Israeli Prime Minister Binyomin Netanyahu’s visit last week with newly installed President Donald Trump and his administration will long be remembered as a turning point in U.S.-Israel relations by re-establishing a measure of trust between the two leaders based upon President Trump’s bold new, optimistic vision for the future of Gaza and its long-captive Palestinian civilian population.
But the positive outcome of the extended meeting in the Oval Office between Trump, Netanyahu, and their top advisors was not obvious to the Israelis in advance. Trump had proven his strong friendship with Israel during his first term by becoming the first president to recognize Yerushalayim as Israel’s capital and moving the U.S. Embassy there from Tel Aviv. Trump also was the first president to declare the legitimacy of Israel’s settlements in the West Bank and the Golan. At the same time, he cut off U.S. aid to the Palestinian Authority for refusing to cooperate in good faith with U.S. efforts to make peace and to UNWRA, the U.N. agency that has been perpetuating the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for the past 75 years.
But Israel was not actively at war with Hamas and Hezbollah during Trump’s first term, and Netanyahu and his Israeli aids were well aware that Trump had just won re-election to a second term by campaigning on an “America-First” foreign policy platform, in which he pledged to keep the United States away from unnecessary military involvement in foreign wars, and by criticizing the high level of the Biden administration’s continued U.S. military support for Ukraine against the Russian invasion.
Netanyahu told his advisers the night before their Oval Office encounter with Trump that it would be “the most important [meeting] I’ve ever had.” Not only was Netanyahu worried about maintaining the continued flow of U.S. weapons and ammunition which were vital to the IDF’s war-making capability, but also his own political future, knowing that Trump’s support for his war strategy was vital to maintain his position as Israel’s prime minister.
A MOMENTOUS OVAL OFFICE MEETING
That is why, according to Israel Hayom reporter, Ariel Kahana, Netanyahu and his Israeli aides were visibly nervous on their way into the Oval Office meeting. But, “an hour and a half later, those same faces looked entirely different. . . Color had returned to the cheeks of the Israelis, and the atmosphere had lightened. . . The faces of [Netanyahu’s] National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi, political adviser Ophir Falk, and others now appeared completely relaxed. Minister Ron Dermer huddled with [Trump’s Middle East] envoy Steve Witkoff [who also] embraced the new Israeli ambassador, Yechiel Leiter – both bereaved fathers [whose personal losses] had formed a strong bond.”
By that time, Kahana writes, the relieved Israelis knew that “Trump stood firmly with Israel in his uniquely characteristic way. . . Sitting alongside Netanyahu, [Trump started] a geopolitical earthquake [by] doubling down on calls to resettle “1.7 or 1.8 million” Palestinians outside of the Gaza Strip.
“Trump — in the way that only he could do — stated what should have been patently obvious to a normal observer but unspeakable for any world leader: Gaza is completely uninhabitable, and its residents will need to be resettled elsewhere.
“Compared to the [Biden] administration, and certainly in light of the remarkable proposal to evacuate Gaza and rebuild it, [Israel] couldn’t ask for more. In his insistence on emptying Gaza, Trump. . . made it clear that all [previous failed attempts to solve the Gaza problem were] worthless in his eyes. Trump stated something profoundly true: for almost 80 years, Gaza has produced only death and destruction.”
Reporter Kahana wrote, “If Trump’s suggestions come to pass, it will. . . represent the [beginning of the] end of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. . . [because it] will permanently alter the demographic reality between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. . . [and remove] once and for all the phony [antisemitic] claims that Israel is an apartheid state.”
TRUMP’S HOPES FOR A LARGER AND MORE ENDURING PEACE
“The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip,” Trump declared, and then clarified, “I do see a long-term [U.S.] ownership position, and I see it bringing great stability to that part of the Middle East, and maybe the entire Middle East.”
To explain the need for civilians to evacuate the strip, Trump added that “right now, Gaza is a demolition site. Virtually every building is down. They’re living on their fallen concrete that’s very dangerous and very precarious.”
