BOTTOM LINE UP FRONT – As President Donald Trump doubles down on his idea of a U.S. takeover of Gaza, Arab governments are also doubling down on their objections and questions persist as to what the President really has in mind, and what it may mean for Gaza and the region.
Trump on Tuesday, said that the United States could potentially "take over" the Gaza Strip, telling reporters that he envisions the relocation of Palestinians and that the U.S. could take a "long-term ownership position" with the area being rebuilt as a "Riviera of the Middle East." There has been some confusion over whether U.S. troops would play a role.
On Thursday, the president wrote on Truth Social that “The Gaza Strip would be turned over to the United States by Israel at the conclusion of fighting,” saying that Palestinians “would have already been resettled in far safer and more beautiful communities, with new and modern homes, in the region” and adding that, "No soldiers by the U.S. would be needed!"
As many try to guess what an actual plan could look like and what the ramifications would be, those closest to the president on national security and policy-related issues suggest that he may be using shock as a negotiating tactic to force change in the region.
“He’s not seeing any realistic solutions on how those miles and miles and miles of debris [in Gaza] are going to be cleared,” National Security Advisor Mike Waltz told CBS News. “The fact that nobody has a realistic solution, and he puts some bold, fresh, new ideas on the table, I don’t think should be criticized in any way. I think it’s going to bring the entire region to come with their own solutions, if they don’t like Mr. Trump’s solutions.”
The Cipher Brief asked three experts with deep experience in the region to help assess whether the president's proposal was misguided and dangerous - or whether his fiery comments were just a negotiating tactic and necessary catalyst for new thinking on a problem that has vexed policymakers for decades. Our interviews have been lightly edited for length and clarity.
THE CONTEXT
- Palestinian refugees from the first Arab-Israeli war in 1948 were most heavily concentrated in the Gaza Strip. Israel seized Gaza in the 1967 Six-Day War. Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip in August–September 2005, ending 38 years of occupation. Israel still maintains control of Gaza’s borders, airspace and coastline.
- In the 2006 Palestinian legislative elections, Hamas won a majority, defeating the long-dominant Fatah party. The election led to a political split, with Hamas taking control of Gaza and Fatah governing the West Bank.
- Since the Israeli withdrawal, several major conflicts between Israel and Gaza-based groups have occurred - most recent and most violent following the Hamas attack against Israel on October 7, 2023.
- Israeli officials have said consistently that they cannot accept a Hamas-run Gaza. Hamas has been battered in the current war, but it is still present in the territory.
- Former President Joe Biden proposed having “a revitalized Palestinian Authority [PA]” govern Gaza and the Palestinian West Bank. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the “PA in its current form is not capable” of running Gaza.
- The U.N. estimates that the clearing of over 50 million tons of rubble in Gaza could take 21 years and cost up to $1.2 billion. Broader reconstruction estimates range between $50-80 billion.
- On Tuesday, President Donald Trump proposed the U.S. take “long-term ownership” of Gaza to rebuild and redevelop the territory and suggested that Palestinians living there would be resettled elsewhere.
- Key regional players who would be a part of a Gaza resettlement and/or rebuilding program criticized Trump's statements. Saudi Arabia said it “unequivocally rejected” the forced displacement of Palestinians from Gaza and reiterated its “firm, steadfast and unwavering position” in favor of an independent Palestinian state. Jordan’s King Abdullah rejected any displacement of Palestinians or attempts by Israel to annex land. Egypt was sharply critical of the notion as well.
THE EXPERTS
The value - and risk - of 'out-of-the-box' thinking
Ross: Is it something that I would've proposed? No. But having said that, there are times when everyone is talking at such a level of generality that it's completely divorced from what you're going to do to make sure that the reality changes. He puts something out there. OK, it's not something that the Arabs can do because they will fear a backlash against them, against their regimes if it looks like they're walking away from the Palestinians and the Palestinians having a homeland.
What’s interesting with the Trump call for relocation is it takes on the conventional wisdom about this conflict, which is that you can't talk about things like relocation, and it puts Arabs in a position where they can't look like they're betraying the Palestinian national cause, which relocation seems to call into question. It seems to raise the issue - are Palestinians supposed to move someplace else and give up their hold on what is part of their historic homeland?
