The Trump Doctrine: Gaza, Leverage, and the Art of the Shock Proposal
In the press conference that reverberated around the world, President Trump, barely two weeks into his second term, all but undid 70 years of U.S. Middle East policy. As he stood alongside the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the first head of government to visit Washington since Trump’s inauguration, he proclaimed the U.S. should claim ownership of Gaza, and that the Palestinians who call it home would be better off seeking greener pastures elsewhere.
After expelling its inhabitants and clearing the debris, the U.S. would then rebuild Gaza into a Middle East Riviera, populated by people of the world -including ‘magnanimously,’ some Palestinians. The two million inhabitants would be shuttled off to Egypt, or Jordan or one of several other locations yet to be determined, but which would feature great quality housing according to Trump.
He first proposed the idea of displacing the Palestinians last week, which raised concerns across the Arab world, and then twice again before the Israeli Prime Minister’s visit to Washington. At that point, alarm bells were ringing across the Middle East and Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Palestine issued a joint statement rejecting the idea as a fundamental breach of the entire Middle East peace architecture.
In the day since Trump’s statement, the international community has erupted in opposition, with almost every government across the world refusing the proposal outright. In addition to Arab governments, who have reiterated their position, European capitals have rejected the proposal, as did China and Russia, among a flurry of other voices around the world.
The question, as it increasingly seems to be when dealing with Donald Trump, is whether he was serious or simply using a ‘shock and awe’ strategy to force a better deal.
Control as a Solution: Trump’s Pattern of Seizure Politics
If taken alone, without any other context of Trump’s behavior since assuming the presidency, his position on Gaza makes little sense. It alienates his partners, particularly Arab states, unravels decades of American policy, reduces U.S. credibility in the region, and achieves little progress on the issue it purportedly seeks to solve. It puts the U.S. at odds with the broader international community, and gives openings for its rivals to interject and undermine U.S. influence in the Middle East and on the international stage.
However, looking at it in the context of his recent decisions, the image become a little clearer. Since assuming the reigns of the presidency for the second term, Trump has made one thing clear: his solution to problems is through seeking direct control, or threatening to seize control, until the problem is resolved. When he was informed that China was gaining influence over the Panama Canal, his first instinct was to demand control of it. When he was told that Greenland is a national security concern for the U.S., again his kneejerk reaction was to acquire it. When he learned that there the U.S. has a large trade deficit with Canada, he suggested absorbing it as the 51st state. The pattern is clear: if it is a problem, seize it.
Consistent with this pattern, when confronted with the Gaza crisis, his reaction was to take over. It is, from his perspective, a problem that the parties involved cannot or will not solve, therefore, it must be seized and controlled. Following this logic, taking control over the Strip would solve every problem; without Palestinians or Israelis there, there would be no conflict, and the war in the region would be resolved. The added bonus of a potential real estate deal only makes this solution all that more attractive to him. The fact that it could present an unprecedented win, and that it would award him points with some very important circles within the U.S. political ecosystem would also have factored into this position.
In the new administration, decision making, including on foreign policy has become highly centralized and decoupled from institutional memory and long standing U.S. positions, not only on the Middle East as we are seeing here, but across the board, whether on NATO, on trade, or on the U.S. role in multilateral frameworks around the world.
Viewing this statement through the lens of institutional decision-making leads to confusion and misinterpretation. The dynamic now hinges on Trump’s approach, style, and individual assessment of the course of action, not on institutional positions held by previous administrations. When looking at what he said, and to understand the reasoning behind why he said it, it is necessary to readjust the sights; Trump’s perspective, not American government policies, take precedence.
His positions do not consider issues that he considers irrelevant or constraining. Things like international law or long-standing alliances, for example, have little bearing on his decisions. The treaties between the U.S. and Panama on the neutrality of the Canal guaranteeing U.S. interests did not stop Trump from threatening to retake it, and neither did the fact that Denmark (which Greenland is a part of) is a member of NATO stop him from his pursuit of the island.
Whereas an institutional outlook would have entailed deep consideration of American obligations, previous positions, policy outlooks, and other factors, Trump’s centralized, transactional approach prioritizes short-term wins over long-term strategy, that he can either leverage for political rewards or profit.
So what’s the takeaway from this?
Trump is looking for the Occam’s razor: the simplest and most direct route to achieving his goal, which is victory or the optics of winning. Trump is not an ideologue; he does not care whether the solution works for Israel or Palestine, he just wants the headache of having to deal with this issue gone, and to claim victory by solving it, and reap the consequent rewards.
