Who does he think he is?

Rick Morain

Of all the startling foreign adventures President Donald Trump has proposed in recent weeks, the American takeover of Gaza takes the prize as the most bizarre.

Who does he think he is?

More important, who do Americans think we are?
The idea is nonsensical, for several reasons.
American occupation of Gaza would not end conflict there; instead, we would have to enforce our takeover against Palestinians who for longer than a century have fought to maintain their homes and livelihoods, first against the British after World War One, then against Israel after World War Two.
Trump’s proposal calls for rebuilding Gaza, which Israel has essentially destroyed after the brutal Hamas attack on Israelis 17 months ago. Trump has delivered conflicting messages about where Gazans would live during and after the reconstruction, sometimes suggesting they could remain in place during the project, sometimes saying they would need to leave temporarily while rebuilding took place, and sometimes implying they would be relocated permanently to nearby Arab nations like Egypt and Jordan.

Last week Trump told reporters, “Nobody’s expelling any Palestinians.” But before that statement he had announced that Gazans would not return to their territory after the reconstruction. Given his tendency to change positions rapidly, there would have to be some way to guarantee that promise before all parties would agree to his plan.

Trump doesn’t seem to contemplate an effort like the Marshall Plan, through which the United States provided major economic assistance in 1948 to help rebuild 17 western and southern European countries after the devastation of World War Two.
While the United States, Great Britain, and France governed most of postwar Germany, the Allies always intended to restore democratic government to that nation and then turn it over to the German people. That took place in 1949, four years after the war ended.

Forced evacuation of civilian populations is a form of ethnic cleansing, something the United States has adamantly opposed for many years and which violates international law. There is absolutely no legal or moral justification for relocation of Palestinians to Egypt, Jordan or anywhere else.
If some Gazans must leave their homeland temporarily during a rebuilding period for sanitary or safety reasons, they should have the option to move a few miles to the West Bank, where their Palestinian countrymen live and with whom they would feel more comfortable.

But Israel would almost certainly not permit it. More Palestinians living in the West Bank would seriously complicate Israeli President Netanyahu’s open opposition to a two-state solution for the Holy Land.

Israeli hardliners make no secret of their desire to annex both the West Bank and Gaza. Israel continues to build Jewish settlements in the West Bank in violation of all international precedents; large numbers of Gazan Palestinians in the West Bank would get in the way of Netanyahu’s goal.
The entire Arab world, which Trump and son-in-law Jared Kushner have tried hard to woo, opposes the expulsion of Gaza residents. Arab nations firmly and openly advocate a two-state solution. There’s no way to square that Arab insistence with ethnic cleansing of Gaza.

President Trump in early February announced his intention for the United States to “own” Gaza, and to make it the “Riviera of the Middle East,” suggesting erection of posh resorts along the territory’s coastline. It’s suspicious for a real estate mogul to propose that, especially when he’s President of the United States.

No principle of law, morality, international policy, defense strategy, or any other rationale supports a takeover of Gaza by the United States. It’s up to Congressional Republicans to rein Trump in, something they—including Iowa’s delegation—have up to now been unwilling to do in any context.