Another Trump “shock and awe” stunt: declaring the US will take over Gaza

There has been some hope among foreign policy “restrainers,” aka, people who think it’s much better to avoid unnecessary wars than to start them, that Donald Trump was not a warmonger and would look for peaceful settlement of conflicts. Here in his third week back in the White House, that becomes more difficult to imagine.

The latest surprise from the orange Co-President of the Musk-Trump Administration is that he has declared that he wants to take over Gaza, i.e., he wants the United States to take over Gaza. But certainly not for the purpose of advancing any notion of a Palestinian state, not to speak of a secular democratic state including both Israeli Jews and Palestinians, including those in the occupied territories.

Kelley Vlahos at the preeminent “restrainer” site Responsible Statecraft explains:

From his days as a scrappy 2016 candidate in the wake of the 9/11 "forever wars" Trump has been pretty adamant that the United States should not be in the business of "nation building" or putting our men and women in uniform in harm's way to solve other countries' problems. Until now, it seems.

In remarks that sent shock waves across the American political spectrum, left and right, Trump said wants the U.S. to empty the Gaza strip of its nearly two million inhabitants, and develop it like a property owner. In fact he said he wanted the U.S. to "own it" and did not rule out sending our troops to get the job done. (1)

She recalls the elements of the hope that Trump was some kind of dove on foreign policy:

Trump won in 2016 and in part in 2024 because he railed against the status quo military adventuring of the past 25 years and especially nation building. His efforts to withdraw from the Afghanistan War were born out of a conviction that the 20 years spent there trying to remake the society while fighting the Taliban was a sheer waste of American blood and treasure. The contradiction was not lost on shocked observers on Tuesday night [i.e., Trump’s declaration that the US would take over Gaza].

Trump’s decision to end the US direct participation in the Afghanistan War made practical sense. But he set a withdrawal schedule that meant in practice that the deadline fell during Joe Biden’s Presidency. And when Biden went through with the withdrawal, Trump and the Republicans attacked him for withdrawing. This is all consistent with the paleoconservative, “isolationist” foreign policy outlook that is fundamentally nationalist and militarist.

Francesca Fiorentini and Wajahat Ali, who are understandably moving to distance themselves from the newly Trump-friendly TYT (The Young Turks), report for Zeteo in the first ten minutes of this video: (2)

As always with Trump’s garbled pronouncements, it’s not entirely clear what he means by this new loony-tunes idea. But to the extent it can rendered coherent, what he has said certainly seems to mean that the US will use it own military forces to carry out ethnic cleansing in Gaza, i.e., removing all Palestinians residents. He also says the US will rebuild the Gaza strip and make it into something like a high-end real estate paradise.

Alon Pinkas, in a column in which he reminds us that the US President is "anarchy in human form," notes:

[A piece of ] prevalent conventional wisdom is that Trump is going to promise [Netanyahu] a normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia. Perhaps, but not anytime soon – certainly not after the president's suggestion that 1.5 million Palestinians be relocated to an adamantly reluctant Egypt and Jordan. (3)

Trump’s son-and-law and point man on the Middle East in his first Administration, Jared Kushner, telegraphed this move back in March 2024:

“Gaza’s waterfront property could be very valuable … if people would focus on building up livelihoods,” Kushner told his interviewer, the faculty chair of the Middle East Initiative, Prof Tarek Masoud. Kushner also lamented “all the money” that had gone into the territory’s tunnel network and munitions instead of education and innovation.

“It’s a little bit of an unfortunate situation there, but from Israel’s perspective I would do my best to move the people out and then clean it up,” Kushner said. “But I don’t think that Israel has stated that they don’t want the people to move back there afterwards.”

Masoud replied that there was “a lot to talk about there.”

Kushner … said he thinks Israel should move civilians from Gaza to the Negev desert in southern Israel.

He said that if he were in charge of Israel his number one priority would be getting civilians out of the southern city of Rafah, and that “with diplomacy” it could be possible to get them into Egypt.

“But in addition to that, I would just bulldoze something in the Negev, I would try to move people in there,” he said. “I think that’s a better option, so you can go in and finish the job.”

He reiterated the point a little later, saying: “I do think right now opening up the Negev, creating a secure area there, moving the civilians out, and then going in and finishing the job would be the right move.” …

Asked by Masoud about fears on the part of Arabs in the region that the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, would not allow Palestinians who flee Gaza to return, Kushner paused and then said: “Maybe.”

