I was born in Poonch (Kashmir) and now I live in Norway. I oppose war and violence and am a firm believer in the peaceful co-existence of all nations and peoples. In my academic work I have tried to espouse the cause of the weak and the oppressed in a world dominated by power politics, misleading propaganda and violations of basic human rights. I also believe that all conscious members of society have a moral duty to stand for and further the cause of peace and human rights throughout the world.
What one can say with certainty about the Zionist rulers of Israel is
that they have followed a systematic and consistent policy that was
aimed at ethnically cleansing and marginalizing the Palestinians. That
was their way of establishing a colonial power in the Middle East that
would expand its power and influence to other parts of the world. Their
biggest prize was to control the political establishment of the United
States. Other Western powers bowed to them and dutifully followed their
lead.
Have they failed or succeeded in their goals? If the success of a
policy is to be judged by what it achieved, then the Zionist rulers of
Israel have succeeded superbly well. No Zionist ruler of Israel has
deviated from the original goals. Internal political struggles between
the parties have been only for gaining power; otherwise, they all have
followed the same course of gradual colonization, expansion, and
consolidation of their power.
Israel’s savage destruction of Gaza and the mass killings of
Palestinians for over 15 months has shocked most people around the
world. Although this war was and is utterly gruesomer than the earlier
ones, it was not an exception either; it was a continuation of the old
Zionist plan of taking over what was still in the hands of a captive
population. This time, the Washington ruling establishment and Congress
gave full support as a co-sponsor of the Israeli war on Gaza.
Israeli officials have admitted to The New York Times that Hamas’s claims about Israel violating the Gaza ceasefire are accurate.
The report, which cited three Israeli officials and two officials
from mediating countries who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said
that Israel agreed to let in hundreds of thousands of tents as part of
the ceasefire deal, which hasn’t happened.
Palestinians
walk past the rubble of buildings destroyed during the Israeli
offensive on a rainy day amid a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in
Gaza City on February 6, 2025. REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas/File Photo
Besides the blocking of promised aid, Israeli forces have also
continued to kill Palestinians in Gaza. The Health Ministry said on
Tuesday that since the ceasefire went into effect on January 19, Israeli
forces have killed 92 Palestinians in Gaza and wounded 822.
Dr. Munir al-Barash, the director of the Health Ministry, also said
that since January 19, 24 Palestinians have died of previously sustained
wounds, meaning the total number of Palestinians that have died in Gaza
due to Israeli aggression is at least 118. He said in the same time
period, 641 bodies have been recovered from the rubble, and 197 remain
unidentified.
Hamas had stayed relatively quiet about the Israeli ceasefire
violations until after repeated calls by President Trump for all of the
Palestinians in Gaza, which he says is about 1.9 million people (pre-war
population was about 2.3 million), to be removed from the territory permanently as part of his plan for the US to take it over.
Egypt
has called an emergency Arab summit in response to Trump's repeated
calls for the permanent displacement of Gaza's Palestinians
In an interview that aired Monday, President Trump explicitly said Palestinians would not have the right to return to Gaza under his plan for the US to “take over” the territory.
When asked by Fox News host Brett Baier if the Palestinians would
have the right to return to Gaza, Trump said, “No, they wouldn’t because
they’re going to have much better housing. In other words, I’m talking
about building a permanent place for them.”
The interview was taped on Saturday, and Trump made similar comments the following day
while aboard Air Force One. “It’s a big mistake to allow the
Palestinians or the people to be living in Gaza to go back yet another
time,” he said on Sunday.
Palestinians,
who were displaced to the south, make their way back to their homes in
northern Gaza amid a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in the central
Gaza Strip on January 27, 2025. REUTERS/Ramadan Abed
Trump’s repeated comments that Palestinians would be removed permanently, which means ethnic cleansing, contradict the White House, which said Palestinians would only be “temporarily relocated” during reconstruction.
