In the Media

The Australian – 6 February 2025

Controversy was assured from the start when US President Donald Trump announced his unconventional plans for the future of Gaza in various press conferences with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Tuesday.

Nobody saw it coming – including Netanyahu. The President’s ideas, it must be stressed, did not originate from Israel – and that includes from Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition partners.

We know this because the President not only explicitly said that his vision for Gaza “doesn’t mean anything about a two-state solution” – which Israel’s far-right parties strongly oppose – but also explicitly ruled out giving any Gaza land to Israel for resettlement, as they want. Instead, Trump talked about long-term US ownership over the territory during the reconstruction period and beyond, during which time it would be redeveloped with the participation of regional partners and “become something truly magnificent”.

Meanwhile, Netanyahu was more reserved in his own remarks on the subject, simply reiterating support for US moves that help secure Israel’s own interests and objectives: destroying Hamas’s military and governing capabilities; securing the release of all of Israel’s hostages; and ensuring that Gaza never again poses a threat to Israel.

Contrary to the claims of some analysts, the plan does not in itself contradict or undermine a two state resolution – yet some of Trump’s ideas nonetheless seem highly problematic and difficult to implement. It would seem literally impossible for Trump to act on some of them in the short-term, while Hamas continues to rule Gaza and hold dozens of Israeli hostages.

Trump’s “Day After” plan for Gaza clearly requires the war to end under conditions that Hamas will never willingly agree to and that Israel would have difficulty bring about on its own. How Trump plans on solving this catch-22 is unknown.

Trump was adamant that Gazans should be relocated during this redevelopment process, which will take years, for a number of largely sensible reasons. Primarily, however, he said, it is because Hamas’ war has rendered the territory inherently dangerous and unliveable. The President candidly said that he believed many Palestinians won’t want to come back later, since he envisioned arranging for quality housing in the region for them.

Whether he was being naïve or just provocative, Trump also said that most Palestinians wouldn’t choose to return to a place that was historically so militant and violent. In doing so, he ignored persistent popular support since October 7 for Hamas  and the unfortunate and pervasive aspects of Palestinian national culture that glorify terrorism and martyrdom and prioritise endless war to destroy Israel over quality of life issues.

Trump also discussed relocating 1.8 million Palestinians from the Gaza Strip as part of the reconstruction plan. The idea that so many would choose to leave willingly is almost certainly unrealistic, while the prospect of forcibly transferring them should be both legally and morally unthinkable.

Nevertheless, Trump did tell reporters that Palestinians would certainly be part of the future of Gaza, although implicitly only those Palestinians who are willing to be part of a new society that has abandoned the path of conflict, war and bloodshed.

But again, detailed discussions about Trump’s vision as he sketched out on Tuesday are not only premature, but academic while the conditions to end the current war are still unmet. Meeting them could take a while.

The Trump Administration, which takes credit for pushing through the first stage of the hostage deal, is now facing an even more challenging task of brokering the release of more hostages in a second stage.

Trump’s discussion of Gaza’s future now risks inadvertently disincentivising Hamas from releasing more of the hostages, which Hamas sees as both human bargaining chips and an insurance policy for preserving its reign of terror in Gaza.

This also means that, to keep the pressure on Hamas to agree to more hostage releases, Hamas must see full US-led international support for Israel to resume the war at the end of the ceasefire, if it does not cooperate.

For all his plan’s obvious shortcomings, President Trump is certainly right about one very important thing – the cycle of mindlessly pouring in aid for reconstructing Gazan homes after every war instigated by Hamas, while Hamas uses that aid to facilitate rebuilding tunnels, rockets and its other military infrastructure, must not be repeated.

Any proposal for the future of Gaza must recognise that a major and dramatic restructuring of Palestinian culture and governance, including extensive “de-Hamasification”, is needed to enable a lasting two-state resolution.

Thus, some of the impulses behind Mr Trump’s proposals are quite positive, but aspects of what he has put forward so far remain unclear, unworkable, unhelpful or all three.

 Dr Colin Rubenstein AM is executive director of the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council.