TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — President Donald Trump’s plan to seek U.S. ownership of the Gaza Strip and move out its population infuriated the Arab world. It stunned American allies and other global powers and even flummoxed members of Trump’s own party. The reaction in Israel was starkly different.
The idea of removing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from Gaza — once relegated to the fringes of political discourse in the country — has found fertile ground in an Israeli public traumatized by Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks and grasping for ways to feel secure again after the deadliest assault in their country’s history.
Jewish Israeli politicians across the spectrum either embraced the idea wholeheartedly or expressed openness to it. Newspaper columns praised its audacity and TV commentators debated how the idea could practically be set in motion. The country’s defense minister ordered the military to plan for its eventual implementation.
Whether or not the plan becomes reality — it is saddled with obstacles, not to mention moral, legal and practical implications — its mere pronouncement by the world’s most powerful leader has sparked enthusiasm about an idea once considered to be beyond the pale in the Israeli mainstream.
“The fact that it has been laid on the table,” said Israeli historian Tom Segev, “opens the door for such a clear crime to become legitimate.”
To be sure, many of those who expressed openness to the plan said it seemed unfeasible for a multitude of legal and logistical reasons. And many others, including liberal Israelis and Palestinian citizens of Israel, voiced opposition to it. The liberal daily Haaretz, in an editorial Thursday, urged Israelis to “oppose transfer.”
“Even if Trump disregards international law, it’s crucial to remind Israelis that the forced expulsion or transfer of civilians violates international humanitarian law, constitutes a war crime and amounts to a crime against humanity,” the editorial said.
In a joint Washington news conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday, Trump said he envisioned the U.S. taking control of the Gaza Strip, having its people relocate to other places and rebuilding the war-battered coastal enclave into the “Riviera of the Middle East.”
The proposal sparked outrage in the Middle East, including in Egypt and Jordan, two close U.S. allies at peace with Israel that Trump has suggested take in the Palestinians.
Netanyahu, meanwhile, called Trump’s plan “remarkable” and the “first good idea” that he had heard.
“The actual idea of allowing first Gazans who want to leave, to leave. I mean, what’s wrong with that?” Netanyahu told Fox News. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz took it a step further, asking the military to craft a plan for a potential exodus. Katz has given few details on how such a plan would work.
Even Netanyahu’s rivals indicated openness.
Benny Gantz, a former defense minister and centrist opposition figure, said Trump’s proposal showed “creative, original and intriguing thinking.” Opposition leader Yair Lapid, also a centrist, told Israeli Army Radio “in general, it’s good.” Both said the details and practicability of the plan were complicated and needed to be studied, and they urged Trump and Netanyahu to focus on freeing the hostages who remain in Gaza.
For Palestinians, Trump’s proclamation triggered painful memories of the expulsion or flight from their homes in what is now Israel in the 1948 war that led to its creation. It also resurfaced the trauma of further displacement wrought by the 1967 Mideast war, when Israel occupied the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
Staying steadfast on their land is a key component of the Palestinian identity. In fact, many Palestinian refugees dream of returning to the lands in Israel from which they were originally displaced — something Israel says would threaten its existence as a Jewish majority state.
Segev says the concept of driving people off their land is not foreign to the Israeli consciousness. He says Israel’s founding leaders felt they needed to clear Palestinians off the land to ensure the security and stability of the state.
But in modern Israel, the idea has been promoted only by fringe elements, most prominently the slain radical Rabbi Meir Kahane. The American-born Kahane’s views got him banished from the Israeli parliament and led the U.S. to outlaw his group, the Jewish Defense League.
Now, however, Kahane’s once radical positions are the mainstay of far-right political parties, including one led by a disciple of his, that have been key to Netanyahu’s rule. They were thrilled to have someone as powerful as Trump adopt their idea, which they have billed as “voluntary emigration.” Trump’s backing will likely embolden them.
When Hamas attacked on Oct. 7, Israelis were already in a yearslong shift away from support for Palestinian statehood and many had adopted an approach, promoted by Netanyahu, that the conflict was unsolvable and could only be managed through sporadic wars and military operations.
The shock of Hamas’ attack — militants killed 1,200 and took about 250 hostages, parading some through Gaza to cheering crowds — brought the Palestinian issue back to the fore and prompted in Israelis an openness to more radical ideas as long as they help restore a sense of security.
Sefi Ovadia, a broadcaster on a popular Israeli talk radio morning show, told his audience Thursday that he had “moral reservations” to the idea before Oct. 7, but that since the attack, he no longer does. Ben Caspit, a widely read columnist, wrote in the Maariv daily that “every Israeli, barring the most delusional ones on the outer reaches of the left, ought to welcome this initiative.”
Trauma from Hamas’ attack has prompted many Israelis to believe that a way to end the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is to “remove Gaza from the equation,” said Shmuel Rosner, a senior fellow at the Jewish People Policy Institute, a Jerusalem think tank.
“It was a fringe idea in Israel before Oct. 7 and in some cases it was an illegitimate idea,” Rosner said of Trump’s plan. “Oct. 7 changed everything.”
