President Donald Trump has ignited worldwide fury against a proposal he advanced to further displace nearly 2 million Palestinians already dispossessed from their land with the destruction of the Gaza Strip in 15 months of Israeli onslaught and war.
He proposed that America “take over” Gaza and “own it” and rebuild the war-ruined enclave into a waterfront oasis. Only a couple of weeks into his second term as president, President Trump also told reporters, he would not rule out placing military boots in Gaza as well.
President Trump said rather than stay in Gaza, other countries of interest with “humanitarian hearts” should “build various domains” to take in the Palestinians and should be paid for by wealthy countries in the region. “The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip, and we will do a job with it too,” said the president. “We’ll own it,” he continued.
“We have an opportunity to do something that could be phenomenal. I don’t want to be cute … a wise guy, but the Riviera of the Middle East, this could be something that could be so magnificent,” he said.
President Trump spoke the words in a joint news conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Feb. 4 at The White House. The embattled premier, an accused war criminal with an active warrant for his arrest from the International Criminal Court stemming from Israel’s genocidal war raging since Oct. 7, 2023, called the idea “worthwhile” to pursue. It was predominately U.S. armament that Israel used to destroy Gaza, slaughter, and displace Palestinians.
On Feb. 6, President Trump posted on his Truth Social platform: “The Gaza Strip would be turned over to the United States by Israel at the conclusion of fighting,” and not involve the U.S. military.
In reaction to his proposed idea, rights advocates, activists, and observers said the move means the U.S. would be occupying Gaza and engaging in the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. They argue the plan amounts to a “second Nakba” or “Catastrophe” of the Palestinian people.
The first was in 1948 with the forced expulsion of 700,000 Palestinians from their lands with the forming of Israel as a state. The reactions to President Trump’s remarks ranged from outrage to rejecting it as asinine and absurd. An expert on the Palestinian situation said the plan is unlawful, immoral and irresponsible.
“What he proposes is utter nonsense and it’s unlawful,” said Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Ms. Albanese told reporters during a news conference in Copenhagen, Demark, that the proposal is actually worse than ethnic cleansing.
“It’s anxiety to commit forced displacement, which is an international crime,” she said.
It is additional dispossession of a people, and in the context of a genocide it will strengthen the complicity in the crimes that Israel has been committing over the last 15 months and before, explained Ms. Albanese.
She predicts President Trump’s scheme will worsen the crisis in the Middle East. “The international community is made of 193 states, and this is the time to give the U.S. what it has been looking for, isolation,” Ms. Albanese said.
Ms. Albanese argued that economic development alone will not stop the cycle of violence and that the international community must respect international law and accountability.
She also stressed that the elephant in the room issue is for Israel to end its unlawful occupation as stated in a recent Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the UN’s top judiciary body.
The ICJ concluded in July 2024, that Israel’s continued presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory is illegal and under an obligation to end it as rapidly as possible.
It further stated that “all States are under an obligation not to recognize as legal the situation” arising from Israel’s unlawful presence. They are also obligated “not to render aid or assistance in maintaining the situation created by the continued presence” of Israel in the occupied Palestinian territory. This makes President Trump’s Gaza plan illegal, say critics.
Muhammad Sankari, spokesman for the U.S. Palestinian Community Network-Chicago (US- PNC), told The Final Call the move is the continuation of U.S. policy of supporting Israel’s war efforts.
Despite Israel’s military actions, including slaughtering over 61,000 people and destroying 90 percent of Gaza’s infrastructure, they failed to achieve their goals, such as eradicating the Palestinian resistance.
“I think first and foremost it’s a continuation of U.S. policy, as it’s been for the last 16 months,” said Mr. Sankari. “The Israelis very clearly said their genocidal war—the goal of it—was to depopulate Gaza. And (former President Joe) Biden gave them every single tool in his disposal to do that,” he said. “In that sense, it’s more of the same,” he added.
Mr. Sankari noted that despite President Trump’s “bombastic style” and pronouncements, his actions continue U.S. errant policy. He stressed the international community must push back against America’s and Israel’s sinister aim for Palestinian expulsion. He said the Palestinian people are unlikely to just leave their land.
The Palestinian ambassador to the United Nations pointed out that Palestinian resilience rejects any forced transfer away from their land in disregard of their self-determination and rights to their land.
