‘Middle East Riviera Gaza’: Is Trump serious or is he hiding another more malicious plan?

Are they serious?They are wondering in their analyses the BBC and CNN after the statement by the American President who caused global shock that the US wants to acquire “control” of the “long term” Strip, a proposal that could “change history” according to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. And what Donald Trump did not say at the press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, leaving the planet speechless and raising The United States, he said, is going to take over the Gaza Strip and turn it into a Middle East Riviera. A place full of jobs and opportunities, inhabited by people from all over the world. CORVERSE But the Palestinians living there for more than seven decades will leave – forever, he said. “ ” We will own and take responsibility for eliminating all dangerous bombs that have not exploded and all weapons,” Donald Trump said after his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, adding that the US will “load” the “damaged buildings” and proceed to work to develop the region financially, repeating the proposal that the Palestinians living in the enclave should leave. Trump says his ideas have broad support, which is not true after Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia have rejected them. CORVERSE “We confirm our rejection (any attempt) of endangering the inalienable rights of the Palestinians, either through residential activities or expulsions or land annexation or through the abandonment of territories by their owners… in any form or under any circumstances or excuses,” is noted in the joint communication issued after a meeting in Cairo. Trump said he is considering supporting the idea of Israel having sovereignty there and that he will proceed with an announcement within the next four weeks. He also made it clear that this has nothing to do with the prospects of a two-state solution. Is any of this serious? Paul Adams’ diplomatic correspondent wonders to answer: “With Trump, it’s hard to say”. “But he overturned decades of American policy on the Middle East during his first term – and he seems ready to do the same now,” he notes. With his analysis he comments on Donald Trump’s new statements – a shock to Gaza, describing them as “the most impressive American intervention in the long history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict”. As the American network reports, hearing the statements of the American president, Netanyahu was unable to hide the mockery on his face as he watched the US’s most incredible intervention in the long history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Trump repeatedly insisted on his proposal that nearly 2 million Palestinians should move from Gaza, which has been levelled by the conflicts, so that the US could send troops to the Gaza Strip, take control and build the “Middle East Riviera”. “We will build good-quality dwellings, like a beautiful city, a place where they can live and not die, because Gaza guarantees that they will end up dying,” Trump told reporters. In short, the CNN analysis notes, Trump described an inconceivable geopolitical transformation of the Middle East and a political lifeline for Netanyahu, proving why the prime minister, despite their earlier tensions, supported Trump’s return to power in the 2024 election. Netanyahu can now present himself to the right wing of his government, which constantly threaten his authority, as the only and vital link to Trump. The views of the American president are now aligned with the desire of the hardliner Israelis to see the Palestinians expelled from the Gaza Strip. Israel’s far-right former National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvere, who resigned from Netanyahu’s war council earlier this year in protest of the Gaza ceasefire agreement, confirmed the association between Trump’s thinking and extreme conservatives in Israel. “Donald, this looks like the beginning of a beautiful friendship”, he wrote in a post to X (formerly Twitter). Because Trump’s plans are absurd. Watching an American president support what will mean the violent displacement of Palestinians from their homes, moving on to an act that will undermine decades of American politics, international law and basic human dignity, was outrageous, CNN notes. REUTERS/Ramadan Abed Trump since the day he returned to the White House has ceased to annex the Panama Canal, Greenland, and Canada. A real estate deal was envisioned through which he would take responsibility for Gaza and plan a urban regeneration project with job creation. He called it a U.S. property position. A better phrase would be “21st century colonization”. “The US will take over Gaza Strip and do good work,” Trump said. “We will possess it and be responsible for removing all dangerous bombs and other weapons in the region. We will level the area, we will get rid of the damaged buildings, we will create economic growth that will offer an unlimited number of jobs and homes for the people of the region, we will do good work, something different,” he stressed. The idea is reminiscent of a plan proposed last year by Trump’s investor son-in-law, Jared Kushner, for the movement of Palestinians from Gaza and the area’s “cleaning” in order to exploit the “pretty” coastline of the Mediterranean. However, it seems absurd for many reasons. If the leader of the most powerful democracy in the world led such a forced move, he would represent the crimes of old tyrants and create an excuse for every authoritarian regime to launch mass ethnic cleansing programs against vulnerable minorities. His plans also show that it will be Trump’s second term, a president who does not follow the law, the Constitution and does not listen to anyone, doing what he wants. And in all Trump’s recent public statements on Gaza, there is one important missing element: the feeling that the Palestinian people can choose their own fate. Their connection to the desecrated enclave was recently highlighted by the return of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to Northern Gaza. Many set up improvised camps in the ruins of their homes destroyed, during the Israeli raid against Hamas after the October 7, 2023 terrorist attacks on Israel. The president’s indifference to the Palestinians’ wishes and his admission that he would prefer a modern housing development elsewhere, showed an astonishing naivety about the causes of the conflict. This was reflected in a dialogue at the Oval Office when he asked: “Why would they want to come back? The place is hell.” One journalist replied: “But it’s their home. Why leave?”. An Arab official told CNN that Trump’s statements could jeopardise the delicate ceasefire and hostage-release agreement in Gaza. “It is vital to recognise the profound impact such proposals have on the lives and dignity of the Palestinian people, as well as on the wider Middle East,” the diplomat said. There are also practical reasons why this idea is a utopia. It is very much opposed to Arab countries whose money and land would be necessary to operate. Jordan, which already hosts a large number of Palestinian refugees, fears that the Hashimite Kingdom will be fatally destabilized by a new influx. Egypt’s army fears a massive influx of Palestinians that could include supporters of Hamas or the Sunni Islamist Movement of the Muslim Brotherhood. Aaron David Miller, a former US government negotiator for the Middle East, told CNN: ‘It is not a real estate deal for them, it is not even a humanitarian issue for them. It’s an existential issue.” The idea of violent displacement of the Palestinians would also be politically impossible for Saudi Arabia, which is the key to Trump’s plan to create an anti-Iranian bow, which would be housed by a diplomatic normalization with Israel. The kingdom has made the creation of an independent Palestinian state conditional on such an agreement. The full evacuation of Gaza would be a serious blow to dreams of statehood and would create a precedent that could raise doubts about the presence of the Palestinians on the West Bank, considered by the United Nations, as well as Gaza, occupied by Israel. The idea that much of the Palestinians would agree to leave Gaza for an idyllic suburban life elsewhere is also based on a superficial understanding of a conflict that has made them homeless. Since Israel was founded in 1948, the hopes of thousands of Palestinians living in poverty in refugee camps, such as Beirut and Jordan, have proved to be futile. Thus, Gazans would never leave the region based on promises that perhaps someday they would return. Trump’s idea is an indication of how much the strategic image of the Middle East has been overturned after October 7. But it also shows astonishing arrogance, given that recent US efforts to restructure Middle America’s geopolitical policy East, from Iraq to Libya, ended in destruction. And in a wider historical period, the efforts of European colonial forces such as Britain and France to draw up borders and impose large plans in the Middle East, bequeathed generations of bitter conflicts that continue. Is Trump serious? Trump’s statements spark, as is reasonable, and speculation about whether he’s serious about his outrageous plan or using it to distract from another, even more malicious plan. Perhaps the attempt of his friend Elon Musk to destroy the U.S. government from within. But it is also typical of a president who lives to upset things and who is dear to his voters for rejecting the orthodoxy of elites and conventional approaches they failed. Critics of the establishment and media are often annoyed by his ideas that do not match the historical and contemporary context. Is Trump serious or is this just another fantasy dream of a president who often seems cut off from reality?