The pathway to this victory, in his mind, is that of bold moves that would shake the confidence of all the other parties at the table and grant him the leverage to dictate terms. If they acquiesce to the demands and give in, that would be a great outcome, if however he has to negotiate, then he can do so from a considerably stronger position that he would have otherwise been in. For instance, to this day, he has not yet ruled out using military force to acquire Greenland, because as Marco Rubio put it, he does not like to remove leverage from the negotiation.
It is also important to factor in the President’s surrounding ecosystem. Unlike his previous term, where he had in his administration voices that reined him in, this time round he has carefully constructed a powerful echo chamber of loyalists. In his immediate vicinity, there are no voices that counter his positions, some because of ideological affinity, and others due to political indebtedness for their appointments.
This means that when he makes outrageous statements or suggestions, there is little to hold him in check, and only when external voices seep into his awareness through does he consider alternative courses of action. It also means that his ideas get reinforced through this echo chamber; we saw him float the idea of displacement last week, reconfirm it to himself over the course of the following days, and then solidify it in his own mind with his statement at the press conference.
This same ecosystem also appears to have within it key actors who are looking at Gaza for its profit potential; his own son in law proposed the idea of taking Gaza for its waterfront value early last year, something that must have factored into Trump’s decision to make this statement in the way he did. Even the way he phrased it makes it apparent that he is thinking of the issue in terms of real estate more so than politics; using the words “long term ownership position” is reminiscent of acquiring a patch of land for future profit rather than attempting to find a solution to a long standing political problem. He even added that several people he had spoken to about this proposed displacement and U.S. acquisition of Gaza ‘loved the idea.’
With those factors in mind therefore the question persists: is he serious about the proposition, or is he anchoring in anticipation of tough negotiations between Israel and the Arab states on the future of Palestine?
Magical Thinking in the Middle East
If we were to assume that he is serious about the proposition, then we would have to accept his underlying assumption that the Palestinians only want to return to Gaza because they don’t have any other choice, and that given a chance to go somewhere else, they would welcome the opportunity. Why, he asks repeatedly, would they want to go back there when it is a dangerous pile of rubble full of unexploded ordinances? When asked whether that meant that Israeli settlers would replace the displaced Palestinians, he had a similar response.
In this scenario, Trump appears to have convinced himself that the Palestinians would happily pack their belongings and travel to one of several yet to be determined locations, featuring ‘lovely well-constructed’ housing complexes where they could live their lives happily while the U.S. develops Gaza and sells it to international buyers who would live there on the Middle Eastern Riviera.
In this hypothetical, Egypt and Jordan, as well as other unspecified countries, will willingly and with ‘humanitarian hearts,’ surrender parts of their territories to host the displaced Palestinians, participating unquestioningly in the ethnic cleansing of Gaza in favor of U.S. acquisition of the territory. They would, in this imaginary situation, have no objections or questions about the fate of the remaining Palestinians in the West Bank, who would undoubtedly suffer a similar situation in the future.
They would also not question the future of their own territories, which, with the precedents set by not only accepting but also participating in the displacement of Palestinians would be up for grabs as well. After all, Sinai has some exceptional waterfront property overlooking the Red Sea that may present another real estate opportunity, as does Jordans Dead Sea coast.
In this bizarre reality, Israel would find itself quietly seething as the U.S. under Trump proceeds to develop the land so deeply coveted by its expansionist right wing into a Riviera that they could no longer seize by force because that would put them at odds with their primary benefactor. In this case, the success of U.S. acquisition of Gaza would likely spur momentum to replicate the experiment elsewhere in the region, maybe even the West Bank, and Israel would be boxed in on both sides by U.S.-controlled territories it could no longer hope to annex.
To entice the Palestinians to accept this deal, the President is offering great housing, that would be paid for by others as he emphasized, where they would be able to live in peace far from worries about being killed or shot as they have been enduring for so long. He would, allegedly, provide them with something so good that they would not even want to go back. After all, there would be nothing to go back to because the U.S. has taken a long-term ownership position after it cleared up the devastation.
In this kumbaya vision, the Arab gulf states would pay for the construction of these cities, Egypt and Jordan would host the displaced Palestinians and everyone would be invited to the grand opening of the Middle East riviera, while they celebrated the peace achieved by forging the real estate deal of the century.
Demand the Absurd, Settle for Less?
Trump has already referenced the outright rejection of the idea by several Arab countries, stating that he would be able to eventually convince them to come around. However, there are several indicators that point to the idea that this is a negotiation tactic.