He also said that he would like to see “really good quality housing” built for the Palestinians of Gaza, which would provide jobs and stability for the whole region, including both Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs.
“I’m hopeful that this cease-fire could be the beginning of a larger and more enduring peace [across the Middle East] that will end the bloodshed and killing once and for all,” Trump declared.
However, Trump’s proposal to evacuate Gaza so that it could be rebuilt was rejected by the major U.S. allies in the region, including Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Qatar. The Saudi Foreign Ministry issued a statement that rejected “any violation of the rights of the Palestinian people, whether through settlement, land annexation, or attempts to displace the Palestinian people from their land.”
BEHIND TRUMP’S DRAMATIC OPENING BID IN A TOUGH NEGOTIATION
But those who are familiar with Trump’s tactics as a successful real estate developer believe that he must have anticipated the initial hostile reaction from the Arab world to his call to remove Gaza’s population of 2.2 million Palestinians so that the U.S. could oversee the process of rebuilding the strip from scratch. They suggest that Trump was not making that proposal as a realistic final solution to the Gaza problem, but rather offering it as an opening bid in a long negotiation, based upon the strategy he described in his 1987 book, The Art of the Deal.
In difficult business situations, Trump will typically start a negotiation with an extreme demand that is so outrageous that it expands the outer limits of what was previously considered possible. Then, when the inevitable pushback comes from the other side, Trump has the bargaining room he needs to negotiate down to a more reasonable position that, while far less extreme than his initial proposal, is still much better than the previous maximum that had been considered possible by both sides.
In this case, with regard to Trump’s call for the evacuation of Gaza’s civilian population, he will likely either get what he wants from the leaders of Egypt and Jordan and the other pro-American Arab states, or he will extract a significant compromise from them which will still be much more favorable to Israel’s interests than even Israel’s most right-wing politicians had previously believed possible.
At the White House press conference, Trump recognized that the purpose of Hamas’ October 7 assault was “an all-out attack on the very existence of a Jewish state in the Jewish homeland.
“Israel fought back bravely,” Trump continued. “The Israelis stood strong and united in the face of an enemy that kidnapped, tortured, and slaughtered innocent women and children. I salute the Israeli people for meeting this trial with courage and determination and unflinching resolve.”
While then-President Biden’s statements were also strongly supportive of Israel’s right to defend itself, they were always carefully “balanced” with the implied criticism that “how Israel conducts its war matters,” meant to limit Israel’s ability to wage war as effectively as necessary against Hamas and to appease the outspoken anti-Israel progressive wing of Biden’s Democrat party.
Trump made it clear that his goals in Gaza were the same as Netanyahu’s by declaring that the “prime minister and I focused on the future, discussing how we can work together to ensure Hamas is eliminated and ultimately restore peace to a very troubled region.”
Trump also broadly hinted that he may even recognize full Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank. “We’re discussing that … and people do like the idea,” the president said. “We haven’t taken a position on it yet, but we’ll be making one probably on that very specific topic over the next four weeks.”
NETANYAHU PRAISES
TRUMP’S UNQUALIFIED SUPPORT FOR ISRAEL
At that press conference, Netanyahu said that he understood why Trump made his radical proposal to evacuate and remake Gaza. “I believe, Mr. President, that your willingness to puncture conventional thinking that has failed time and time again, and today, your willingness to think outside the box with fresh ideas,” the prime minister said.
“You cut to the chase; you see things others refuse to see. You say things others refuse to say. And then, after the jaws drop, people scratch their heads, and they say, ‘He said what?’ And this is the kind of thinking that enabled us to bring the Abraham Accords. . .
“This is [also] the kind of thinking that will reshape the Middle East and bring peace,” Netanyahu added.
