What Exactly Did Trump Say?
What Exactly Did Trump Say?To quote https://www.voanews.com/a/trump-says-u-s-will-take-ownership-of-gaza/7963488.html
Trump says U.S. will take ownership of Gaza
WASHINGTON —
U.S. President Donald Trump said he wants the United States to take ownership of Gaza, moving beyond his earlier statements of forcing Palestinians in the war-torn enclave to relocate to neighboring Jordan and Egypt.
“The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip, and we will do a job with it, too,” he said during a joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House Tuesday evening.
In recent days hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in the southern parts of Gaza have marched north toward their homes after Israel allowed people to return as part of the ceasefire for a hostage release deal with Hamas.
Trump said he wants to develop the area into what he calls “the Riviera of the Middle East.”
“Everybody I’ve spoken to loves the idea of the United States owning that piece of land, developing and creating thousands of jobs with something that will be magnificent, in a really magnificent area,” he said.
Netanyahu said one of his war goals is to ensure that Hamas never poses a threat to Israel again. But Trump, Netanyahu said, is “taking it to a much higher level.”
“I think it’s something that could change history, and it’s worthwhile really pursuing this avenue,” he added.
Trump did not share details on how he plans to exert control over the area ravaged by 15 months of war, but he did not rule out sending U.S. troops.
“If it’s necessary, we’ll do that. We’re going to take over that piece, and we’re going to develop it,” he said.
Trump’s comments mark a remarkable shift from his criticism of America’s involvement in Middle East conflicts. He sees a “long-term ownership position,” for the U.S. that would bring “great stability to that part of the Middle East, and maybe the entire Middle East.”
“This was not a decision made lightly,” he said.
However, any discussion of relocation will certainly be met with resistance from Palestinians. Hundreds of thousands were driven from their homes in what is now called Israel: in the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation and during Israel’s 1967 seizure of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
There are currently 2.1 million people in Gaza, according to the United Nations.
The Palestinian Authority and Arab League countries including Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia earlier this month rejected Trump’s plans to relocate Palestinians. They warned that such plans “threaten the region’s stability, risk expanding the conflict, and undermine prospects for peace and coexistence among its peoples.”
It’s unclear how occupying Gaza would fit into Trump’s own stated goal of expanding the Abraham Accords to include Riyadh. He brokered the deal that normalized ties between Israel and Arab countries in 2020.
Saudi Arabia quickly reacted to Trump’s Gaza comments by saying it will not establish diplomatic relations with Israel without the creation of a Palestinian state, and that its position is nonnegotiable.
“The kingdom of Saudi Arabia also stresses what it had previously announced regarding its absolute rejection of infringement on the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people, whether through Israeli settlement policies, annexation of Palestinian lands or efforts to displace the Palestinian people from their land,” the Saudi Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
Trump’s statement on Gaza is his latest signaling of expansionist ambitions, following his statements to acquire Greenland from Denmark, taking over the Panama Canal, and absorbing Canada.
Ceasefire renegotiation
Speaking to reporters at the White House earlier Tuesday, U.S. Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff said the administration has begun negotiations toward Phase 2 of the three-phase ceasefire-for-hostage-release deal, which includes the release of all remaining hostages held in Gaza, a permanent halt in fighting and Israel’s withdrawal from the territory.
Hamas, a U.S.-designated terror group, has released 18 hostages so far, while Israel has freed hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.
Witkoff suggested that the administration is considering renegotiating parts of the agreement that took effect on Jan. 19, the day before Trump was inaugurated.
“Part of the problem is that it wasn’t such a wonderful agreement that was first signed. That was not dictated by the Trump administration. We had nothing to do with it,” he said. “Now we’re working within that rubric, and we’re figuring things out.”
He doubled down on Trump’s suggestion to remove Gazans, saying that the five-year reconstruction plan for Gaza as outlined in phase three is “physically impossible.”
Trump’s insistence on relocating Gazans could signal a desire to renegotiate the ceasefire deal, particularly the second phase, said Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council.
“The goal might be to force Hamas into choosing between relinquishing control of Gaza or leaving the Strip if it wants an Israeli withdrawal or reconstruction, or risk the entirety of the population facing forcible removal, though how that would be carried out is unknown,” he told VOA.
Also Tuesday, Trump ended support for the UN agency that helps Palestinian refugees and withdrew the U.S. from what he calls the antisemitic UN Human Rights Council.
Iran nuclear
Shortly before his meeting with Netanyahu, Trump directed his aides to restore his “maximum pressure” campaign on Iran to prevent it from getting a nuclear weapon and to drive down its oil exports to zero.
“I’m unhappy to do it, but I really have not so much choice, because we have to be strong and firm, and I hope that it’s not going to have to be used in any great measure at all,” he said. “It’s very simple. Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon.”
As of September 2024, U.S. intelligence concluded in a report that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon. However, Iran has “undertaken activities that better position it to produce one, if it so chooses,” the report said.
In November, the Justice Department under the Biden administration announced that an Iranian plot to kill Trump before the presidential election had been thwarted. Trump said he has directed his aides to “obliterate” Tehran if the Iranian regime moves to assassinate him.
“If they did that they would be obliterated,” Trump said. “I’ve left instructions if they do it, they get obliterated, there won’t be anything left.”
Pressure on Netanyahu
Trump’s meeting with Netanyahu comes as the Israeli leader faces pressure from his right-wing coalition to end the ceasefire.
Both Trump and Netanyahu share the goal of ending Hamas’ rule in Gaza and return the remaining Israeli hostages, said Jonathan Rynhold, head of the Department of Political Studies at Bar Ilan University. However, the two men place different priorities on different aspects of the goal.
