Israel was taken by surprise by Donald Trump’s dramatic proposal at the White House on Tuesday to relocate the entire population of Gaza to other countries, with the US taking ownership of the coastal enclave.
Until now the idea of transferring the Palestinian population has remained on the fringes of debate among the radical right in Israel. At the start of the Gaza war some Israeli officials wanted to see Gazans emigrate to Egypt but the idea was ditched in light of fierce Egyptian opposition. A secret plan to encourage emigration was reportedly studied by Israeli officials in recent months, but only for Gazans who wanted to leave and not on the scale that Trump spoke about.
Israel’s defence establishment was among those taken by surprise and is now preparing for different scenarios. “We mustn’t become euphoric. We need to let the US lead and study the Americans’ intentions and plans – what Israel will have to do and what the timetable is,” said one Israeli official.
“How we need to prepare for the possibility of a new reality being created here, and what might happen if everything collapses. How will the region react and what will the ramifications be on the ground? The greater the expectations, the greater could be the disappointment – everything is volatile.”
[ Inside Trump’s surprise plan to ‘own’ GazaOpens in new window ]
[ Trump says Israel would hand Gaza over to US after fighting Opens in new window ]
The first poll carried out since the plan was unveiled found that 72 per cent of Israelis support the idea, although only 35 per cent believe it will be implemented. There are still more questions than answers, although Trump clarified on Thursday that no American troops would be involved and the idea was that the Gaza Strip would be turned over to the United States by Israel at the conclusion of the war. He also stressed that Washington would not be paying the huge cost of postwar reconstruction.
But it is uncertain if any country is willing to take in Palestinians from Gaza. Not a single Palestinian has agreed to co-operate with the transfer plan, and any mention of emigration or of leaving recalls the great collective tragedy of the Palestinian people – the 1948 Nakba when hundreds of thousands of residents fled or were forced from their homes during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, when Israel achieved statehood.
Trump’s bombshell has already granted Israel prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu a huge political boost. One far-right party quit his coalition last month in protest at the Gaza ceasefire with the other threatening to follow suit, raising the possibility of new elections. That threat has now been removed and Itamar Ben-Gvir says his Otzma Yehudit party will be willing to rejoin the government the minute Netanyahu takes steps towards implementing the Trump plan.
The last thing the far-right wants to do is topple the government when the permanent displacement of every Palestinian in Gaza is under discussion. Its leaders still have their eyes firmly on the prize – Jewish (re)settlement in Gaza despite Trump’s comments indicating that this wasn’t what he had in mind.
There is also speculation that the plan is just a way of easing the path towards normalisation between Saudi Arabia and Israel – a key foreign policy aim for Trump. According to this theory, the Gaza transfer plan will be dropped at the insistence of the Saudis in return for establishing diplomatic relations with Israel. A similar scenario played out in 2020 when Trump altered his “deal of the century” at the last minute, blocking Israel from annexing parts of the West Bank in return for the United Arab Emirates, Morocco and other Arab states establishing ties with Israel.
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