“Israel will end the war by winning,” he emphasized. “And Israel’s victory will be America’s victory. We’ll not only win the war working together, but we’ll win the peace with your leadership, Mr. President, and our partnership. I believe that we will forge a brilliant future for our region and bring our great alliance to even greater heights.”
Netanyahu said that he was determined to ensure Gaza wouldn’t host terrorists again, but with his proposal, Trump took that concept “to a much higher level.”
“It is something that could change history, and it is worthwhile really pursuing this avenue.”
“Israel has no better friend than America,” Netanyahu continued. “And now, under President Trump’s leadership, America has no greater friend than Israel. It’s a great beginning and a restart, a recalibration of our great alliance.”
In a televised interview with Fox News commentator Mark Levin, Netanyahu described the improvement in the U.S.-Israeli relationship after Trump took office as “instantaneous.”
After winning the November election, Trump issued a stern warning to Hamas, warning them of terrible retribution if the hostages being held in Gaza were not released, resulting in a long-sought ceasefire/hostage-release deal being signed shortly before Trump took office.
Soon thereafter, Trump lifted a hold on the delivery of a large shipment of 2,000-pound bombs to Israel that Biden had held up to prevent Israel from attacking the last Hamas stronghold in the southern Gaza city of Rafah.
Netanyahu said, “I think President Trump is the greatest friend that Israel has ever had in the White House. He’s not only making a tremendous change in the Israeli-American alliance, strengthening it beyond anything we’ve seen up to now but also, he’s a great leader for America and the world. . .
“In the first two weeks [after he took office], he did everything that he promised to do. He went against antisemitism, went against the ICC, this corrupt so-called International [Criminal] Court that targets America, targets Israel, targets democracies.”
The ICC has issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu, falsely accusing him of committing war crimes by ordering the IDF’s military response to the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack that murdered more than 1200 Israelis. Neither the U.S. nor Israel recognizes the ICC’s authority.
TRUMP HAS CREATED NEW OPPORTUNITIES FOR ISRAEL
Shortly after he returned to Israel, Netanyahu told his cabinet, “I’m returning now from a historic visit to Washington, with President Donald Trump, with officials in his administration and with the heads of the Senate and Congress,” the prime minister continued. “This trip, and the conversations we held with the president of the United States, included additional incredible achievements that can guarantee the security of Israel for generations. . .
“I’m not overstating. There are opportunities here for possibilities that I don’t think we ever dreamed of — or at least until the last few months, they didn’t seem possible, but they are possible.”
Netanyahu noted, “For a full year, we’ve been told that on the ‘day after’ [the war ends], we need the PLO in the Gaza Strip, we need the PA [Palestinian Authority]. [But] Trump came with a totally different vision, a much better one for Israel. . .
“[His proposal is] revolutionary, creative — and we’re discussing it. He is very determined to carry it out. It opens up many opportunities for us.”
White House officials have told reporters that, despite the public objections by Egypt and Jordan to Trump’s plan for a mass relocation from Gaza, they believe that Trump will ultimately be able to persuade them to accept the displaced Palestinians. To that end, Trump has already invited Jordan’s King Abdullah II and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi to visit him in the White House for talks later this month.
Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, also said that the three- to five-year timeline for the reconstruction of Gaza’s housing and infrastructure specified in the current Israeli-Hamas cease-fire agreement that he helped to negotiate is not realistic. In an interview broadcast on Fox News with Sean Hannity, Witkoff said, “Gaza today is uninhabitable and will probably be uninhabitable for at least the next 10 to 15 years. That’s how much work has to be done there.”
“At some point, we have to look realistically. How do you rebuild Gaza?” said White House national security adviser Mike Waltz. “What does that look like? What’s the timeline? These people [in Gaza] are sitting with literally thousands of unexploded ordnances, in piles of rubble.”
Waltz also said that Trump is hoping that his evacuation and rebuilding proposal will motivate Arab countries who want to help the Palestinians living in Gaza “to come with their own solutions.”