But that's not, I think, what has driven President Trump in making the proposal. His whole experience is in real estate and building, and that's the same for his negotiator, Steve Witkoff. Witkoff was in Gaza, flew over it, was at the Netzarim Corridor, and what he saw is the reality of an area that is completely devastated, and the question I think that he and President Trump have is, given the scope of the devastation, how do you contend with that if it's at the same time, heavily populated?
We've also seen with President Trump, that he doesn't mind upsetting the apple cart. He doesn't mind coming with, how should we say it, a very strong demand.
Hoffman: I think it's fantastical, for all the reasons that many people have said. But I'm willing to suspend disbelief or be optimistic that this could conceivably set in motion a chain of events in a non-linear way, that goes in a different direction or takes a different fork in the road. And that could further on stimulate the kind of thinking and discussion that does produce a much more workable and conceivable plan. This, I think, is the president's attempt to think outside of the box, to push the envelope and to provoke other people into coming up with their own plans that probably might be more realistic, and better than his.
What struck me really is that for months now, the Israeli Minister for Strategic Affairs, Ron Dermer, probably Prime Minister Netanyahu's closest confidant, has been arguing – quite cogently, I think – that there were three steps needed in Gaza: demilitarization, which you could argue has largely been accomplished, but is still incomplete; he then said that Gaza had to be deradicalized; and once those two steps were accomplished, then it could be developed. So listening to the president, I thought we jumped to the third step and left out the middle one, and the first one also, which is only partially completed.
Everyone wants to develop Gaza and to reverse the unmitigated damage and destruction that we've seen over the past 16 months. But to do so, I think everyone agrees there has to be security. And in the 21st century, depopulating 140 square miles with two million people, it’s just not going to happen. Conceivably, there are people that might be persuaded to relocate elsewhere, but given the Palestinians' fraught history, I don't think it's likely that it would be a majority of them. And at the point of whose guns or whose bayonets is Gaza going to be depopulated?
The United States can act independently [in Gaza], but that would of course, be like waving a red flag to radicals, if this was just a U.S.-imposed plan. The only thing that will work in the Middle East is the consent, firstly, of the Palestinian people themselves about their future, but also the consent of our most important friends and allies and the most powerful regional states who have an influence and have a stake in what's happening. And that's what's missing right now.
Amb. Grappo: If his plan is to throw the chess pieces up in the air and see where they land, he will find himself checkmated and we will find ourselves, the United States, checkmated. This is a conflict that's been going on arguably for over 100 years since the end of World War I, without resolution. The notion that somehow the United States might come in as a real estate developer and a peacemaker is fanciful.
Trump spoke about this plan of his in terms he's probably familiar with — a real estate deal. Gaza is not a real estate deal. This is not a bottom-line issue. We're talking about people who feel very firmly about their homeland. It resurrects very strong feelings that all Palestinians have about what they refer to as the Nakba, the expulsion of Palestinians from their homes in greater Palestine, today Israel. I don't think they're going to accept that. Certainly not the Gazans, but nor the Palestinians who live in the West Bank, nor the many Palestinians who reside in neighboring Jordan.
The intersection of technology, defense, space and intelligence is critical to future U.S. national security. Join The Cipher Brief on June 5th and 6th in Austin, Texas for the NatSecEDGE conference. Find out how to get an invitation to this invite-only event at natsecedge.com
A new "status quo" in the Middle East
Ross: [Trump] is certainly hearing from the Egyptians, Jordanians, the Saudis, the Emiratis, the Qataris, that this is not something that they can accept, because it goes too much against the narrative in the region. But his approach to them should be, 'OK, if you don't like what I've offered, come with something that's realistic. Come with an approach on reconstruction. Come up with a common approach, and even lay out a division of labor among them who will do what, and how that will contribute to what comes next in Gaza. Here's what we're prepared to do in terms of helping set up a transitional administration for Gaza without Hamas, because we understand there's no reconstruction if Hamas is still in control. Here's what we're prepared to do in terms of resuming commercial activity there. Here's what we're prepared to do in terms of rehabilitating some of the infrastructure.'