In the interview with Baier, Trump insisted he could make a deal with
Jordan and Egypt despite the strong opposition from Arab states and Palestinians themselves.
“I think I could make a deal with Jordan, I think I could make a deal
with Egypt. You know, we give them billions and billions of dollars a
year,” he said.
Egypt has announced an emergency Arab summit that will be held on February 27
in response to Trump’s plan. On Sunday, Cairo said that in recent days,
Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty “made a series of phone calls
with several Arab counterparts to mass regional efforts in a bid to
thwart the US proposal of displacing the Palestinian people.”
Jordan’s King Abdullah arrived in Washington on Monday and is set to hold a meeting with Trump on Tuesday. According to Reuters, Abdullah plans to tell Trump that
his plan “to resettle Palestinians from Gaza in Jordan is a recipe for
radicalism that will spread chaos through the Middle East, jeopardize
the Kingdom’s peace with Israel, and even threaten the country’s very
survival.”
During Netanyahu’s visit, Trump dropped Washington’s sugar-coating of
Israel’s 15-month genocidal destruction of Gaza. This was always about
ethnic cleansing
US President Donald Trump and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu arrive at the White House in Washington, DC, on 4 February,
2025 (AFP)
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to
the White House this week tore the mask off 16 months of gaslighting by
western leaders and by the entirety of the western establishment
media.
United States President Donald Trump finally dropped Washington’s sugar-coating of Israel’s genocidal destruction of Gaza.
This was always, he told us, a slaughter made in the US. In his words, Washington will now “take over” Gaza and be the one to develop it.
And the goal of the slaughter was always ethnic cleansing.
Palestinians, he said,
would be “settled” in a place where they would not have to be “worried
about dying every day” – that is, being murdered by Israel using
US-supplied bombs.
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Gaza, meanwhile, would become
the “Riviera of the Middle East”, with the “world’s people” – he meant
rich white people like himself – living in luxury beachfront properties
in their stead.
If the US “owns” Gaza, as Trump insists, it
will also own Gaza’s territorial waters, where there just happen to be
fabulous quantities of untapped gas to enrich the enclave’s new “owner”.
Palestinians have, of course, never been allowed to develop their gas fields.
Trump may even have let slip inadvertently the true death toll
inflicted by Israel’s rampage. He referred to “all of them – there’s 1.7
million or maybe 1.8 million people” being forced out of Gaza.
The population count before 7 October 2023 was between 2.2 and 2.3
million. Where are the other half a million Palestinians? Under the
rubble? In unmarked graves? Eaten by feral dogs? Vaporised by 2,000lb US
bombs?
Wrecking spree
Trump presented his ethnic cleansing plan as if he had the best
interests of the Palestinians at heart. As if he was saving them from a
disaster-prone earthquake zone, not from a genocidal neighbour he counts
as Washington’s closest ally.
His comments were greeted with shock and horror
in western and Arab capitals. Everyone is distancing themselves from
his blatant backing for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza’s population.
If Trump tries to take over Gaza, Palestinians will die where they stand
But these are the same leaders who kept silent through 15 months of
Israel’s levelling of Gaza’s homes, hospitals, schools, universities,
libraries, government buildings, mosques, churches and bakeries.
Then, they spoke of Israel’s right to “defend itself” even as Israel
caused so much damage the United Nations warned it would take up to 80 years to rebuild the territory – that is, four generations.
What did they think would happen at the end of the wrecking spree
they armed and fully supported? Did they imagine the people of Gaza
could survive for years without homes, or hospitals, or schools, or
water systems, or electricity?
They knew this was the outcome: destitute Palestinians would either risk death in the ruins or be forced to move out.
And western politicians not only let it happen, they told us it was “proportionate”, it was necessary. They smeared anyone who dissented, anyone who called for a ceasefire, anyone who went on a protest march as an antisemite and a Jew hater.
