Donald Trump’s first ten days of his second term as president of the United States included no less than two repeated calls for Egypt and Jordan to take in Palestinians from Gaza, and an additional proposal for America to “take over” the Strip. Trump has described forced displacement as the way to “clean out” Gaza—which many, including some American politicians, have suggested is simply ethnic cleansing “by another name”.
But Trump’s statements, whether intended genuinely or otherwise, shouldn’t be seen in isolation. The idea of reducing the population of Gaza has been mooted by Israeli leaders for the entirety of the war on the Strip.
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, while previously dismissing suggestions of establishing an Israeli civilian presence in Gaza, has clearly considered reducing Gaza’s population to a minimum as a strategic imperative. In November 2023, the Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom reported that Netanyahu had tasked his key ally Ron Dermer to work on a plan to “thin” out the population of Gaza. This proposal reportedly had two main elements: the first would use the humanitarian crisis in Gaza as a way to convince Egypt to let Palestinian refugees travel through the country to other Arab states. The second was to enable Palestinians to leave for Europe or Africa via the sea. On Thursday, Netanyahu told Fox News that Trump’s plan was a “remarkable idea”.
There are Israeli politicians, including government ministers, who not only agree with Netanyahu about the necessity of Palestinian migration—they have publicly advocated for it for many months. The former national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, an extreme right-winger who left the government over the Gaza ceasefire deal, has repeatedly argued for promoting “voluntary migration” of Palestinians from the enclave. At a rally in May last year, he declared it was imperative to “encourage emigration”: “Encourage the voluntary departure of Gaza’s residents… It is ethical! It is rational! It is right! It is the truth! It is the Torah and it is the only way! And yes, it is humane.” The voluntary nature of such a migration, considering the massive humanitarian crisis that would have precipitated it, is debatable.
Others, such as the finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, also a prominent far-right Israeli politician, have argued for the complete destruction of the main population centres of Gaza, which would indicate something rather more forceful than the “voluntary migration” suggested by Netanyahu and Ben-Gvir.
When Trump first indicated his support for the relocation of Palestinians from Gaza to Egypt and Jordan, unsurprisingly, Smotrich and Ben-Gvir supported the idea. Smotrich said he was working on an “operational plan” to turn the proposal into something actionable, while Ben-Gvir described relocation of Palestinians to other Arab states as the “humanitarian answer” to the Gaza crisis. With any “answer”, there is a “question”, and for Ben-Gvir and Smotrich the question seems to be, how can Israel control the Gaza Strip more completely?
Predictably, both Cairo and Amman have completely rejected the notion of fulfilling this plan. Both see it as complicity in ethnic cleansing, as there is no historical precedent for Palestinians being allowed to return to land in Palestine or Israel after they have left it, irrespective of the reason. Trump’s notion of a Palestinian-free “Gaza riviera” is a fantasy. But what is the eventual plan for Gaza without Palestinians, as far as Israeli politicians who advocate for it are concerned?
The past 15 months have seen repeated calls for resettling Gaza with Israeli Jewish settlements, which are difficult to ignore. While Netanyahu has not mentioned such Jewish resettlement as a strategic priority, ministers in his government have done so, particularly Ben-Gvir, Smotrich and the communications minister Shlomo Karhi, who is from Netanyahu’s own Likud party. Ministers have toured Gaza to discuss Jewish resettlement; they have attended conferences calling for Israeli Jewish settlers to move back to the Strip.
In January 2024, for instance, Israeli ministers attended a rally in Jerusalem which called for Jewish Israelis to return to Gaza. Last May in Sderot, a town near the Gaza border that was attacked by Hamas on 7th October, cabinet ministers and Knesset members also called for the rebuilding of Jewish settlements in the Strip. Karhi told the ultra-nationalist rally in Sderot that resettling Gaza was the only way to ensure Israeli security.
At the same event, Ben-Gvir focused said that “to end the problem, in order that the problem won’t come back, we need to do two things: one, return to Gaza now! Return home! Return to our holy land!” There is clearly strong support for this on parts of the Israeli right, including among government ministers.
Establishing Jewish settlements may not be the first priority of the Netanyahu government, but ensuring this won’t happen doesn’t seem to be, either. When asked about the January rally, Netanyahu said attendees were “entitled to their opinions”. Considering the trend of Israeli politics moving to the right, the government’s support for settlements in the West Bank could plausibly translate into support for settlements in Gaza. Indeed, the New York Times reported in June that, “an influential member” of the coalition had told West Bank settlers “that the government is engaged in a stealthy effort to irreversibly change the way the territory is governed, to cement Israel’s control over it without being accused of formally annexing it”. Smotrich was recorded declaring much the same, and insisting that Netanyahu fully supports the effort.
That the ethnic cleansing of Gaza or establishment of settlements might entrench a pariah status for Israel and its political elites has not yet caused Israel’s leadership to change course. Indeed, the responses of centrist Israeli politicians to Trump’s “Gaza riviera” idea were positive. The leader of Israel’s opposition Yair Lapid, for instance, described the presser in which the US president suggested taking over Gaza as “a good press conference for the state of Israel”.
There would be a tremendous strategic cost if Trump’s plans were to go ahead, not just for Israel but also for the region. The prospects of Israeli normalisation with other countries in the Middle East would likely be set back years, perhaps decades. Moreover, the mass killing of Palestinians and destruction of their homes in Gaza by Israeli forces over the past 15 months is already providing major recruitment material for terrorist movements regionally and worldwide. It will likely do so for many years to come.
But there is a historical moment here that ought not to be ignored. Israel’s prime minister is accused of war crimes by the International Criminal Court, and the International Court of Justice is hearing a case against Israel on genocide. When the history books are written, will it be noted that these atrocities took place in secret, in the fog of war? Or will it be clear to successive generations that the unspeakable was spoken, that the unacceptable was deemed acceptable, that everything happened out in the open? That question is being answered—right now.