The first is that he praised -repeatedly- Saudi Arabia and Qatar for their constructive roles in the process, despite the former making it absolutely clear in no uncertain terms repeatedly that it would not even consider any normalization deal without a clear pathway to a Palestinian state encompassing Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem. He also spoke in positive terms about both the Egyptian President and the King of Jordan, both of whom are due to visit Washington in the coming weeks, and both of whom have already stated their categorical refusal of his proposal.
With those elements in mind, this scenario could see Trump escalating the stakes to pressure both countries on national security grounds, making any other alternative more palatable by comparison. If they are facing a potential threat to their internal stability, they may be more amenable to propositions that they deemed distasteful even a short while ago to avert, in their minds, a looming catastrophe.
Similarly, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE might reconsider their firm stance on Palestine if they perceive the threat of displacement as real. If the option is, for example, between ceding their position on East Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state or facing an event that could trigger widespread regional turbulence sparked by Palestinian displacement, then they may favor the former to avert the latter.
Supporting this direction are several statements, including the one made by Trump’s National Security Advisor who said that the Trump’s displacement proposal will galvanize the Arab states to bring their own solutions to the table, and the statement by the White House Spokesperson during her press briefing where she stressed that the President was not committed to troops on the ground (nor did he rule them out) and that he expected Egypt and Jordan to ‘temporarily’ take refugees from Gaza ‘while their homes were being rebuilt.’
These statements are already somewhat different from the position expressed by the President during his press conference where he had stated an interest in a long term “ownership position” and made no mention of returning Palestinians to Gaza.
Testing for Cracks: Who Will Bend First?
Trump may also be exploring the weakest link through which he could force a quick deal. By proposing this solution, one that sees neither Palestine nor Israel in control of the strip, and that has provoked widespread concern across the Middle East, he may be seeking the entry point for a quick resolution.
Israel has too much power and influence over U.S. elections through its formidable lobby for Trump to risk alienating it at this point in his tenure. With a slim majority in the House and the Senate, alienating Israel risks ceding control of Congress in the next election cycle which could potentially impact his ability to execute his desired policies for the second half of his administration. However, Netanyahu is vulnerable, with a shaky coalition and an opposition that is chomping at the bit to take over, and already gaining ground, Netanyahu’s tenuous political position is contingent on securing American support.
Saudi Arabia is an emerging regional powerhouse, the linchpin of Trump’s Abraham Accord strategy of integrating Israel into the broader Middle East architecture, and has already promised 600 billion dollars of investment into the U.S. over the next four years. It is a key player in the economic aspect of the Accords, upon which the President places considerable weight, and an important client of U.S. military technology. While reliant on U.S. military might to deter Iran, it has been gradually hedging its bets through diversifying the sources of its military equipment including from China, and has been cautiously improving its ties with Iran. Despite that, it remains heavily reliant on the U.S. as a backstop for any potential escalation in the region, and therefore keen on sustaining its strategic partnership with the global superpower.
Qatar hosts the largest U.S. military installation in the Middle East and has played an increasingly influential role as a mediator between various actors in the region over the past few years, is heavily involved in the ceasefire negotiations between Israel and Hamas over the course of the current conflict. Its diplomatic reach outshines its relative size, and its value lies in its assertions of independence and open channels of communication with all major actors in the region. However it is, as a factor of scale, quite vulnerable to both regional and global powers and needs to manage its relations with the various actors to preserve its independence from excessive influence.
Jordan hosts three million Palestinians within its borders, and is one of two Arab states that has long standing diplomatic relations with Israel since the Jordan Israel peace treaty of 1994. It has significant ties to Palestine, not least of which because of the large Palestinian diaspora in the country. It also has a somewhat turbulent history with the predecessor to the Palestinian Authority, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PLFP); in 1970, conflict broke out between the Jordanian Army and the PLFP in what came to be known as Black September. Jordan is a recipient of considerable financial and military aid from the U.S., that go to various security and economic sectors in support of its stability.
Egypt, with the most powerful army in the Arab world, and its most populous country, carries considerable influence across the region. It is the pillar of the peace architecture upon which every other stage is built, and continues to have significant leverage over other actors in the region despite the economic challenges it faces at the moment. It also receives considerable military and financial aid from the U.S., however and despite coming in behind Jordan for the amount of aid, was exempt from the pause in foreign assistance due to its strategic importance to the U.S. and the critical role it plays in preserving stability in the region. It has the longest standing peace treat with Israel, and its former president Anwar El-Sadat was the first Arab head of state to visit Jerusalem.