In the US and elsewhere, students – many of them Jewish – staged mass
protests on their campuses. In response, university administrations
sent in the riot police, beating them. Afterwards, the universities
expelled the student organisers and denied them their degrees.
And yet western politicians and media outlets think now is the time to express shock at Trump’s statements?
Still dying
Trump’s appalling, savage honesty simply highlights the depths of
mendacity over the preceding 16 months. After all, who did not
understand that the three-phase Gaza ceasefire, which came into effect on 19 January, was a lie too.
It was a lie even before the ink dried on the page.
Trump presented his ethnic cleansing plan as if he had the best interests of the Palestinians at heart
It was a lie because the ceasefire was officially intended not just to create a pause in the bloodshed. It was also supposed
to allow for the mitigation of harm to the civilian population, bring
the hostilities to an end, and lead to the reconstruction of Gaza.
None of that will happen – at least not for the Palestinians, as Trump has made clear.
Despite its claims, Israel has clearly not ceased firing munitions into Gaza. It has continued killing and maiming Palestinians, including children, even if the carpet bombing has ended for the time being.
In media coverage, these deaths and injuries are never referred to as
what they are: violations of the ceasefire. Israeli snipers may no
longer be shooting Palestinian children in the head, as happened routinely for 15 months. But the young are still dying.
Without homes, without access to properly functioning hospitals
and with only limited access to food and water, Gaza’s children are
perishing – mostly out of view, mostly uncounted – from the cold, from
disease, from starvation.
Even Steve Witkoff, Trump’s envoy to the Middle East, says it will likely take 10-15 years to rebuild Gaza.
But the people of Gaza don’t have that much time.
This month Israel instituted a ban on the activities of the United Nation’s aid agency, Unrwa, in all of the Palestinian territories it occupies illegally.
Unrwa is the only agency capable of alleviating the worst excesses of
the hellscape Israel has created in Gaza. Without it, the recovery
process will be further hampered – and more of Gaza’s people will die
waiting for help.
A blind eye
But in truth, Netanyahu has no intention of maintaining the
“ceasefire” beyond the first stage, the exchange of hostages.
Afterwards, he has all but promised to restart the slaughter.
When Israel decides to “go back in”, there will be no price to pay
from the Trump administration, any more than there was a price to pay
from the previous Biden administration.
Gaza is a Palestinian homeland, not Trump’s luxury resort
Even now, as Israel breaks the ceasefire, shooting at
civilian vehicles because the inhabitants are unaware of the tripwire
restrictions on their movements imposed by Israel, western politicians
and media turn a blind eye.
And when Israel finally tears up the agreement, as it will, the West
will echo Israel in blaming Hamas for being the one to violate it.
The ceasefire is a lie too because, having made Gaza uninhabitable, a
death camp, Israel has switched its primary genocidal focus to the
Occupied West Bank, where it is gradually introducing the same tactics employed for 15 months in the tiny coastal enclave.
Note that Israel is now targeting the West Bank even though it is run not by Hamas but by Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian leader who refers to his security forces’ collaboration with Israel in repressing all resistance to its illegal occupation as “sacred”.
Note too that the West Bank had nothing to do with the Hamas attack
on 7 October 2023. But none of this should surprise us. These were only
ever pretexts for the slaughter in Gaza.
And it breathes life into a new round of lies
such as Biden’s suggestion last month that the ceasefire would allow
the people of Gaza to “return to their neighbourhoods”. Except those
neighbourhoods are gone. They don’t exist because the Biden
administration sent billions of dollars worth of munitions to level
Gaza.
Why, one might wonder, is the Trump administration seeking to send an additional $1bn worth of munitions to Israel, if not so it can continue the destruction and slaughter?
Blushes spared
The ceasefire is a lie because everything about the past 16 months
has been a lie. It is the latest lie in a chain of lies, each meant to
support the other lies to create a mendacious overarching narrative: the
giant lie.
