President Trump said Tuesday that the United States should take over Gaza and forcibly relocate two million Palestinians to other countries, describing his plan as a humanitarian effort to provide a “beautiful” new home for people displaced by a devastating war.
The proposal, delivered during a news conference at the White House with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, upended decades of American foreign policy in the Middle East even as negotiations for the second phase of cease-fire between Israel and Hamas were continuing.
Here are five takeaways:
Trump discarded decades of U.S. diplomacy.
By proposing that the United States take over Gaza, Mr. Trump injected his administration directly into one of the most sensitive flash points in the Middle East. For years, under presidents of both major parties, the United States has backed the idea of a “two-state solution” in which Palestinians and Israelis would live side-by-side in peace.
In a day, Mr. Trump abandoned that notion, replacing it with a completely different idea.
“Everybody I’ve spoken to loves the idea of the United States owning that piece of land,” he told reporters. “Developing and creating thousands of jobs with something that will be magnificent.”
In fact, the leaders of Egypt and Jordan had already rejected the idea of taking in Palestinians. And on Tuesday, representatives of Hamas called the idea of relocating close to two million people “a recipe for creating chaos and tension in the region.”
Mr. Trump did not cite any legal authority giving him the right to take over the territory, nor did he address the fact that forcible removal of a population violates international law.
His remarks came at a point of extreme sensitivity.
Mr. Trump’s proposal came in the middle of precarious negotiations to establish a permanent cease-fire between Israel and Hamas that could end the fighting and lead to the release of the hostages still being held in Gaza.
It was unclear on Tuesday what effect the president’s comments might have on those talks. Mr. Netanyahu agreed on Monday to send a team to Doha, Qatar, where representatives of Israel and Hamas had begun discussions.
Hamas leadership has insisted that they will remain in control of Gaza after the war ends, extending their dominance in the enclave. Aides to Mr. Trump said Tuesday morning that the United States would not tolerate Hamas remaining in power.
But the president’s proposal for a U.S. takeover of Gaza went even further than his aides had suggested earlier in the day.
Logistical questions went unaddressed.
Mr. Trump left unexplained how a U.S. takeover of Gaza would be enacted, whether the use of force would be required and how two million people would be moved to other countries against their will, and who would finance and build the gleaming and modern “Riviera” he envisioned.
Mr. Trump repeatedly said on Tuesday that the leaders of Egypt and Jordan would accept the Palestinians despite their saying that they would not.
“They say they’re not going to accept,” Mr. Trump said. “I say they will.”
He conceded that American troops might be necessary — or might not — but did not answer questions about opposition that might come from both Palestinians and Israelis about a foreign power taking over the land.
Mr. Trump suggested that other countries would pay for the reconstruction of a place he described as “a hellhole.” But he also said he envisioned “a long-term ownership position,” without explaining what parts of the area would be owned by the United States or how that would be legal.
The idea echoes his other expansionist aspirations.
Mr. Trump’s proposal was in step with his embrace of imperialism since beginning his second term.
Since Jan. 20, he has proposed taking over Greenland, a semiautonomous part of Denmark. He has threatened to use military and economic force to return control of the Panama Canal to the United States. He has repeatedly said that Canada should be made America’s 51st state and has threatened economic consequences if that doesn’t happen.
There has already been strenuous opposition to each of those ideas, and the proposal to take over Gaza seemed certain to generate even more controversy.
On Tuesday, Mr. Trump insisted that Palestinians would embrace his idea because of the bombing that leveled their homes during the war between Hamas and Israel. “The only reason the Palestinians want to go back to Gaza is they have no alternative,” he said.
The remarks startled observers, and they were intended to.
The proposal to take over Gaza was another example of the “shock and awe” approach to governing that Mr. Trump has taken since his return to office.
In the first two weeks of his presidency, he has sought to destabilize, defund or eliminate some of the biggest institutions in the country.
Aides said it was part of a strategy to go big in his effort to dramatically reshape the country. The Gaza proposal appeared to be a continuation of that effort to disrupt the status quo.
Mr. Netanyahu, who stood beside Mr. Trump during Tuesday’s news conference, appeared to agree. “You cut to the chase,” Mr. Netanyahu told Mr. Trump. “You see things others refuse to see.”
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