Each of the parties involved plays an important role, and while each of them are vulnerable to pressure -whether economic or political- they are all important allies and their interests cannot be fully disregarded. If Trump is seeking to put pressure on any of them, he will have to balance between the intensity of pressure to ensure that they are not backed into a corner and left with no choice but to cease cooperation with the U.S. in order to preserve their national interests.
What’s At Stake?
The vehement opposition to this proposal by each country individually and then in their joint statement on the eve of Netanyahu’s visit is entrenched in the national interests and political ecosystems of all Arab states. Politically, every Arab government has upheld support for the Palestinian statehood as a sine qua non of their foreign policy since their own independence. It is embedded within the socio-cultural psyche as a matter of collective Arab interest, and binds together even the most ardent political opponents. Any government that breaches that position would open itself up to a maelstrom of opposition, political and popular that it would find difficult to recover from.
For any of the governments, supporting explicitly or even implicitly the displacement of Palestinians would discredit and delegitimize them, open them up to accusations of involvement in ethnic cleansing, and make them vulnerable to attacks by the dormant but ever present tide of radical Islamist groups that would exploit this as a recruitment tool, fueling internal instability.
For Egypt and Jordan, the two countries on the line to offer up their land for these suggested housing communities, face an added immediate and direct challenge to their own stability and national security. On the economic and logistical levels, absorbing that number of people into their systems could overwhelm the already struggling economies and incur significant burdens on their development efforts. They would the have to ensure that the people crossing into their territories were not used as cover by dangerous elements infiltrating their borders and sowing chaos internally, or even using them as a platform from which to launch future attacks, which would inevitably open any of the countries to retaliation.
They also have to consider the precedent they would set if they were to accept this deal. As countries with adjacent territories, the question then becomes what happens when the Israeli right wing decides that it suddenly wants to expand again? Or what if the U.S. decided in the future that maybe another piece of land would not be a big deal, demanding further concessions and eroding the territorial integrity progressively over time. Other countries, such as Lebanon and Syria, have similar worries about their territories being occupied.
With these considerations in mind, it becomes clear that this is not a simple matter of political opposition, but rather a matter of national security and future survival. Accepting this suggestion therefore is not only unlikely, but implausible and possibly tantamount to political suicide for any leader that does.
Netanyahu’s Game
Benjamin Netanyahu on the other hand was almost giddy as he listened to President Trump outline his vision. Netanyahu is well aware that the proposal is unfeasible, particularly as it pertains to the U.S. assuming full control of Gaza. He knows full well that the extreme right wing in his government, embodied now by Bezalel Smotrich the minister of finance, and Itamar Ben Gvir the former minister of national security who resigned in protest of the ceasefire deal have their sights set on Gaza. They embraced part of what the American president said as far as displacing Palestinians, and willfully ignored the rest when he said that the U.S. would take a long term ownership position of the territory.
Nevertheless, this proposal achieves an important function as far as Netanyahu is concerned, and that is creating enough controversy to possibly torpedo the ceasefire deal and perpetuate the conflict. His precarious political status at home is held up by the war, and despite assurances from Yair Lapid the head of the opposition in Israel that he would give Netanyahu a safety net as the stages of the ceasefire proceed, he calculates that his post war position would be vulnerable. The investigations into the security failings of October 7th and his own corruption charges would open the floodgates against him.
In supporting President Trump’s ideas, without having to voice them himself, he can rally support from the right wing support base he has in Israel, without committing himself to what is a fundamentally unworkable solution in the long term. He also refrained from commenting because while Trump’s proposal aligns in part with the right wing Israeli aspiration of expelling all Palestinians from their homes, U.S. ownership of the land does not which would put Israel at direct odds with the American interests as defined by Trump and his administration.
Netanyahu will likely seek to spark the right wings desire for conflict through focusing the spotlight on Trump’s idea, seeking to inspire enough violence that could provoke a resumption of fighting under the guise of achieving the three goals he outlined in his own statement, which included the total destruction of Hamas, and ensuring that Gaza never posed a threat to Israel again.
This goal, the total annihilation of Hamas, is unrealistic through military means, and Netanyahu knows it well. Anthony Blinken, the former Secretary of State, remarked on the ineffectiveness of the tactic in his last interview before leaving office, when he stated that Hamas filled its ranks almost as fast as its fighters were killed. This is one of the fundamentals of counterinsurgency, and well known throughout defense and military establishments the world over: indiscriminate targeting of civilians facilitates recruitment for the insurgents. Netanyahu knows this, and so do his advisors.