TRUMP’S DETAILED PLAN FOR THE REVITALIZATION OF GAZA
Trump and his team are working with a detailed plan for the clearing and reconstruction of Gaza. It was developed and published last year by Dr. Joseph Pelzman, who is the head of the Center of Excellence for the Economic Study of the Middle East and North Africa at George Washington University.
During a podcast interview with Israeli historian Dr. Kobby Barda last August, Dr. Pelzman recalled that “I was asked [by Trump’s team] to think outside the box on what do we do after [the war in Gaza was over], as nobody was really talking about it.”
According to World Bank data, Gaza’s economy has been losing ground steadily. Between 2007 and 2022, Gaza’s annual GDP growth averaged 0.4%, but because of its high rate of population growth, per capita GDP, which is a measure of an individual’s standard of living, was falling at the rate of 2.5% per year.
That steady economic decline was accelerated when the war broke out between Israel and Hamas on October 7, 2023.
The most recent World Bank data from March 2024 estimated that approximately 1.2 million Gaza residents were homeless and destitute “due to Hamas actions.” According to a United Nations estimate, 69% of all the buildings in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed by the war, and many of those still standing have been so severely damage that they are uninhabitable. In addition, 90% of the main roads in Gaza have been destroyed.
Dr. Pelzman said in the podcast that these facts prompted him to conclude that the destruction in Gaza was so extensive that it was beyond repair or reconstruction. Instead, he told interviewer Barda, “You have to destroy the whole place [and] restart it from scratch.”
In terms of reviving Gaza’s economy, Pelzman said that there were three viable sectors to start with. “You have tourism potential, you have agriculture potential, and then – because a lot of [the Palestinians] are smart – you have high-tech.”
But he said that before the recovery process could get started, “Its implementation requires the area to be completely vacated so that the destroyed concrete can be recycled.” He also said that it was necessary to ensure “that nothing remains of the vertical construction extending deep underground,” which means “the complete excavation of the terror tunnels.”
Pelzman also estimated that “the cost of this massive reconstruction of Gaza will range from $1 to $2 trillion and will take 5 to 10 years to complete.”
A PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIP TO REBUILD GAZA
Pelzman recommends that the reconstruction work be carried out by a public-private partnership following the BOT (Build-Operate-Transfer) method that is used in developing countries. The private sector companies and organizations would receive a property lease from the government for 50-100 years, during which it would build and operate the projects for a profit. When the lease expires, the ownership would then be transferred to a public authority.
Pelzman envisions the construction of restaurants, hotels, and other luxury tourist amenities on Gaza’s western Mediterranean seafront. On the eastern side of Gaza, facing the Israeli border, would be built high-rise (30-story) residential buildings similar to those being built in China. The land between those two sections would be an agricultural area, including greenhouses, presumably following the model of the Gush Katif settlements, which established a worldwide market for their hydroponically grown vegetables before the 2005 Gaza disengagement.
Pelzman suggests that the responsibility for maintaining security be assigned to unnamed “partners who share the common interest of removing Hamas and their co-conspirators from any role” and who are “interested in demilitarizing Gaza permanently.”
He also recommends that the rebuilt Gaza be self-sufficient in the generation of electricity using solar panels, maintain its airport and seaports, and develop a new educational system from kindergarten to university level based upon deradicalization, and whose curriculum will be based upon the recently reformed curricula adopted by the UAE or Saudi Arabia.
Pelzman’s plan would see a Gaza Strip powered entirely by solar energy, traversed by a light rail system and serviced by air- and sea-ports. The Strip will be independent of Israel for its energy needs.
One of the goals of Trump’s development project would be to upgrade the public image of Gaza. Instead of being used as an overcrowded and neglected dumping ground for four generations of Palestinian refugees, where nobody would want to live if they had any other choice, Gaza would become a prime piece of real estate. Its luxury Mediterranean seafront would attract tourists, its agricultural land would flourish due to the fertile sands of the Egyptian Delta, its abundant solar energy would attract all kinds of industry, and its comfortable residential apartments would provide good homes for Palestinian families. Gaza has natural resources that could have turned it into a thriving hub of trade, tourism, and industry, if only it had not been ruled by terrorists who turned it into a base for spewing death and destruction.