The giant lie tells of a decades-old “conflict” with the
Palestinians, of Israel’s “war of survival” in the region. The giant lie
obscures what is really at stake: the West’s last settler-colonial
project to eradicate a native people, in this case in the strategically
important oil-rich Middle East.
The giant lie obscures what is really at stake: the West’s last
settler-colonial project to eradicate a native people, in this case in
the strategically important oil-rich Middle East
According to that giant lie, Hamas “started a war” on 7 October 2023
when it broke out of the concentration camp Palestinians in Gaza had
been living in for at least 16 years, deprived of the essentials of life
by their Israeli oppressors.
According to that giant lie, Hamas are the terrorists – not Israel,
which has been illegally occupying, settling and besieging the
Palestinians’ homeland for three-quarters of a century. According to
that giant lie, Israel’s slaughter of many tens of thousands of men,
women and children and its maiming of many times that figure were
necessary to “eliminate Hamas” rather than evidence of Israel’s
genocidal intent, as every major human rights organisation has
concluded.
Even Antony Blinken, Biden’s secretary of state, admitted – only, of
course, as he was stepping down – that Israel’s extended killing spree
had been entirely self-sabotaging. “We assess that Hamas has recruited
almost as many new militants as it has lost,” he said. “That is a recipe for an enduring insurgency and perpetual war.”
This week officials in Gaza used the lull in Israeli attacks to reassess the death toll. They have revised
it to nearly 62,000 after adding the names of those missing, presumed
dead under the oceans of rubble. Many more deaths have doubtless still
not been identified.
In the giant lie, the International Court of Justice’s ruling
more than a year ago that there were “plausible” grounds for believing
Israel was carrying out a genocide were airbrushed out of the picture by
western politicians and media.
Not only that, but the West hurried to supply Israel with the bombs
needed to carry out the very massacres that has led the World Court to
put Israel on trial for genocide.
In that giant lie, Britain’s now-prime minister Keir Starmer presented Israel’s starvation of Gaza’s population as lawful – as “self-defence”.
Meanwhile, journalists and other politicians collude in avoiding
mention of Starmer’s comments to spare his blushes, even after the
International Criminal Court (ICC) charged Netanyahu and his defence minister, Yoav Gallant, with crimes against humanity for that very same starvation policy.
Supine media
According to the giant lie, Hamas is holding hostages, while the many
thousands of Palestinians abducted by Israel to be used as bargaining
chips in the current swaps – including hundreds of doctors, aid workers
and children – are “prisoners”, legitimately “arrested” as terror suspects.
According to the same giant lie, Israel’s government had to destroy
Gaza to bring home the hostages, even as it spent the last days before
the ceasefire went into effect intensifying its bombardment of the
enclave, clearly indifferent as to whether it killed the hostages in the
process.
How the West hides its Gaza genocide guilt behind Holocaust Day remembrance
In the giant lie, Israel’s levelling of Gaza, the aid blockade and
starvation of 2.3 million people were somehow justified and
“proportionate” rather intended to make the enclave uninhabitable, with the goal of forcing Palestinians out and into the neighbouring Egyptian territory of Sinai or other parts of the Arab world.
The “ceasefire” lie is perfectly of a piece with this giant lie.
The giant lie that claimed Biden had “worked tirelessly” for a
ceasefire that he could have got days after 7 October 2023 with one call
to Netanyahu. The “hard won” ceasefire that was available in exactly the same format last May, but had to be delayed because Israel needed longer to carry out its genocide.
The giant lie that hailed Biden and Trump for pulling off a diplomatic coup with the ceasefire when for more than a year millions of protesters in the West have been smeared, beaten by police and arrested as Jew haters for demanding precisely the same.
The giant lie that for decades has presented Washington as an “honest
broker” when it is Israel’s biggest arms dealer, its most vociferous
apologist, its most terrifying enforcer.
