleanser, and a conquering real estate developer.

The ceasefire deal very explicitly includes no mention of either ethnic cleansing or the US takeover of Gaza, because, of course, negotiations would never even have begun had such outrageous proposals been included.

Instead, the successful implementation of the ceasefire deal involved Israel having to agree to bring its military assault to an end, prioritizing instead the safe release of its hostages in exchange for significant numbers of Palestinian prisoners (or, in many cases, hostages) in its own prisons, with the ultimate aim, acknowledged by all the parties — Qatar, Egypt, the US, Israel and Hamas — being an end to the hostilities and the implementation of a five-year plan for the reconstruction of Gaza.

Preserving this ceasefire deal for the last three weeks has been an extraordinary achievement, as there have now, successfully, been five hostage releases in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, and Israel has largely, although not entirely, refrained from breaking the ceasefire militarily.

Over the first phase of the ceasefire, lasting six weeks, Hamas agreed to release 33 hostages in total, in small numbers and on a weekly basis, as an understandable precaution to prevent any resumption of hostilities, in exchange for around 1,900 Palestinians — some serving prison sentences, including many who were deported on their release, but many others who were can also legitimately be regarded as hostages; many never changed with a crime, and who were either held arbitrarily, or via “administrative detention”, a lawless process allowing the Israelis to hold Palestinians without charge or trial for six months at a time, and to renew that process every six months for as long as they wish.

Since January 20, 21 hostages have been freed, including five Thai nationals, while 766 Palestinians have been freed in exchange — 90 on January 20, 200 on January 25, 110 on January 30, 183 on February 1, and 183 on February 8. I wrote about the first of these Palestinian releases here, as a necessary response to the west’s persistent bias in solely lavishing attention on the Israeli hostages — mostly well-treated — while ignoring the relentlessly brutalized Palestinians, but I haven’t had the time to report on the later releases, although information about them can be found here, here and here. Also worth checking out is the Palestinian Captives account on X.

With another three weeks to go, involving the release of 12 more Israeli hostages, and over a thousand more Palestinians, no one should be in any doubt that this first phase will continue without interruption, although, as negotiations begin regarding the second phase, which is meant to start on March 1, involving the return of the surviving hostages (all men), in exchange for many more Palestinians, pressure is being ramped up within Israel, from those on the far-right, especially the rabid Minister of Finance, Bezalel Smotrich and the equally rabid ex-Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir, for a resumption of hostilities.

Fortunately, as the Times of Israel reported on Saturday, polling shows that 70% of Israelis support the second phase of the hostage release and ceasefire deal, which also involves Israel’s complete military withdrawal. This means that it should go ahead, leading to the third phase, beginning in the second week of April, when reconstruction — but, very evidently, not via Trump’s “Riviera” deal — should finally be on the agenda.

In all of this maneuvering, Netanyahu is desperately trying to maintain power, marginalized politically because of the ascendancy of the pro-hostage majority, who he so assiduously tried to silence for over a year through his commitment to relentless genocide, but also assailed from the right by the settlers, whose hunger for Palestinian blood has not been assuaged by his pragmatism in agreeing to a ceasefire deal primarily because of the increasing “war fatigue” within Israel itself.

Crucial to all of this horse-trading is not just Gaza, where peace may prevail, but the West Bank, where it most certainly is not. Part of the increased aggression there since the Gaza ceasefire began — particularly in Jenin and Tulkarm, where 35,000 Palestinians have been driven from their homes over the last month — is clearly as revenge for the thwarting of endless genocide in Gaza, and a way for Netanyahu to keep the arch-settler Smotrich onside, but it is also a topic that Donald Trump cannot avoid, not just because he took a $100 million donation from Miriam Adelson, the ferociously pro-settler widow of the casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson, but also because he has stacked his cabinet with virulently pro-Israeli figures.

Noticeably, at the press conference last Tuesday at which Trump was so effusive about his ethnic cleansing and “Riviera” plans, he was noticeably tight-lipped about his proposals for the West Bank, noting only, in response to a loaded question from a journalist who asked him, using the Israeli right’s terminology for the Occupied West Bank, “Do you support Israeli sovereignty in Judea and Samaria, which many believe is the biblical homeland of the Jewish people?”, “We haven’t taken a position on it yet. But we will be. We’ll be making an announcement probably on that very specific topic over the next four weeks.”

Obviously, for the survival of the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip, it is essential that the ceasefire holds, but it is no less important that those who rallied so swiftly to condemn Trump’s ethnic cleaning plans also come together to condemn the increasing violence in the West Bank, not least because Israel cannot even come up with a reason to justify it, because the governance of the West Bank is shared by Israel itself and the Palestinian Authority, with Hamas playing no part. This is especially important if, as seems likely, Trump is willing to indulge Israel in the Gaza-ification of the West Bank to support his backers and to satisfy the Zionists in his cabinet.

What would be most preferable, however, would be for Netanyahu’s government to fall, for Smotrich and Ben-Gvir to be permanently exiled from power, and for Israel itself to finally have a reckoning with itself about its failures over the last 16 months, how its genocidal actions have alienated it around the world, and how the only way forward is to finally abandon its territorial ambitions, and for the Palestinians to be free to establish their own autonomous state in Gaza and the West Bank, with its capital in East Jerusalem — the only just solution, and the only guarantee of a lasting peace now as it has been for the last 58 years.

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Andy Worthington is a freelance investigative journalist, activist, author, photographer (of an ongoing photo-journalism project, ‘The State of London’), film-maker and singer-songwriter (the lead singer and main songwriter for the London-based band The Four Fathers, whose music is available via Bandcamp). He is the co-founder of the Close Guantánamo campaign (see the ongoing photo campaign here) and the successful We Stand With Shaker campaign of 2014-15, and the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison and of two other books: Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion and The Battle of the Beanfield. He is also the co-director (with Polly Nash) of the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (available on DVD here, or you can watch it online here, via the production company Spectacle, for £2.50).

In 2017, Andy became very involved in housing issues. He is the narrator of the documentary film, ‘Concrete Soldiers UK’, about the destruction of council estates, and the inspiring resistance of residents, he wrote a song ‘Grenfell’, in the aftermath of the entirely preventable fire in June 2017 that killed over 70 people, and, in 2018, he was part of the occupation of the Old Tidemill Wildlife Garden in Deptford, to try to prevent its destruction — and that of 16 structurally sound council flats next door — by Lewisham Council and Peabody.

Since 2019, Andy has become increasingly involved in environmental activism, recognizing that climate change poses an unprecedented threat to life on earth, and that the window for change — requiring a severe reduction in the emission of all greenhouse gases, and the dismantling of our suicidal global capitalist system — is rapidly shrinking, as tipping points are reached that are occurring much quicker than even pessimistic climate scientists expected. You can read his articles about the climate crisis here.

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