For Netanyahu, the priority is to ensure Hamas has no political future, Rynhold told VOA, while for Trump it’s to maintain the ceasefire “so that he can move to an Israeli-Saudi Arabian normalization agreement.”
U.S. administrations under Presidents George W. Bush to Joe Biden have stated their support for Palestinian statehood under the two-state solution. In 2020 during his first term, Trump announced his Middle East peace plan that would deny Palestinians having their own state.
Trump was non-committal when asked Tuesday whether he supports the two-state solution. His plan on Gaza “doesn’t mean anything about a two-state or one-state or any other state,” he said.
The war in Gaza began with the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack that killed 1,200 people in Israel and took about 250 people hostage. Israel’s counteroffensive has killed more than 47,500 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children. Israel’s military says the death toll includes 17,000 Hamas militants.
The “Theoretical” Good Parts of the Trump Plan
- It might make it easier to transfer away from Gaza, people with very hostile ideologies towards Jews in general and the state of Israel in particular to distant areas.
- It might deter Egypt from immediately attacking Israel. Egypt is currently breaking the Camp David Peace Treaty by illegally bringing in troops and tanks into Sinai and illegally arming Hamas. Ultimately a war with Egypt might be unavoidable (unless we can somehow buy back Sinai from Egypt) because the last 2 chapters of the book of Yechezkel (Ezekiel) say Sinai will be part of the future borders of Israel. However, from a military standpoint it might be better to first finish off the threats on other borders of Israel, than having to fight one more powerful enemy at the same time.
- It might provide an incentive for some American Jews who do not want to be under the official government of Bibi Netanyahu and Israel’s unofficial government, namely the judicial activists dictators of the Supreme Court, to move to Gaza (which is part of Biblical Israel). Since Jews are really obligated to live in the land of Israel this is a good outcome.
- It might weaken Iran’s ability to attack Israel.
The Bad Parts
- Gaza is part of the Biblical land of Israel see: Rabbi Moshe Kaplan of Machon Meir: Gaza is Eretz Yisrael. Hashem does not give permission to the Jewish people to give away parts of the holy land even to Gentiles that inhabit the U.S.A..
- Many Religious Zionists were killed or maimed in the current war against Gaza with the expectation that this would somehow bring about the restoration of Jewish control of Gaza that was uprooted under the so-called “friendly” U.S.A. administration of George Bush. Trump’s plan is a further morale killer on top of Netanyahu & Trump’s hostage for terrorists deal which based on past deals will, heaven forbid, kill an average of 13 Israelis for each hostage saved. See https://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/opinions/our-ministers-are-sending-380-israelis-to-their-deaths/2025/01/16/
- Many Americans believe in idolatry. One of the commandments of the Torah is not to make covenants with idol worshipers or idolatry.
- President Ronald Reagan was also a tough guy, who wanted to “Make America Great Again”. At the end of Israel’s first Lebanon war, Reagan sent U.S.A. troops into Lebanon to keep the peace. Several bomb attacks quickly drove the U.S.A. out of Lebanon. Here’s a quote from a Wikipedia article about this:
On October 23, 1983, two truck bombs were detonated at buildings in Beirut, Lebanon, housing American and French service members of the Multinational Force in Lebanon (MNF), a military peacekeeping operation during the Lebanese Civil War. The attack killed 307 people: 241 U.S. and 58 French military personnel, six civilians, and two attackers.
On February 7, 1984, President Reagan ordered the Marines to begin withdrawing from Lebanon largely because of waning congressional support for the mission after the attacks on the barracks. The withdrawal of the 22d MAU from the BIA was completed 12:37 PM on February 26, 1984.”Fighting between the Lebanese Army and Druze militia in the nearby Shouf mountains provided a noisy backdrop to the Marine evacuation. One officer commented: ‘This ceasefire is getting louder.'”
I do not expect Trump to be tougher than Reagan. And if he personally is “tougher”, the average American is less patriotic today in comparison to Reagan’s time.
- When the U.S.A. gets bogged down in the quagmire of Gaza, Jews and Israel in general will be given the blame.
- Even in the best case scenario where the U.S.A. actually improves the situation in Gaza, the improvements will last only as long as a Pro-Israel President rules the U.S.A.; it is a very real possibility that in the not so distant future an Anti-Israel President will come to power and if that President has the ability, he (or she) will hand over any Gaza territory that America controls to Muslim terrorists or to Yasir Arafat terrorists.
- The Trump plan assumes a certain amount of Denazification is possible under today’s conditions. It is not! See the post: A Few Days After the Attack on the World Trade Center – Moshe Feiglin Already Predicted the U.S.A. Would Lose the War. His Analysis Also Has Implications for the Efforts to “De-Nazifi” Gaza
- The Trump plan increases the likelihood of a peace agreement with the Saudis, which we believe is a bad idea. See the post: A Peace Agreement Between Saudia Arabia & the Netanyahu Government? Rabbi Yisrael Ariel Explains Why We Should Say No!
- According to Yeshiva World News
New data from the IDF reveals that one in four Palestinian terrorists released under the November 2023 Israel-Hamas ceasefire has since been re-arrested or killed.
According to IDF Central Command statistics shared with Channel 13 News, 33 released terrorists have been detained again by Israeli security forces, while four were eliminated while carrying out new attacks. The alarming figures reinforce growing concerns that the mass prisoner releases—a key component of the 2023 ceasefire agreement—have strengthened terrorist organizations and fueled further violence.
Beyond the 25% who have already been re-arrested or neutralized, the Shin Bet reported earlier this week that at least 82% of the freed terrorists have returned to terrorist activity.
If Trump has been so reckless with Israel’s security on the hostage for terrorists deals, how can he be trusted on other more complicated security issues?