And to be fair to them, they can say to President Trump, "Here are the things you could do to make it easier for us to take those steps."
Now, you're talking about an important dialogue that actually offers to change the reality and isn't just an exchange of platitudes back and forth.
Amb Grappo: There has already been significant pushback from throughout the Middle East, everywhere from the Arab street to Arab leaders – statements that have been made by Saudi Arabia, a document signed by five Arab foreign ministers, including those of Jordan, Egypt, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia, and the UAE, steadfastly opposing the removal of Gazans from Gaza. So if Mr. Trump intends to rebuild the Gaza Strip into some Middle East "Riviera," where is he going to get the finances for that?
The one real leverage that he has is that both [Egypt and Jordan] receive substantial aid from the United States. But there is no question about where the Egyptian people and the Jordanian people stand on this issue. They won't accept it. They simply will not accept it.
Something that needs to be taken into account is that in the case of Jordan, we already have a country that has this ethnic fault line. Between 70 and 80% of the population of Jordan is already Palestinian, either those who settled there after 1948 or their descendants, and those who left their homes in the West Bank in 1967. You have a very large population, which has always been restive and problematic for King Hussein, King Abdullah's father, and now for King Abdullah. The last thing he wants to do is to add gasoline to that very difficult ethnic situation that he must constantly be aware of and address. And in the case of Egypt, they have their economic challenges too, and compounding that with the presence of large numbers of resettled Palestinians who are going to be looking for work, who need to make claims on resources that Egypt does not have to help get them settled. So neither of these countries is in a position, whether real, political or economic, to accept these people.
Everyone needs a good nightcap. Ours happens to come in the form of a M-F newsletter that provides the best way to unwind while staying up to speed on national security. (And this Nightcap promises no hangover or weight gain.) Sign up today.
The Saudi factor
Ross: If Trump wants to have Saudi normalization with Israel, he will have to be clear that he will not allow the Israelis to go ahead and annex the West Bank. If he does that, there'll be no Saudi normalization with Israel. Recall in 2020, what was the formula that the Emirates - who were the key to getting the Abraham Accords - what was their formula? You get normalization, but you don't get annexation. If you want annexation, you'll have no normalization. The Saudis are not going to offer less than that or want less than that. That's the baseline for them.
So given what the President wants to do, and because his real strategic objective is Saudi normalization with Israel, the steps he takes now can affect that, and there will be things he will have to require of Bibi [Netanyahu], and what he requires of Bibi is, don't take steps on the ground to preclude the Palestinian state.
Amb. Grappo: I think the president has severely tested that relationship here, because he's asking the crown prince Mohammed bin Salman to move in a direction that is opposed by virtually every Saudi in the kingdom, who stand firmly behind the Palestinian people, and at this particular time, behind the people of Gaza. And I don't think Mohammed bin Salman would cross the Saudi people absent a truly dramatic change or shift in the president's position and in the conditions in Gaza. At the present moment, he has seemed to double down on his position that there will be no normalization agreement absent an actual Palestinian state.
Hoffman: If there is going to be this future vision for Gaza, it can only be undertaken in concert with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Jordan, and Turkey as well. And these are all close friends and allies of the United States.
Saudi recognition is the prize that Israel is prepared to make a variety of concessions for, because it is so important. In the president's style, it was probably to provoke deeper thinking on this issue, perhaps going back years ago to when the Abraham Accords were also viewed as something that was pie in the sky, that could never be realized. On the eve of October 7th, it seemed that it was in reach, that Saudi Arabia might join them. That all seemed like a Herculean task, an impossible task years ago, but the Abraham Accords have held — none of those countries have defected or diverted from it. Despite the horrific events of the past 16 months, it's remained intact. So, I think Saudi Arabia remains absolutely a key player. They are enormously important and what they have to say is listened to in Washington. But again, given this president, I think he is planting the seed. He is making the statement that there's a new status quo, and that we have to now divine how to achieve that and in a way that allows the Palestinians to live in dignity, that respects their rights, but also guarantees Israel its security.
Read more expert-driven national security insights, perspective and analysis in The Cipher Brief