THE TRAGEDY OF THE DISENGAGEMENT
Before Israel’s voluntary disengagement from Gaza in 2005, its Jewish residents enjoyed a comfortable and prosperous lifestyle. Since Israel’s unilateral withdrawal, first, the Palestinian Authority and then Hamas had every opportunity to develop Gaza’s economic potential, but failed to take advantage of the many opportunities to improve the lives of its residents.
The Israeli army offered to leave behind 21 intact settlements which could have provided comfortable housing for thousands of Palestinian families, but the Palestinian Authority refused the offer. The leveled sites of the settlements were used, instead, as launching sites for Hamas missiles aimed at Israeli towns. American Jewish donors purchased more than 3,000 fully functional greenhouses from departing settlers for $14 million, which were deliberately left behind for use by the Palestinians. Instead, the greenhouses were stripped by looters of their irrigation hoses, water pumps, and plastic sheeting, which were then sold for scrap.
After the 2007 Hamas takeover, Gaza was turned into a giant military fortress festooned with terror tunnels and missile launch sites for attacking Israel. Meanwhile, its civilian residents were used as human shields, and legally protected buildings, such as hospitals and schools, were routinely used, in violation of international law, to shelter Hamas fighters from retaliation by the IDF.
Billions of dollars from international contributors, such as the U.S., European Union, and Qatar, were diverted by Hamas from their intended humanitarian and economic development uses to the procurement of armaments and terrorist infrastructure with which to attack Israel.
Meanwhile, UNRWA created a unique system of hereditary Palestinian refugeehood, preventing Gaza from ever becoming a true home for the Palestinians who have lived there for generations. UNRWA’s educational system has indoctrinated generations of Gaza’s children with feelings of hatred towards Israel, personal victimhood, and the mythical Palestinian right of return, 75 years after Israel became a widely recognized legitimate member of the United Nations.
IS GAZA A PALESTINIAN HOME OR AN OPEN-AIR PRISON
Ever since the 2005 Gaza disengagement, in which Israel voluntarily gave up its presence in Gaza and gifted it, with no strings attached, to the Palestinians, they have been claiming that Gaza is not really their home but rather is still an Israeli-controlled open-air prison. However, now that Trump is offering the Gaza Palestinians a way out of that prison, they are saying that they really won’t agree to leave, even temporarily, so that it can be cleaned up and rebuilt.
Does that mean that Gaza never really was a prison in the first place? And if that is so, does that mean that Gaza’s Palestinians are giving up their claim that their “homeland” is still inside Israel’s pre-1967 borders? Here is a hint: Don’t hold your breath waiting for Palestinians and their advocates to answer those questions.
Donald Trump’s Gaza reconstruction proposal would turn Gaza’s Palestinian residents, who are shunned by other Arab states, into people with internationally recognized citizenship and valuable property rights to their homes within Gaza itself.
Hamas should never have been permitted to take control of Gaza, but even Israel didn’t care enough to do anything to stop it at the time. As a result, for almost 20 years, Hamas has used Gaza as a base to wage an endless war against Israel, which was left with no other choice but to destroy Gaza in order to protect its citizens. But if the Palestinians accept Trump’s invitation to leave Gaza, then Hamas can’t use them as human shields or continue to exploit, steal, and sell humanitarian aid.
LEARNING THE LESSONS OF OCTOBER 7
The October 7 massacre happened because those responsible for Israel’s security ignored Gaza, enabling Hamas to grow too big, strong, and dangerous. Netanyahu and Trump have learned from that mistake, and realize that just rebuilding Gaza as it was, yet again and permitting Hamas to continue running it, is a formula for the ultimate repetition of the horrors of October 7.
