How to recreate Monaco in Gaza.
I’ve moved: check out my newest posts in the Times of Israel.
Three days ago, President Trump shocked an audience the world over when he called for a relocation of Gaza, and did so again hours later when he expressed his wish for the United States to ‘own’ the Strip.
The general expectation before the meeting of President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu was that the two would work to present a firm, courteous front. One that would work primarily on putting an end to the war, the release of the hostages, and a more peaceful Middle East going forward; maintaining a strong boundary between Iran and nuclear weaponry, promoting normalisation with Saudi Arabia, and of course, what to do with that little strip of land that borders Israel’s south. This is especially due to Netanyahu being under pressure from the far-right members of his party to resume the war at the end of the first phase of the ceasefire next month.
Instead, we received Trump’s promise to (permanently?) evacuate the populace, raze the ‘hellhole’ that is Gaza, and then redevelop it as if it were an ordinary strip of land. This is not surprising given his extensive property portfolio, available on his website. One might argue that although this is incredibly unlikely to even begin to be put into effect, it’s Trump’s own way of offering Netanyahu a political lifeline of sorts: emptying, demolishing, and resettling Gaza to both Israeli and world citizens. This is an approach long welcomed with open arms by his far-right party members, especially effective after a noticeable breakdown in his coalition, when Otzma Yehudit members Ben Gvir and Negev, Galilee and National Resilience Minister Yitzhak Wasserlauf, along with Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu, submitted resignation letters to Netanyahu last month. Note: since Israel’s disengagement from Gaza in 2005, transactions involving Israeli civilians and Gazan property are essentially infeasible, and a Jordanian law from the period in which Jordan controlled the West Bank prohibits non-Muslims from purchasing any landholdings there.
Following the inevitable initial uproar, the US Press Secretary stressed that Washington’s goal is merely to ‘temporarily’ remove the Palestinian residents, responding to a question that ‘The president has made it clear that they need to be temporarily relocated out of Gaza for the rebuilding… as it’s a demolition site right now, it’s not a livable place for any human being.’ And she’s right; the images exiting Gaza paint a picture of widespread suffering among a people ravaged by a war initiated by a terrorist group that steals aid from its most vulnerable to fund its violence.
There are just a few teeny-tiny problems with this approach, and the first is the price: the UN estimates that reconstructing Gaza from what is quite literally the ground up would come at a cost of $80 billion, twenty-five times more than after Operation Protective Edge in 2014.
‘I don’t want to be cute, I don’t want to be a wise guy,’ Trump said. He then, in typical non-wise guy fashion, proceeded to refer to Gaza as a plot of land that could potentially become ‘the Riviera of the Middle East. This could be something that could be so magnificent.’ Could Gaza turn out to become ‘better than Monaco’?
Trump’s tone appears not to care as to whether the population of approximately two million in the Strip actually want to leave, though, and the Palestinian envoy to the United Nations declared as firmly as could be that they don’t: ‘Our homeland is our homeland … And I think that leaders and people should respect the wishes of the Palestinian people.’ Hamas, as one would expect, also did so and rejected Trump’s words as ‘a recipe for creating chaos and tension in the region,’ which is just a tad ironic, coming from a terrorist organisation designed to bring an end to Israel and establish Jerusalem as Palestine’s capital (See Hamas’ 2017 Document/The Palestinian political system)
Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, proposed that collective Palestinian life could be enhanced regardless of whether or not they continue to live on their present land; in an interview with Fox News (that delightfully unbiased news outlet fitting for a US Middle East envoy) shortly after the press conference that caused uproar of such a great magnitude said that ‘a better life is not necessarily tied to the physical space that you are in today… A better life is about better opportunity, better financial conditions, better aspirations for you and your family. That doesn’t occur because you get to pitch a tent in the Gaza Strip and you’re surrounded by 30,000 munitions that could go off at any moment… Gaza today is uninhabitable and will probably be uninhabitable for at least the next 10 to 15 years.’
But what would the costs involved actually be, should Trump’s dream of sorts become a reality? While entirely disagree that this would be a good idea — indeed, I wrote an article just under a week ago discussing the best way to rehabilitate the Gazan population — I was curious as to what would be a concern in an endeavour such as this. These concerns might be separated into two major categories: economic costs, and the moral and legal obligations.
The economic costs of ‘owning’ the Gaza Strip
Transforming Gaza into a prosperous region akin to the ‘Riviera of the Middle East’ would require substantial investment. As mentioned earlier in the article, this could cost $80 billion (or more), and take a quarter of a century to complete. President Trump’s described Gaza as a ‘demolition site.’ And cleaning up demolitions — the millions of tonnes of rubble left by the Israeli campaign — is costly.
The military and security expenditures involved here would also likely require a prolonged US military presence, thus leading to significant defence spending that would either require the amount of federal spending used by the Department of Defence to increase from an already substantial amount of 13.6%, or divert funds from the current projects, potentially leaving the US more open to threats from countries looking to attack it directly. Trump’s plans, the first time the United States has had any considerable presence there since Biden’s $230 million floating pier was decimated by the relatively calm breezes of a single summer in the Mediterranean, would involve the costs of putting boots on the ground, establishing bases, and the occasional violent bout in a historically volatile region. Note: Trump has since said that Israel would hand Gaza to the US when the war ends, without American troops needed.
What’s more, the relocation of the two million Gazans would involve extensive humanitarian assistance; housing, infrastructure development in the host countries, healthcare, et cetera. That’s a big bill.
Moral and Legal Troubles
The proposal to relocate the residents of the Gaza Strip has been widely condemned as a form of ethnic cleansing. The forcing of a group to leave their homes is, of course, prohibited by longstanding international treaties. Trump would certainly lose the media battle that, among more left-leaning voters, is certainly looking grim. Neighbouring countries — Egypt and Jordan among them — have rejected the concept Trump proposes of resettling Palestinians from Gaza.
What was also scarcely mentioned in both the primary press conference and the comments from the Oval Office was the fate of the 79 hostages — yes, BBC, they are hostages — who remain in Gaza. Trump may merely be expecting Netanyahu to remain with the current Gaza deal until the captives are released, both the living and the dead, and then go through with his objectives; but if that is so, why has he spoken now, when it could be mutually detrimental to the President and Prime Minister’s goals?
Thanks for reading today’s article, everyone — maybe even give another one a read while you’re at it.
It’s also worth saying that articles like this are based on incredibly controversial topics with a lot to say for either side, regardless of how much one would like to polarize it — and I’m just a guy in his bedroom. While it’s interesting to entertain Trump’s ramblings every so often, it is my opinion that this plan of his is morally repugnant in almost every facet.
Buy my book — it helps finance the caffeine addiction that allows me to write articles like this one.
Good day— Simon