“The Gaza Strip is not free land for anyone to grab,” said Riyad Mansour, Palestine UN Ambassador, on Feb 6, responding to President Trump’s statements. “It belongs to the Palestinian people,” he said. “It is not a free piece of land for anyone to grab, those days in history are gone,” Mr. Mansour argued.
The ambassador said Palestinians are determined to stay in Gaza and refuted the U.S. president’s claim that they were returning because they had no alternative. He cited the 400,000 people, who, on Jan. 27, walked from the southern part of the strip to the northern part after Israeli checkpoints separating the north and south, were removed.
“Some people might not understand the meaning and value of having a country and loving the land of your country. For us, the Palestinian people, it is in our DNA,” said the diplomat. “We love the land of our country, whether we have palaces on it or destroyed buildings,” he said.
Gaza has been destroyed several times in the past and the resilience of the Palestinians rebuilt it, aided by allies. The people returned when the three-phase ceasefire took effect in January because they want to stay there, said Mr. Mansour. “They have memories, they have connection with the land,” he reasoned. “When they walk over the land the land talks to them.”
As the backlash against President Trump’s proposal was swift throughout the world, pressure must be sustained, particularly in the Arab and Muslim World where the president hopes to have a strong influence.
Saudi Arabia, which President Trump and Israel are still hoping will normalize relations, categorically rejected the idea of removing Palestinians. They warned that there would be no such relations without Palestinian statehood.
In a Feb. 5 statement addressing President Trump’s proposal, the Saudi Foreign Ministry said their position is “firm” and not open to negotiation repeating a position Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has taken many times before.
The statement reiterated that Saudi Arabia would continue efforts for an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital and would not normalize relations with Israel without it.
“The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia also stresses its previously announced categorical rejection of any violation of the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people, whether through Israeli settlement policies, annexation of Palestinian territories, or attempts to displace the Palestinian people from their land,” the statement added.
“Lasting and just peace cannot be achieved without the Palestinian people obtaining their legitimate rights in accordance with international legitimacy resolutions, and this is what was previously explained to the previous and current American administrations,” the ministry statement said.
Prince Turki Al-Faisal, Saudi Arabia’s former ambassador in Washington, told CNN on Feb. 5 that he expected Muslim and Arab nations and other countries nations to address the issue at the UN. “The problem in Palestine is not the Palestinians. It is the Israeli occupation. And this has been clear and understood by everybody,” he told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour.
Palestinian American activist Linda Sarsour commented “Trump is playing with fire. His remarks about Palestinians in Gaza being moved to Egypt, Jordan or another country are dividing his Administration.
Specially the Diplomats who interface with their counterparts in these nations,” she posted in part on Facebook. “The Palestinian people will persevere and they will resist their removal from their homeland,” she added.
Close to one year ago, during his February 25, 2024, address titled “What Does Allah The Great Mahdi And The Great Messiah Have To Say About The War In The Middle East?”
The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, National Representative of the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad, raised the plight of the Palestinian people and raised the question, “who could do to another human being what is being done to our Palestinian family and let it happen and not think of a humanitarian crisis?”
“The crisis is not just what is happening to the Palestinians. The crisis involves what is happening to you, what is happening to me; what is happening to human beings who are more concerned with what they will lose by standing up, rather than standing up and facing the consequence of their stand, knowing that God will bring them out victorious,” exhorted the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan.
Minister Farrakhan, as the leading voice of warning and guidance to America and the nations of the earth, said the Palestinian situation is a test for the human family and particularly the Muslim world.
“What is happening in Palestine becomes a test for the whole human family. If you could look at their suffering, and it does not move you, you have lost your humanity. If you can see a dog suffer and have compassion …
If you can see your favorite horse suffer, where you’ve got to put him down, you feel pain! Palestinian mothers are crying over the loss of their children! I watched them cry; I watched them touch their babies that are dead, and don’t want to let the baby go to be buried.
“That’s not a barbarian feeling, that’s a human feeling. I saw Jews that were suffering, too, burying their dead, and weeping as the Palestinians are weeping. These are not barbarians! They have suffered from Israel’s presence in Palestine,” said Minister Farrakhan.
“I am saying this openly to my brothers and sisters in Islam: You have to stand up against the genocide that is happening to our Palestinian family. They do not need platitudes; they don’t need cheap talk. They need the Muslim world to unite and say to Israel what you should say,” said Minister Farrakhan.
