This past Tuesday evening, President Trump shocked the world when, in a joint press conference with Prime Minister Netanyahu, he announced that the United States would take over Gaza, clean it up, and make it the “Riviera of the Middle East.”
Many scoffed at his plan. Some deemed it the unrealistic fantasy of a real estate mogul. Others went so far as to label it a war crime. It is neither. Indeed, it is the first solution I have heard in 50 years that offers a realistic chance to bring peace, prosperity, and dignity to this troubled region.
The President’s plan accomplishes three crucial goals: It signals a long overdue rejection of the “two-state solution.” It signals the voluntary relocation of Gaza’s population from what the President accurately described as an unsafe and unlivable demolition site. And it would commercialize the Gaza Strip, which includes 25 miles of sunset-facing Mediterranean beachfront.
Let’s start with the two-state solution, which was truly put to rest by Hamas‘ barbaric assault of October 7, 2023. Back in 2005, when Israel removed its entire civilian population and military presence from Gaza, the Bush administration told the Palestinian Authority that this was its chance to prove to the world that it could create a working model of peaceful coexistence that could be extrapolated to Palestinian statehood. The experiment failed almost immediately, but its death knell occurred on October 7.
President Trump’s vision of an American takeover of Gaza puts the last nail in the two-state coffin.
BASHAR TALEB/AFP via Getty Images
President Trump’s plan would also allow the civilian population of Gaza to leave the demolished enclave, something refugees have done from every war zone in history. Some had argued that removing the civilian population from Gaza is a war crime. This is false: Gaza is unlivable, and moving the civilian population out of Gaza represents the best of humanitarian intentions.
Here’s a secret I learned from direct conversations with Gaza residents when I was Ambassador to Israel during President Trump’s first term, a remit which included Gaza: Most civilians in Gaza were desperate to leave long before the latest war began, for the simple reason that living under Hamas rule was a nightmare even before Gaza was turned to rubble. It is nothing but a smear to suggest that allowing desperate civilians to voluntarily leave a war zone is a crime; it is Gazans’ leaders, as opposed to their movers, who have committed war crimes. Furthermore, Gazans would not be leaving because of their ethnicity but due to safety concerns, another aspect of the plan which dispels the accusation.
To those who might feel sympathy for Gazans who might never choose return to their homeland, I would remind them that many of the people of Gaza elected Hamas, and many supported and cheered Hamas when it kidnapped, murdered, raped, burned, and tortured Israeli civilians. From a moral perspective, they have forfeited the right to the land which they have destroyed.
Finally, it is only once Gaza is cleared of the rubble that Gaza’s future can begin. Not one dollar of capital can be raised while Gaza is a hellish war zone. But once the destruction is cleaned out, with unexploded ordinance removed, terror tunnels destroyed, and rubble cleared, the opportunities are boundless. Assuming 1,000 feet of beachfront per project, Gaza would support the construction of up to 132 new multi-hundred-million-dollar structures. The economic horsepower of the region could provide jobs to hundreds of thousands of people.
As an additional important benefit, when the Islamic world sees that Hamas has lost its hold on the Strip and that the nightmare of Hamas has been replaced with a new reality of peace and prosperity, the suicidal psychosis of radical Islam will suffer a crushing blow.
No one can resist offering a clever meme or a humorous quip about Trump real estate projects in Gaza. But jokes aside, President Trump’s proposal deserves more than serious consideration; it deserves to be actualized as soon as possible.
David Friedman served as U.S. Ambassador to Israel during President Trump’s first term.
The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.
