As Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu continued his three-day state visit to Washington, the announcement by US president Donald Trump that the United States would relocate Palestinians, redevelop and “own” the Gaza Strip has provoked a uniformly negative international response, ranging from condemnation to bewildered dismissal.
Mr Trump’s plan, formalised during public remarks at Tuesday evening’s engagement with Mr Netanyahu in the East Room of the White House, envisages the removal of the Palestinian population of an estimated 2.1 million people to neighbouring countries so that Gaza can be razed and reimagined, in the president’s words, as “the Riviera of the Middle East”.
The announcement was rejected by Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, who stressed that Gaza is “an integral part of the state of Palestine”.
Contrary to Mr Trump’s suggestion that Middle East leaders had liked the idea when he had raised it in private conversation, the official response in the region stands in vehement opposition. The Jordanian royal court stated that King Abdullah II “stresses the need to put a stop to settlement expansion, expressing rejection of any attempts to annex land and displace the Palestinians”.
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A chorus of responses from European Union leaders emphasised the need to persist with a path towards a two-state solution, with German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock warning that any displacement of the Palestinian people would be “unacceptable and in breach of international law”.
Responding to the suggestion on Wednesday, Republican House speaker Mike Johnson offered cautious support in describing Mr Trump’s solution as “a bold plan”.
“We await further details on what exactly that looks like. This is a bold decisive move and I think you have to do something to eradicate the threat to Israel. Here’s the problem: if you leave Gaza in its current form, there is always a risk of another October 7th. There is always a risk of proxies of Iran, all these terrorist organisations, whose openly stated goal is to eliminate Israel as a state. So, it just makes sense to make the neighbourhood there safer. I think that’s logical.”
At Wednesday’s White House briefing, press secretary Karoline Leavitt reinforced Mr Trump’s suggestion that Middle East leaders would come around to his vision.
“He has been thinking about this. He said in his remarks that this was not an announcement he takes lightly. And the president has already spoken to President el-Sisi [of Egypt]. He is meeting King Abdullah next week. He has spoken with the king of Bahrain, with the crown prince of Saudi Arabia and he has made it very clear that he expects our partners in the region, particularly Egypt and Jordan, to accept Palestinian refugees temporarily so that we can rebuild their home.”
However, in his Tuesday evening remarks, Mr Trump presented a scenario in which the Palestinian people would be resettled elsewhere in the region.
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His remarks clearly stunned congressional members from both parties and however unrealistic the proposal, it raised the immediate spectre of a new engagement in the Middle East for US troops which several Republican politicians noted would not be a popular development.
“The president has not committed to putting boots on the ground in Gaza. He has also said that the United States is not going to pay for the rebuilding of Gaza,” said Ms Leavitt while fielding questions on how the plan could work.
The Democratic Party offered a muted collective response to the announcement, despite international consternation. Instead, prominent party figureheads, including Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer, spent Wednesday engaged in a street protest against the Elon Musk-headed department of government efficiency’s decision to close the mammoth USAID programme.
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