The Israeli Prime Minister may also be counting on desperate acts by Palestinians in response to repeated calls for displacement; if the Palestinians perceive that at the end of the war they will be displaced again from their homes, this time in perpetuity, what would stop them from continuing the fight? If they believe that they will be killed and forcibly removed from their homes at will, they may take actions that Israel could use to justify prolonging the conflict—on which Netanyahu’s political survival depends. Already, Itamar Ben Gvir stated that he would return to government if Trump’s plans were put in motion, signaling that he would support Netanyahu against his political opponents on that condition, thus incentivizing Netanyahu to get behind this plan.
Beyond Rejection: Crafting a Countermove to Trump’s Proposal
The ball is now in the Arab court. With Jordan’s King Abdulla due to visit the Washington on the 11th of February and Egypt’s President Al-Sisi expected to visit later this month, they have an opportunity to present their positions, and the collective position of the Arab states on the issue directly to President Trump. Both leaders have strong ties with the American President since his first term.
It may be tempting to appeal to the long standing U.S. position on the Middle East and the two state solution, built on years of engagement with successive administrations. That however may not have much of an impact, for two main reasons. The first is that Trump already dismissed previous solutions as unworkable, and therefore trying to convince him to adopt the same approach is not likely to succeed. Second, is that part of Trump’s brand is distancing from previous administrations and their positions, which means that any solution presented will at the very least have to appear to be untried.
There may also be a temptation to cite relevant international law, and the fact that displacement of Palestinians from Gaza would be tantamount to ethnic cleansing. This will also likely not track well. Trump has, in the two weeks since his inauguration withdrawn from the World Health Organization, the Paris Accords, and the UN Human Rights Council. He has threatened to invade (acquire) Greenland, a sovereign territory of a NATO ally, and threatened to seize the Panama Canal. He has signaled through his actions that he does not place much value on international law or intergovernmental multilateral organizations. The solution he suggested for Gaza may well violate international law, but Donald Trump does not care.
In engaging with him, they would be well advised to remember that he is transactional, and proud of it. Therefore, it is important to understand how the displacement option appeals to this side of him, and counteroffer solutions that address this issue. Their position in discussions with Trump would be more effective if they were active rather than passive. Simply refusing the proposal at this stage without offering alternatives backs Trump into a corner, of his own devising but a corner nonetheless, where he will be compelled to stick by his position as a matter of optics.
Trump prides himself on swift, decisive action, and therefore proposals that involve delayed gratification will not be appealing. Whatever solution they present needs to include phases with immediate gratification “wins” that he can market to his audience.
Their manner of engagement will be as important as the message that they convey. Trump respects and responds to strength, and the biggest strength that the Arab countries can present at this stage is unified position, not just rejecting the proposal—already made clear—but on offering a strong counterproposal. They must also be consistent in their collective work to neutralize the potential prisoners’ dilemma they could face if one of them shifts their position on the issue, particularly if Trump is exploring which country presents the weakest link that could present him with a path of least resistance to implement his vision, fully or partially.
They should also highlight the costs, optics and otherwise, associated with the proposal that he is suggesting. Even if the assumption is that he is anchoring, they cannot afford to underestimate the gravity of this challenge. Even without congressional backing, Trump may be able to push forward if not given enough cause to reconsider.
In parallel to presenting their proposals on Gaza, Arab states, particularly regional heavyweights like Egypt and Saudi Arabia, can leverage their increased engagement with Iran to present a region-wide solution for broader stability, one that includes potential economic benefits that would appeal to Donald Trump’s transactionalism. With Syria now firmly alongside its Arab neighbors, and free from Iranian influence, Iran would likely welcome a regional package deal that helps shield them from future sanctions and that provides some measure of security for them; Trump in his press conference reiterated that his main concern about Iran was preventing it from getting a nuclear weapon, a matter that could be addressed through providing security guarantees against potential Israeli strikes on Iranian facilities.
Trump places great value on expanding the Abraham Accords, with Saudi Arabia seen as the key state for the success of this vision. Putting that on the table alongside everything else, including plans for immediate engagement on its economic aspects would be a useful mechanism of engagement.
When engaging with Trump, Arab leaders, those expected to meet with the American President this month and those who will do so in the future, would do well to observe how Netanyahu managed the dynamic between himself and Trump during their meeting and the press conference, how he fostered a connection between them and how he presented his positions and Trump’s own as aligned and united.
The stakes are extremely high, for the Palestinian people above all, but for the region at large, and therefore require the highest level of preparation to avert a potential region wide crisis. Whether President Trump really is intent on displacing the Palestinian people from Gaza, or if he is anchoring for a more advantageous negotiating position, the onus is now on the Arab leaders to craft and convey a powerful but palatable message to Donald Trump on their vision of a peaceful future in the Middle East.