Former Israeli ambassador to the U.S. and noted Middle East historian Michael Oren also believes that Trump’s Gaza reconstruction proposal is more serious than it might appear to be at first glance. Unlike the other radical first moves of Trump’s presidency, such as the proposed imposition of 25% tariffs on goods imported from Canada and Mexico or the furlough of thousands of federal employees, Oren believes that Trump’s Gaza proposal represents a fundamental shift in the long-established U.S. policy for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
While the goals of the Biden administration in Gaza included a ceasefire, the release of all of the hostages held by Hamas, and the transfer of political control in Gaza to the Palestinian Authority, the administration did not have a serious plan for demilitarizing Gaza, or a way to prevent the Palestinian Authority from losing control over Gaza to Hamas, as it did in 2007. The Biden administration also lacked the imagination to figure out how Gaza could be rebuilt while two million Palestinians were still living there, or how to find and disarm thousands of unexploded bombs and munitions that lie hidden in the rubble.
BIDEN REPEATED THE MISTAKES OF THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION
In addition to their failure to address these practical problems, President Biden and his administration, just like President Barack Obama and his administration, had naively convinced themselves that the creation of a Palestinian state under the two-state solution would end the conflict with Israel and that Iran’s nuclear threat could be neutralized by appeasement rather than by confronting it.
American diplomats have wasted the past 30 years in fruitless efforts to negotiate a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict based upon the Oslo Accords, which ultimately resulted in the tragedy of Hamas’ October 7 attack and the thousands of Jewish and Arab lives that have been lost. Nevertheless, we are still being lectured by the same foreign policy and Middle East experts who claim that they understand history and its consequences, yet insist that the failed two-state solution is the only viable path to peace, despite the mountain of evidence to the contrary. It is long past time for a new generation of foreign policy experts who have learned from the success of the Abraham Accords and are ready to help Trump and Netanyahu as they find a new path to peace in the Middle East.
According to a pair of essays by Oren published last week on the Ynet website in Israel and the Free Press in the U.S., President Trump long ago recognized these failures, and “with a single dramatic move, Trump is rewriting the Middle East diplomatic playbook. He recognizes that Gaza will remain a breeding ground for violence and war unless it is demilitarized and rebuilt. He understands that neither goal is achievable as long as Hamas remains in control and Palestinian refugees lack even the most basic services. He also acknowledges that Iran cannot be incentivized into cooperation — it must be punished and prevented from continuing to fund terrorist groups. . .”
TRUMP CHALLENGED THE PALESTINIAN RELIANCE ON VICTIMHOOD
“Perhaps most significantly,” Oren adds, “Trump is challenging what he sees as a long-standing Palestinian dependency on victimhood — one that U.S. leaders have allowed to persist for decades. . . Instead, he is offering them a chance to break free from this cycle and secure a better future for their children and grandchildren.”
Oren concedes that “the odds of carrying out such an ambitious project — relocating Gaza’s population and deploying U.S. forces to take control — remain slim. But that may not be the point. Even if Trump’s vision never materializes, he has fundamentally and irreversibly changed the conversation.”
Trump is offering the Palestinian people a much better alternative than remaining prisoners in a destroyed Gaza to serve as human shields in Hamas’ next war with Israel. Instead, he is offering to give them a fresh start in a “good, fresh, beautiful piece of land.”
Both Trump and Netanyahu believe that Saudi Arabia can be convinced to sign the Abraham Accords, making peace with Israel without the need to establish a Palestinian state, which is clearly unacceptable to the Israeli people in their post-October 7 view of the world.
OVERCOMING THE OBSTACLES TO A SAUDI-ISRAELI AGREEMENT
While it was not until the Gaza war that the Saudi government began making clear demands for Palestinian statehood, some foreign policy analysts believe that the prize that the Saudis want the most for signing the Abraham Accords with Israel has nothing to do with the Palestinians. More than anything, the Saudis want a defense agreement with the United States. But any overt agreement between Israel and the Saudis would also change the balance of power, not only in the Middle East but also in Israel’s relations with every country in the Muslim world.
