At the end of a long afternoon in Washington, that started with Trump outlining his view that Gaza must now be depopulated, and that more than two million Palestinians living there have “no alternative” but to leave the bombed, ruined territory, the American leader made it clear that he wants the United States to take it over.
“The US will take over the Gaza Strip … we’ll own it”, he told stunned reporters in the East Room of the White House.
Which “people” he meant was initially unclear, given that earlier in the day he rejected the idea of offering displaced Palestinians a right of return to the territory after its reconstruction.
CNN reporter Kaitlin Collins sought to clarify whether Trump envisaged any Palestinians enjoying life in beachfront property overlooking the Mediterranean.
Netanyahu said Trump sees ‘things others refuse to see’ (Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
As reporters started to take in the magnitude of the President’s proposal, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu looked like the cat who had stolen the proverbial cream.
“You cut to the chase”, Netanyahu told Trump. “You see things others refuse to see. You say things others refuse to say. And after the jaws drop, people scratch their heads and they say ‘you know, he’s right’”.
“This was not a decision made lightly. Everybody I’ve spoken to loves the idea of the United States owning that piece of land, developing and creating thousands of jobs…in a really magnificent area”.
A man stands by a fire next to a house destroyed during the Israeli army’s ground and air offensive against Hamas in Gaza City ( Photo: Abdel Kareem Hana/AP)It seems that he is now applying exactly the same logic to Gaza, supercharged by his determination that America can seize control of it sooner rather than later.
Trump, he said, “has a different idea, and I think … that it’s something that could change history, and it’s worthwhile really pursuing this avenue”.
Both King Adbullah of Jordan and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi have told the President his idea is a non-starter.
The other news at the press conference took a back seat to Trump’s bombshell gambit.
Both men agreed that Iran can never be permitted to acquire a nuclear weapon, but Trump was not questioned about his claim earlier in the day to be “open” to possible direct talks between himself and Iranian leaders.
Riyad Mansour told reporters in New York that if Trump believes Palestinians should be offered a “nice place” in which to reside, he should “allow them to go back to their original homes in what is now Israel”.
But the President’s new proposal to see the Stars and Stripes flying on a strip of Mediterranean coastline goes far beyond his coveting of the Panama Canal and Greenland.
He has also signaled to President Xi Jinping in Beijing and President Vladimir Putin in Moscow that the United States is now firmly on an expansionist, imperial path.
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