Trump’s Proposed Gaza Takeover Denounced as “Mad Ethnic Cleansing Plan”

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 19 2025 – President Trump—whose rash and ill-conceived proposals continue unabated—has threatened to “seize Gaza,” turn it into a “Riviera of the Middle East,” and move Palestinians to Egypt and Jordan, two longstanding American allies who depend heavily on US support for their survival.

The US President has also hinted that both countries would suffer either cutbacks or elimination of billions of dollars in economic and military aid —if they refuse to cooperate with him.

Is this for real or just an empty threat?

The proposed seizure of Gaza has been condemned by virtually all Arab leaders who have long advocated a full-fledged Palestinian homeland in the Gaza Strip

In an interview with Christiane Amanpour, Chief International Anchor for Cable News Network (CNN), Prince Turki Al-Faisal, a former Saudi ambassador to the US and UK, was quoted as saying Trump’s Gaza strategy is a “mad ethnic cleansing plan.”

Dr Ramzy Baroud, a journalist and Editor of The Palestine Chronicle, told IPS Arabs cannot accept Trump’s ethnic cleansing plan simply because doing so will destabilize the entire region and all of their regimes.

The repercussions of the original ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in 1948 are still felt throughout the Middle East to this day, he said.

At that time, the majority of the native population of the Palestinian homeland was displaced, around 800,000, most of whom remained displaced within historic Palestine.

Displacing a population of 2.2 million, following a genocide that has ignited rage across the Middle East and around the world, he argued, is a suicidal move for Arab regimes that are already struggling in a desperate search for legitimacy.

“I believe Trump already knows this, but is using the threats to put pressure on Arab regimes to come up with an ‘alternative’ plan aimed at disarming the Palestinian resistance, thus meeting Israel halfway. But in essence, the Arabs have no control over the outcome of the war in Gaza”.

If Israel has failed to disarm Gaza after 15 months of a war of extermination, the Arabs won’t be able to do so, said Dr Baroud, author of six books and a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA).

In an interview with FRANCE 24, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Trump’s plan at “ethnic cleansing is not acceptable in our world”.

“In the search for solutions, we must not make the problem worse. It is vital to stay true to the bedrock of international law. It is essential to avoid any form of ethnic cleansing,” Guterres told the U.N. Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People.

Addressing members of the Committee last week, Guterres said: “At its essence, the exercise of the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people is about the right of Palestinians to simply live as human beings in their own land.”

However, he said, “we have seen the realization of those rights steadily slip farther out of reach” as well as “a chilling, systematic dehumanization and demonization of an entire people.”

Dr Baroud said Prince Turki Al-Faisal is correct to call it “a mad ethnic cleansing plan”. It is.

But it will fail if the Arabs understand American intentions and focus their energies on supporting Palestinian steadfastness in Gaza

Israel is in its weakest position in decades, and aside from empty threats and rhetoric, it has very few cards left. Arab unity is now key, and I believe that a collective response could positively influence inner Arab relations and re-center Palestine as the driving cause for all Arab nations.

In fact, this could be the chance for the Arab League to matter once more, after decades of marginalization and irrelevance, declared Dr Baroud.

Meanwhile, when US Secretary of State Marco Rubio was in the Middle East last week, he was able to gauge the widespread Arab opposition to Trump’s plan, but apparently downplayed the proposal.

The New York Times quoted Rubio as saying Trump was merely trying to “get a reaction” and “stir” other nations into providing more assistance to post-war Gaza.

King Abdullah II of Jordan, leading a country which is already home to about 700,00 Palestinian, Syrian and Iraqi refugees, told Trump during a White House meeting last week that he is ready to offer a home to about 2,000 Palestinian children in need of medical care.

And perhaps nothing more.

Incidentally, the wife of the Jordanian King is Queen Rania, who is of Palestinian descent.

The proposed takeover of Gaza –and the forcible transfer of Palestinians—are considered both a war crime and a crime against humanity, according to the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Janina Dill, co-director of the Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict, was quoted in the New York Times, as saying: “Trump is just casually making major international crimes into policy proposals. He just normalizes violating, or proposing to violate, the absolute bedrock principles of international law”.

Meanwhile, Reuter’s reported that Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi will not travel to Washington for talks at the White House, if the agenda includes Trump’s plan to expel Palestinians from Gaza, according to two Egyptian security sources.

In a call with al-Sisi on 1 February, the US president extended an open invitation to the Egyptian President to visit the White House. No date has been set for any such visit, a US official said.

The Gaza takeover will also be the primary topic on the agenda of an emergency Arab Summit meeting scheduled to take place in Cairo on 27 February.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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