Trump says US should control Gaza, sparking rebukes and ridicule

Donald Trump said the US should take control of the devastated Gaza Strip, shunt the area's residents to other countries and rebuild it into a new "Riviera," a proposal at odds with Mideast reality and America's fraught history in the region that quickly drew sharp opposition from Saudi Arabia.

"The US will take over the Gaza Strip," Trump said Tuesday during a White House news conference alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. "We'll own it and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site."

Trump — who has long railed against America's "forever wars" — even suggested he would be open to deploying US troops to secure the area, saying he would "do what is necessary." He said he saw the US presence in the contested territory as a "long-term ownership position."

Elsewhere in the Middle East, the early reaction was swift.

Saudi Arabia reiterated its support for a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital and rejected "any infringement on the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people, whether through Israeli settlement policies, land annexation or attempts to displace the Palestinian people from their land."

US Senator Chris Van Hollen, a Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, was more blunt, calling Trump's proposal "ethnic cleansing by another name."

'Change History'

None of the criticism is likely to deter Trump. As he kept expanding on his vision during the news conference — musing about leveling the entire Gaza Strip and then hiring thousands of people to rebuild it — Netanyahu stood a few feet away, looking at times bemused but never suggesting any opposition. Only a handful of people were aware of the proposal ahead of Trump's remarks, according to a person familiar with the situation.

Netanyahu praised the former real estate developer for thinking on a "much higher level."

"We're talking about it, he's exploring it with his people, with his staff. I think it's something that could change history," Netanyahu said. "And it's worthwhile really pursuing this avenue."

The quick Saudi reaction is likely an indication of the broader response in the Middle East. Before this week, Egypt and Jordan as well as the Arab League pushed back on Trump's unconventional ideas, as well as the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and the Palestinian Authority. Asked about the fact that ally Jordan had previously rejected taking more refugees, Trump pointed to Venezuela, which recently agreed to take back deportees from the US after refusing for a year.

"Look, the Gaza thing has not worked," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office earlier in the day. "I think they should get a good, fresh, beautiful piece of land, and we get some people to put up the money to build it and make it nice and make it habitable, and enjoyable, somewhere."

That's not a shared vision.

"Everything that he's proposing, every component of what he said by itself, is highly problematic and would be destabilizing to a huge extent," said Khaled Elgindy, a visiting scholar at Georgetown University's Center for Contemporary Arab Studies and author of Blind Spot: America and the Palestinians, from Balfour to Trump.

Elgindy said Trump appeared to be speaking more as a real estate developer than president, adding, "He clearly did not talk to any Palestinians in coming up with these ideas."

Gone was any notion of a "two-state solution" the US has supported for decades or acknowledgment that Israel's neighbors have repeatedly rejected taking on more Palestinian refugees.

Beirut Bombing

Missing as well was a sense of what a lightning rod America's military presence in the region has been for decades, from the recent Iraq wars that helped spawn Islamic State and dating back to the 1983 Beirut barracks bombings that killed more than 300 people and prompted then-President Ronald Reagan to withdraw forces from Lebanon.

After pushing for years a more limited role for the US in the world, Trump's plan seemed to be the latest sign that he'd prefer to embrace an expansionist America, following on statements that he'd like to acquire Greenland, take back the Panama Canal and make Canada the 51st state. But that doesn't make the proposal more likely.

"He has no means or tools to actually implement the things that he's saying," said Brian Katulis, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute and former US official at the State Department and White House National Security Council. "It's similar to what he says about Greenland or Panama. It causes a stir. It causes a debate. But it doesn't produce anything."

The American leader said he's undeterred by the naysayers and vowed to visit Israel, Saudi Arabia and the Gaza Strip during upcoming foreign travel. Many nations "with humanitarian hearts" want to support him, he said.

"There are many of them that want to do this, and build various domains that will ultimately be occupied by the 1.8 million Palestinians living in Gaza, ending the death and destruction and frankly bad luck," Trump said.

Earlier in the Oval Office, Trump said "really rich" nations will supply land, and several areas could be built to permanently house Palestinians "where they can live a beautiful life." He suggested the new developments would be nice enough that Palestinian refugees would not want to return to their homeland.

Speaking before the Saudi statement, Trump expressed confidence that the kingdom would back the proposal, suggesting that they and other nations would welcome a fresh approach to addressing the conflicts in the region.

"Saudi Arabia is going to be very helpful and they have been very helpful," Trump said. "But everybody feels that continuing the same process that's gone on forever, over and over again, and then it starts and then the killing starts, and all of the other problems start. And you end up in the same place, and we don't want to see that happen."

Netanyahu said he believed "peace between Israel and Saudi Arabia is not only feasible, I think it's going to happen."

One thing is clear: In the wake of the 15-month Israel-Hamas war, which left Gaza's approximately 2 million residents in dire humanitarian straits, the prospects for Palestinian statehood have rarely appeared so remote, with Netanyahu's government now pledging it will never happen. Some of Netanyahu's hard-right supporters in Israel have previously called for clearing all Palestinians out of Gaza and making it an extension of the Jewish state.

Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law and founder of investment firm Affinity Partners, also drew attention last year when he said the Gaza Strip could be "very valuable."

"Gaza's waterfront property, it could be very valuable, if people would focus on building up livelihoods," he said in an interview posted by Harvard University's Middle East Initiative.

While a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas remains in effect, the two sides are still far apart on crucial issues. Netanyahu has pledged to achieve total victory over Hamas, designated a terrorist group by the US, and return all the hostages taken in the group's assault on Israel that started the war. Some right-wing members of Netanyahu's coalition have been critical of the deal and have pressured him to resume the war.

Trump has repeatedly offered unorthodox solutions to ending the conflict. The US president has been outspoken in supporting Israel but has also pledged to wind down the conflict and took credit for the deal, which was agreed to during the final days of his predecessor Joe Biden's presidency.

"They will never give me a Nobel peace prize," Trump said. "I deserve it but they will never give it."