The grand lie that required physically hauling
two reporters out of Blinken’s farewell press conference last month.
Each tried to remind us that Emperor Biden had been naked all along.
For anyone wondering why the media have been so supine through the
past 15 months – failing in the case of Gaza to summon up any of the
passion and indignation they so readily evoked over Russia’s invasion of
Ukraine – here was the answer.
The other journalists kept their heads down or looked away
sheepishly, fearful that they might lose their access should they be
tainted by any association with these rule-breakers. Decorum had to be
maintained inside the royal court, even in the midst of a genocide.
The giant lie needed to be protected at all costs.
Snake-oil salesman
Whatever western politicians and the media claim, the ceasefire has
brought nothing to an end. It offers only brief respite to the
Palestinian people from their most immediate pain and misery.
We must not allow it to bolster the narrative of the giant lie. Which
is exactly what Keir Starmer, Britain’s prime minister and the oiliest
of snake-oil salesmen, sought to do.
The truth is everything we have been told about Israel is a lie. Nothing can be repaired, nothing can heal, until the lies stop
In a statement on the prospect of the ceasefire last month, Starmer suggested
that it would allow the people of Gaza what he called “a better
future”, including the creation of “a sovereign and viable Palestinian
state”.
Really?
No one wants to think through what the very best-case scenario for
Gaza would mean – Starmer’s claim is based on the entirely fanciful
notion that Israel actually wants a permanent ceasefire .
The reality is that it would take us back to 6 October 2023, when
Israel was blockading Gaza, holding its 2.3 million people hostage. It
was denying them the import of essential items while keeping them on a
privation diet.
It was refusing the sick an exit to life-saving treatments they could
only receive abroad. It was crushing the economy by denying businesses
an export market. It was allowing the people of Gaza only a few hours of
power a day, and surveilling them 24/7 through an army of airborne
drones.
‘Banality of evil’: Artist turns Gaza settler dream into disturbing installation
On the very best-case scenario, Gaza would return to this – plus all
the devastation wrought by Israel since: no homes, schools,
universities, hospitals, bakeries, mosques, churches, homes; oceans of
rubble to traverse; wrecked water and sewage systems; and vast swaths of
the population needing medical treatment for serious injuries and
disease; and nearly 40,000 orphans to care for.
Is that the “better future” Starmer was referring to?
What are the chances that Gaza will receive even this best-case
scenario from hell when Israel is losing no time extending its genocidal
policies to the West Bank?
The ceasefire is a lie because everything else we have been told is a
lie: that Israel is a normal western liberal democracy, that Israel
wants peace with its neighbours, that Israel’s army is the most moral in
the world.
Israel is not just a standard-issue settler-colonial state – the kind
that seeks to eradicate the native population whose lands it covets.
Israel is the most lavishly armed, the most indulged settler-colonial
state in history, and one addicted to its scorched-earth approach to the
region it inhabits.
The truth is everything we have been told about Israel is a lie. Nothing can be repaired, nothing can heal, until the lies stop.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
Jonathan Cook is the author of three books on the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict, and a winner of the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for
Journalism. His website and blog can be found at http://www.jonathan-cook.net
The International Criminal Court on Friday denounced U.S. President Donald Trump’s executive order sanctioning the ICC in response to arrest warrants issued for Israeli leaders over their devastating 15-month military assault on the Gaza Strip.
“The ICC condemns the issuance by the U.S. of an executive order
seeking to impose sanctions on its officials and harm its independent
and impartial judicial work,” the tribunal said
in a statement. “The court stands firmly by its personnel and pledges
to continue providing justice and hope to millions of innocent victims
of atrocities across the world, in all situations before it.”
“We call on our 125 states parties, civil society, and all nations of
the world to stand united for justice and fundamental human rights,”
added the Hague-based ICC, which was established by a global treaty
known as the Rome Statute to prosecute individuals for genocide, war
crimes, crimes against humanity, and the crime of aggression.