He went on to say: “I am not sure there is much left of Gaza at this point. If you think about even the construct, Gaza was not really a historical precedent [sic]. It was the result of a war. You had tribes in different places and then Gaza became a thing. Egypt used to run it and then over time different governments came in.” (4)

Now Trump has declared he intends to implement something like the same plan Kushner cold-bloodedly outlined back then.

Ben Samuels notes that this latest development looks like a gigantic concession to Netanyahu:

Rather than utilizing their very real authority over Netanyahu at a moment where every passing moment is crucial – practically every observer of the conflict deemed this the single most important visit for an Israeli prime minister to Washington in the country's history – Trump and his team instead offered deference while throwing cold water on the deal's likelihood for success.

This was first clear, prior even to Netanyahu's arrival at the White House, when Witkoff publicly castigated the Biden administration's formulation of the deal, the first time he has attacked his predecessors after nearly two months of praise for their unprecedented cooperation at securing the cease-fire.

"Part of the problem is that [the Israel-Hamas cease-fire] wasn't such a wonderful agreement that was first signed, that was not dictated by the Trump administration. We had nothing to do with it," [US Special Envoy Steve] Witkoff told reporters at the White House after noting talks on the cease-fire's second stage are currently underway.

After the Trump administration has painstakingly battled to credit Trump for the deal at every opportunity, the fact that they are now beginning to position blame on Biden is not a great omen for its viability. [my emphasis] (5)

Trump has also ramped up sanctions against Iran.

What could go wrong?

Well, maybe stuff like this, from Middle East Eye. (6)

Jordan is ready to declare war on Israel in the event that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attempts to forcibly expel Palestinians into its territory, Middle East Eye understands.

The warning comes in the wake of repeated statements from US President Donald Trump that he would like to see Jordan and Egypt take in Palestinians as part of a move to "clean out" the Gaza Strip.

Well-placed sources in Amman and Jerusalem told MEE that the last thing Jordan wants is war and it is eager for a peaceful solution. But they are adamant that the Jordanians will close the border if refugees begin to cross into the country.

If the Israelis seek to re-open it, that would be "a casus belli," one source said.

Notes:

(1) Vlahos, Kelley Beaucar (2025): Trump floors supporters with US 'own' and 'rebuild' Gaza plan. Responsible Statecraft 02/04/2025. <https://responsiblestatecraft.org/trump-gaza-own/> (Accessed: 2025-05-02).

(2) Trump Wants US to Run Gaza While Elon Musk Runs America. Zeteo YouTube channel 02/04/2025. <https://www.youtube.com/live/ae6P8aTbohk?si=mXIbti7XMT4nvYll> (Accessed: 2025-05-02).

(3) Pinkas, Alon (2025): What Could Happen When Unpredictable Trump Meets Arch manipulator Netanyahu? Haaretz 02/03/2025. <https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2025-02-03/ty-article/.premium/what-could-happen-when-unpredictable-trump-meets-arch-manipulator-netanyahu/00000194-cc74-d533-a3b6-cd7f79f80000?gift=f15faa5c0e974305b2677b1571dd4365> (Accessed: 2025-05-02).

(4) Wintour, Patrick (2024): Jared Kushner says Gaza’s ‘waterfront property could be very valuable’. The Guardian 03/19/2024. <https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/19/jared-kushner-gaza-waterfront-property-israel-negev> (Accessed: 2025-05-02).

(4) Wintour, Patrick (2024): Jared Kushner says Gaza’s ‘waterfront property could be very valuable’. The Guardian 03/19/2024. <https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/19/jared-kushner-gaza-waterfront-property-israel-negev> (Accessed: 2025-05-02).

(5) Samuels, Ben (2025): From Hostages to U.S. Takeover: Trump Moved the Gaza Goalposts and Gifted Netanyahu a Political Lifeline. Haaretz 02/05/2025. <https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2025-02-05/ty-article/.premium/trump-moved-the-gaza-goalposts-and-gave-netanyahu-a-political-lifeline/00000194-d3b7-df91-ab95-ffffc2580000?gift=4247d1adc61f41e5b8772e5f154dfe0f> (Accessed: 2025-05-02).