How Trump's Gaza Plan Does And Doesn't Fit In With His Pledge To Put America First

(MENAFN- The Conversation) Donald trump welcomed the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to the White House on February 4 as the first foreign leader to visit Washington since his reelection as US president. At their post-meeting press conference, an unscripted Trump launched into his vision for a post-conflict Gaza.

In just a few sentences, he expunged any remaining Palestinian hopes for a two-state solution in Israel. Trump suggested flattening what remains of the Palestinian settlement after 15 months of total war and forcing nearly 2 million people out of Gaza to make way for a US-controlled“Riviera of the Middle East”.

As ever, the president was light on detail. But his outwardly reasonable suggestion for the fate of the Palestinian people was chilling :“You build really good quality housing, like a beautiful town, like some place where they can live and not die, because Gaza is a guarantee that they're going to end up dying,” he told reporters.

The secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has since clarified that the proposal to resettle Gaza's population would only be temporary, while debris was cleared and reconstruction took place. And the White House spokeswoman, Karoline Leavitt, has now reinforced this point.

Trump re-entered the White House intent on driving an“America First” policy, both in economic terms and as the central platform of all foreign engagement. This, as Trump outlined in a speech in 2016, essentially means putting the“interests of the American people and American security above all else”.

Much of the Gaza Strip has been reduced to rubble after 15 months of war. Haitham Imad / EPA

While already claiming responsibility for the recent Gaza ceasefire, which has seen the exchange of a number of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners, he used Netanyahu's visit as a means to up the ante of bringing peace to the Middle East.

It's here that“Trumperialism” comes to the fore. He sees Gaza not as a problem of war and people displacement, but as an opportunity for American business to build wealth – the classic US economic hegemony of the populist America First political theory.

Trump's vision for Gaza is much more akin to the post-2011 rebuilding of Iraq than, say, the European economic recovery after the second world war. There's no sign of any Marshall Plan for Gaza and, while US private funding may flood in to build beachfront condos and gated playgrounds for the wealthy, it seems Trump expects Israel's neighbours to pay for the exodus of the Palestinian people and their settlement on foreign soil.

“They say they're not going to accept,” Trump reportedly said of Egypt and Jordan's opposition to relocating Palestinians during a meeting with Netanyahu in the Oval Office.“I say they will.” Trump has spent the past two weeks urging Jordan and Egypt to take hundreds of thousands more Palestinian refugees each as part of his vision to “clean out Gaza” .

As ever, there is no nuance in Trump's thinking. It is purely transactional: the US benefits and Trump himself – as the peacemaker – benefits most. So, in this sense, his vision for Gaza can certainly be seen as putting America First. But Trump's Gaza proposal will chill many Americans, much as it has drawn scorn and disbelief from around the world .

Netanyahu has called Trump's proposal to relocate Palestinians from Gaza a Shawn Thew / Pool / EPA

Foreign relations rarely raise a ripple among the domestic US audience and, on the surface, the strengthening of the US-Israel special relationship will be cheered by many who voted for Trump. This is, not least, because of the strong Judeo-Christian links that unite the pioneer cultures of Israel and the US heartland.

However, in his White House news conference, Trump implied that he's willing to put American boots on the ground to secure Gaza.“We'll do what is necessary. If it's necessary, we'll do that,” he responded when pressed on the issue. Members of Trump's cabinet have since backed away from the suggestion, but the prospect of US troops being sent to Gaza is not exactly delivering on the isolationist tendency many US voters cast their ballot for.

Trump does not like war. He is equivocal in his support for Ukraine, and has repeatedly threatened to withdraw the US from Nato . He believes that every problem can be solved by making a deal. But delivering Mar-a-Lago on the Med may mean thousands of American combat troops deployed to Gaza for years at daily risk of death. How do main-street Americans benefit from that?

Sowing chaos

At this stage, Trump's proposal isn't any kind of fully fledged plan. But his pronouncements still sow chaos. Already there's massive fear among the Palestinian people. It's clear that Trump sides firmly with the state of Israel and has no time for the Palestinian cause. That could well embolden what remains of Hamas, never mind the group's allies in Lebanon, Syria and Iran, to stage attacks on Israel.

It is already emboldening far-right nationalists in Netanyahu's government to call for the Israeli military to finish the extermination of Hamas. Itamar Ben Gvir, who was until recently a member of Netanyahu's cabinet, said in a post on X that“encouraging” Gazans to migrate was the only correct strategy to end the war in Gaza. If fundamentalists such as Ben Gvir gain the upper hand again, the fragile peace in Gaza will disappear.

Trump envisaged palm trees and golf courses for a US-controlled, Israeli-enabled Gaza in his remarks. He just didn't envisage more than a few Palestinians being there. Such a crude imposition of US economic and military hegemony won't bring peace and is far more likely to plunge Gaza – and potentially the wider region – back into the terrors of war.

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