A spokesperson for the United Nations’ Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), Ravina Shamdasani, also slammed
Trump’s order targeting the ICC, which she called “a central
institution of the international criminal justice system and fundamental
to ensuring justice and achieving accountability for the most serious
crimes.”
“We fully support the independent work of the court—across all
situations within its jurisdiction,” Shamdasani said Friday. “We deeply
regret the individual sanctions announced yesterday against court
personnel, and call for this measure to be reversed.”
“The court should be fully able to undertake its independent
work—where a state is unwilling or unable genuinely to carry out the
investigation or prosecution, as stated in the Rome Statute. The court
is an essential part of the human rights infrastructure,” she added.
“The rule of law remains essential to our collective peace and security.
Seeking accountability globally makes the world a safer place for
everyone.”
Since Trump signed the order—which specifically cites the court’s November warrants
for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense
minister, Yoav Gallant—civil society groups around the world have also
spoken out against the U.S. president, who previously targeted ICC
officials with sanctions during his first term.
“This reckless action sends the message that Israel
is above the law and the universal principles of international justice.
It suggests that President Trump endorses the Israeli government’s
crimes and is embracing impunity,” saidAmnesty International secretary general Agnès Callamard, a former U.N. special rapporteur, in a statement.
The “aggressive” and “vindictive” order, she continued, “is a brutal
step that seeks to undermine and destroy what the international
community has painstakingly constructed over decades, if not centuries:
global rules that are applicable to everyone and aim to deliver justice
for all. The sanctions constitute another betrayal of our common
humanity.”
“At an historic moment when we are witnessing a genocide
against Palestinians in Gaza, Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, and
the global rule of law coming under threat from multiple fronts,” she
argued, “institutions like the court are needed more than ever to
advance human rights protections, prevent future atrocities and secure
justice for victims.”
Trump’s sanctions will not only “embolden perpetrators,” Callamard
warned, “they will negatively impact the interests of all victims
globally and those who look to the court for justice in all the
countries where it’s conducting investigations, including Darfur, Libya,
the Philippines, Palestine, Ukraine, and Venezuela.”
“The sanctions are also an affront to 125 member states who have
collectively resolved that the court must be able to effectively pursue
justice—which means it must be able to undertake independent judicial
functions, such as issuing arrest warrants, for example, against
Benjamin Netanyahu or Vladimir Putin,” said added, referring to the
Russian president.
“Governments around the world and regional organizations must do
everything in their power to mitigate and block the effect of President
Trump’s sanctions,” Callamard concluded. “Through collective and
concerted actions, ICC member states can protect the court and its
staff. Urgent action is needed, like never before.”
While some governments, such as Hungary, have backed Trump’s move, others have joined the chorus of condemnation and reiterated support for the ICC.
“We reaffirm our continued and unwavering support for the
independence, impartiality, and integrity of the ICC,” 79
nations—including France, Germany, and the United Kingdom—said in a joint statement reported by Reuters.
“The court serves as a vital pillar of the international justice system
by ensuring accountability for the most serious international crimes,
and justice for victims.”
President Trump on Thursday continued to push his idea of a US
takeover of Gaza, claiming Israel would hand over the territory to the
US at the “conclusion of fighting” and insisting the occupation wouldn’t
require US troops.
“The Gaza Strip would be turned over to the United States by Israel at the conclusion of fighting,” the president wrote on Truth Social. The president’s comments suggest he expects Israel’s genocidal war to restart, which would be supported with US military aid.
After 15 months of heavy bombing and a ground campaign in Gaza,
Israel failed to dismantle Hamas, and US intelligence believes the
Palestinian group had even replaced most of the fighters it had lost in that time.
That means even though Gaza has been reduced to rubble, Israel would
still face stiff resistance if it attempts to conquer and ethnically
cleanse the Strip.
