Trump’s comment to ‘cleanse’ Gaza delighted the Israeli far right and angered the Palestinians

With Israel facing multiple and potentially escalating crises on its borders, Donald Trump ignited a new one on Saturday with comments about permanently moving the Palestinian population from Gaza to other countries.

Calling Gaza a “place of destruction”, the US president said he had raised the issue with Jordan’s king, suggesting Arab countries should accept and build homes for Palestinians so they could “maybe live in peace for a change”.

“We’re just cleaning this whole thing up,” Trump reportedly told reporters on Air Force One.

It is not clear whether his words are an indication of a real change in American policy or just thoughts. Even so, the comment bounced around the Middle East on Sunday.

Islamic Jihad — one of the militant groups involved in the October 7, 2023 attacks that killed more than 1,200 people and, which is still holding Israeli hostages in Gaza — released a statement saying it “condemns in the strongest terms the deportation of our people … out of their country.”

The group said Trump’s comments reflected an “extreme Zionist agenda” and denial of Palestinian identity.

A senior Hamas official also immediately dismissed the idea.

“The people of Gaza endured death to avoid leaving their homeland and will not leave it for any other reason,” Sami Abu Zuhri said in a statement.

Indeed, one of the few positive reactions to Trump’s comments came from Israel’s extremist settler leaders, who have made the removal of Palestinians from Gaza and the occupied West Bank their main political goal.

The head of Israel’s Religious Zionism party, Bezalel Smotrich, who is also the country’s finance minister, called Trump’s proposal “an excellent idea.”

Gaza in ruins after 15 months of war

Human rights groups, such as Amnesty International, they have repeatedly accused Israel of ethnic cleansing by deliberately trying to destroy Palestinian society with a fierce 15-month bombing campaign in Gaza in response to a Hamas-led attack on October 7.

Since then, more than 47,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, according to health authorities there. The UN says more than two-thirds of Gaza’s buildings have been destroyed or damaged.

Israeli leaders, as well as Republican and Democratic politicians in the United States, have rejected the claim of genocide.

The Trudeau government too he said disagrees with South Africa’s arguments before the International Court of Justice that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

‘There is no Palestinian… who could accept his deal’

Despite agreeing to a three-phase ceasefire earlier this month, including a hostage and prisoner exchange, the Israeli government has refused to articulate a vision for a post-war Gaza or say how it thinks the territory should be governed.

For Arab nations – especially Jordan and Egypt, which have long-standing peace agreements with Israel – the possibility of being forced by Western countries or Israel to accept Palestinians from Gaza has long been considered highly destabilizing and politically unacceptable.

United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) already has more than 2.3 million Palestinians living in Jordan.

“As far as I know, there is no Palestinian who could accept his deal,” he said Yohanan Tzoreffsenior researcher at the Israel Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv.

Tzoreff, an Israeli, was involved in the implementation of the Oslo Accords more than 30 years ago and worked closely with slain Israeli Prime Minister Yitzat Rabin on the peace process, often serving as his Arabic translator.

“The idea of ​​creating refugees, the idea of ​​moving people from one area to another is one of the complicated issues in Arab history, and especially Palestinian history,” Tzoreff told CBC News.

“If [Trump] speak publicly about it and make a statement, you’re putting all the Arab people in the Middle East in a position where they’re going to do everything they can to not accept your idea.”

Palestinians determined to start over

A second exchange of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners took place over the weekend, with four female IDF soldiers returning to Israel and 200 Palestinians being released from prison.

In the days since the ceasefire was implemented, there have also been incredible scenes of Palestinians trying to return to their decimated neighborhoods in Gaza, determined to start over rather than leave the territory.

On Sunday, a sea of ​​people numbering in the tens of thousands lined up behind Israeli checkpoints and roadblocks along what Israel calls the Netzarim Corridor, trying to return to towns and neighborhoods in northern Gaza.

Under the terms of the truce, hundreds of thousands of civilians were to be allowed to return on Saturday, but Israel has accused Hamas of ignoring aspects of the deal and has responded by blocking people from returning to the north.

Among those waiting, the response to Trump’s relocation proposal was generally negative.

“This is our land, our land and the land of our ancestors,” 60-year-old Sayyah Al-Siqali told a cameraman working for CBC News. “We don’t answer to the American president.”

“[Trump] they cannot displace and force people to immigrate from their country,” said Samir Al-Sultan, 58.

“Either we will all be martyrs or we will return to our cities – to leave our cities, to leave our country is impossible.”

Israel’s neighbors have long worried that its government will launch another forced displacement of Palestinians.

Before, during and after the establishment of Israel in 1948, more than 700,000 people either fled or were driven from their homes into what the Arabs call Nakbathat is, a disaster.

Later, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were forced to flee after the 1967 war, when Israel seized territory west of the Jordan River and occupied East Jerusalem.

Many of the displaced ended up in Gaza, as well as in refugee camps in the occupied West Bank.

The fate of whether their descendants will ever be able to return to their ancestral homes in Israel is one of the most difficult questions facing peace negotiators.

“I don’t know who his is [Trump’s] advisors who he is talking to… but they think they have to think again,” said Tzoreff, the Tel Aviv-based analyst.

While the previous Biden administration was heavily criticized for not using its influence on the Netanyahu government to get a ceasefire sooner, it rejected mass displacement as a policy to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian crisis.

At one of his last public events, former Secretary of State Antony Blinken repeatedly that Israel’s “true security” can only be achieved by recognizing a Palestinian state.

The new US administration could signal a change in policy

In his short time as president, Trump has made no such statements, but his selection as US ambassador to Israel suggests that the new administration may abandon the two-state solution as preferred US policy.

Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, an ardent supporter of Israel, was quoted saying that the Palestinian does not exist and that the concept is being used as a “political tool to try to force the land from Israel”.

Huckabee also said that if there is a state for the Palestinians, it should be carved out of land belonging to Israel’s Arab neighbors — not Israel itself.

Trump has won praise from the families of Israelis held hostage in Gaza, as he used his influence to push Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas toward a currently fragile truce.

But expelling, forcibly removing, or otherwise eradicating Palestinians from Gaza is an idea that has repeatedly led to more conflict, not less.

It’s unclear how far Trump plans to push that.