Many of the details of these policies remain to be worked out, but according to Oren, what is most important to Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders is the commitment by Trump that “neither Gaza nor the West Bank will become a Palestinian state on his watch.”
Trump also believes that “a Palestinian state is not necessary to a resolution of the regional [Israeli-Arab] conflict,” in sharp contrast to the American policy of “linkage” over the past 30 years, which has claimed that the Israel-Palestine conflict could be solved only through the establishment of a Palestinian state.
This policy persisted despite the Palestinian leadership’s stubborn rejection of statehood offers, on increasingly generous terms, in 1937, 1948, 2000, 2001, and 2008. As Israeli foreign minister Abba Eban once famously said, after attending a failed 1973 peace conference in Geneva, “The Arabs never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.”
THE LESSON FROM ARAB SUPPORT FOR THE OCTOBER 7 ATTACK
According to Oren, what has been most alarming is the stubborn refusal by Palestinians and their leaders over the past 88 years to commit themselves to “ever make a permanent peace with Israel,” as was most recently demonstrated by “their overwhelming support for the horrors of October 7, 2023.”
Oren also wrote, “For Trump today, the core problem in the Middle East is not the absence of a … state for the Palestinians, but the presence of a Palestinian population condemned to pursue conflict, both by. . . their addiction to a victimhood narrative. . . [and] the lack of economic opportunity in the ‘demolition site’ — his phrase — of Gaza.
“Once the problem of Gaza is resolved, [Trump] apparently holds, the Saudis and perhaps other Sunni states can reconcile with Israel.”
But Oren also notes that “even if Trump’s radical vision [for Gaza] could be realized, the overall threat of Iran would remain.” Trump also knows, unlike Biden and Obama, “that the ayatollahs cannot be bought but only coerced.”
Nevertheless, Trump has said that he would prefer to negotiate with Iran to end its nuclear threat to the region rather than bomb it. He recently wrote on his Truth Social account that instead of a U.S.-Israeli joint attack to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, he would “much prefer a [negotiated] Verified Nuclear Peace Agreement which will let Iran peacefully grow and prosper.”
But if the negotiations don’t work, his next step, short of a pre-emptive air strike, is “to resume the enforcement of his first term sanctions on Iran, with the goal of reducing its oil export income to zero. . . which, during his previous term, dried up Tehran’s terror-supporting cash reserves.”
TRUMP BRINGS BACK “MAXIMUM PRESSURE” ON IRAN
Trump signed an executive order last week to restart the “maximum pressure” process against the Iranian regime.
After adopting these positions concerning Gaza and Iran, Trump declared, “I’m hopeful that this will end the bloodshed and killing once and for all” and “rebuild American strength throughout the region.”
According to Elliott Abrams, a veteran foreign policy advisor who served presidents Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, and Donald Trump, writing in Foreign Affairs magazine, President Donald Trump has benefited immensely from the “opportunities [that] have emerged from Israel’s decimation of Hezbollah and Hamas, its successful attacks on Iran, and the collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria.”
Abrams also notes that while the dangers facing the U.S. today from “Iran’s advances toward nuclear weapons and the close relationships [Iran] has forged with Russia and China. . . are unquestionably grave, on balance, the potential upsides outweigh the possible downsides. Indeed, it has been a long time since the Middle East has offered an environment so favorable to American interests.”
“A year and a half ago, Iran’s foreign policy could have been considered enormously successful. The country’s nuclear weapons program was steadily producing enriched uranium. . . And the ‘ring of fire’ of Iranian proxies and allies — Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza, Shiite militias in Iraq and Syria, and the Houthis in Yemen —seemed to be a problem Israel could not solve.”