In his post, Trump also called for the “resettlement” of Palestinians
in Gaza and referred to Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) as a “Palestinian,”
something he first did while on the campaign trail over Schumer’s calls
for elections in Israel.
“The Palestinians, people like Chuck Schumer, would have already been
resettled in far safer and more beautiful communities, with new and
modern homes, in the region. They would actually have a chance to be
happy, safe, and free,” the president wrote.
“The US, working with great development teams from all over the
World, would slowly and carefully begin the construction of what would
become one of the greatest and most spectacular developments of its kind
on Earth. No soldiers by the US would be needed! Stability for the
region would reign!!!”
Trump’s post again suggests that his idea is for the permanent
expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza, although the White House said the
idea was a “temporary” relocation. But even a temporary displacement would be resisted since Palestinians wouldn’t expect Israel to let them return.
Trump’s proposal has been resoundingly rejected by the Arab states in the region and the Palestinians themselves, who don’t want to give up their homes even as they lie in ruin.
President Trump said on Tuesday
that the US would “take over” the Gaza Strip, a surprise announcement
he made while speaking with reporters at the White House during a press
conference with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“The US will take over the Gaza Strip, and we will do a job with it,
too. We’ll own it and be responsible for dismantling all of the
dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site, level the site
and get rid of the destroyed buildings, level it out, create an
economic development that will supply unlimited numbers of jobs and
housing for people of the area,” Trump said.
The president said earlier that the Palestinians must be removed from Gaza “permanently,”
making it clear the plan will involve the ethnic cleansing of the
territory despite strong resistance from neighboring Arab states. The
plan also implies that the US would rebuild Gaza for Jewish settlers.
Trump was asked who would live in Gaza under his plan and replied,
“The world’s people,” and suggested some Palestinians may also be
allowed.
He said, “I think the entire world, representatives from all over the
world, will be there, and they’ll live there. Palestinians, also, …
will live there. Many people will live there.”
Trump also said he wouldn’t rule out deploying troops to Gaza.
When asked if his plan meant he would send troops, Trump said, “If it’s
necessary, we’ll do that. We’re gonna take over that piece and develop
it, create thousands and thousands of jobs. It will be something the
entire Middle East can be very proud of.”
The president suggested he had been considering the plan for a long
time. “I see a long-term ownership position and bringing great stability
to that part of the Middle East. Everybody I’ve spoken to — this was
not a decision made lightly — everybody loves the idea of the US owning
that piece of land, developing and creating thousands of jobs with
something that will be magnificent in a magnificent area nobody would
really know. They look, and all they see is death and destruction and
rubble,” he said.
Netanyahu also commented on the plan, saying, “President Trump is
taking it to a much higher level. He sees a different future for that
piece of land that has been the focus of so much terrorism and attacks
against us, so many trials and tribulations. He has a different idea and
it’s worth paying attention to this. He’s exploring it and it’s
something that could change history.”
Later on Tuesday, Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, appeared on Fox News and endorsed the president’s plan, saying a better life for the Palestinians is “not necessarily tied to the physical space that you are in today.”
When asked what message Trump was trying to send by calling for a US
takeover of Gaza, Witkoff said, “He’s telling the Middle East that the
last 50 years of doing things was not the correct way of doing things,
and he’s going to change it up.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio also endorsed the US takeover and
ethnic cleansing of Gaza. “Gaza MUST BE FREE from Hamas. As [Trump]
shared today, the United States stands ready to lead and Make Gaza
Beautiful Again. Our pursuit is one of lasting peace in the region for
all people,” he wrote on X.
A US takeover of the Gaza Strip would require Israel to restart its
genocidal war, and it could potentially involve direct US military
action. Since coming into office, Trump has begun advancing billions of dollars worth of new weapons shipments for Israel funded by US military aid.
Hamas would fiercely resist a US takeover, and the group has replaced about all the fighters it has lost, according to US intelligence, despite Israel’s mass slaughter of Palestinians.