HOW ISRAEL TURNED THE TABLES ON IRAN
“But since then, Israel has turned the tables. Hamas [may not have been defeated, but]. . . it will never again pose a serious military threat to Israel. The Israelis have wiped out Hezbollah’s leadership and given Lebanon a chance to reclaim its sovereignty. Assad’s regime is gone,” and Iran’s longtime strategy for the destruction of Israel has been reduced to shambles.
Abrams writes that “Trump can take advantage of the situation, but only if his administration . . . abandons. . . what American policymakers have called ‘stability,’ [which] has meant the preservation of the situation in which Gaza was entirely under Hamas control, Hezbollah dominated Lebanon, and Iran’s nuclear program advanced. . .
“Now, the United States has a chance to stop that process and aim instead for. . . bolstering its interests and allies and actively weakening its adversaries.”
Abrams also believes that somehow, “without embracing the demand for a Palestinian state, [Trump] must find ways to make the idea of Palestinian self-government less threatening to Israel — at least in the West Bank. . . There must be some legitimate and competent Palestinian governing entity” that Israel can accept, other than the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, that will be acceptable to Israel and the United States.
TIME FOR UNRWA TO BE REPLACED
Abrams also writes that in addition to ending U.S. funding for UNRWA, he “should insist that it be replaced by the collaborative efforts of effective U.N. agencies such as the World Food Program, UNICEF, and the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.”
While Abrams considers Trump’s proposal that the United States “take over” and rebuild Gaza to be unworkable, he suggests that “it might better be seen as a reflection of the fact that no realistic plan for Gaza exists,” and highlighting the urgent need for new, “out-of-the-box” thinking to find an acceptable replacement for Hamas as the ruler over Gaza going forward.
Abrams counsels caution and continued vigilance by the Trump administration, despite Israel’s impressive recent military accomplishments. But he also believes that the most important result is that “the United States now has a chance to keep Iran and its allies off balance. Because the only true solution to the problem of the Islamic Republic is its demise.”
He also holds up President Ronald Reagan’s relations with the Soviet Union, which led to its ultimate collapse, as a reminder of the possible benefits of engaging in negotiations with an enemy state.
Abrams urges the Trump administration to view tough negotiations with Iran as an essential “tactic in the long struggle for a peaceful Middle East, a goal that cannot be reached until [Iran’s] Islamic Republic is replaced by a government that is legitimate in the eyes of the Iranian people and that abandons its terrorist proxies, its hatred of the United States and Israel, and its desire to dominate other countries in the region.
“To hasten the arrival of such a day,” Abrams concludes, “Trump should. . . exploit the advantages which were created in good part by Israeli action.”
John Podhoretz is a popular conservative commentator who has served as the editor of Commentary magazine for the past 15 years, has expressed his confidence in Donald Trump’s plan for Gaza because the president knows what must be done for it to be cleared and rebuilt into the Riviera of the Middle East, and how it will be paid for.
Podhoretz also believes that, despite the best efforts of President Biden and his foreign policy team, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, the Israeli people and their leaders will not agree to the creation of a Palestinian state. This conclusion was drawn from the disturbing images of Gaza’s “innocent Palestinian civilian” mobs, with bloodlust in their eyes, terrorizing surviving Jewish hostages one last time before permitting them to finally return to the Israeli people.
The members of those Gaza mobs are the same people who would form the nucleus of such a Palestinian state. He compared them to the citizens of Germany at the end of World War II who had to be de-Nazified before they could be trusted to govern themselves once more. The Palestinians are not there yet, and they may never be, but Israel will never agree to giving them a state, because to do so would risk another October 7, which taught us all a bitter lesson that we will never forget.
Podhoretz writes that “the world before October 7 was unsustainable because October 7 happened, and there’s no going back, which is a good thing.”
It is also a “good thing” that Israel’s true friend, Donald Trump, has returned to the White House with a new vision for bringing a lasting peace to the entire Middle East.
