Steven Sahiounie, journalist and political commentator
When you ask a luxury hotel and casino developer to solve a land issue, you have to expect the solution will be to build a resort.
It is not a surprise that an experienced and successful hotel and casino owner like President Donald J. Trump would propose his plan to turn Gaza into a tourist destination.
Trump announced his plan for Gaza while standing alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House, following their talks about the Gaza ceasefire and Iran. Netanyahu could not stop beaming while listening to the leader of the world’s superpower, and best friend of Israel, propose a plan to remove a major security threat to Israel permanently.
Trump laid out his plans to level Gaza and turn it into the “Riviera of the Middle East” after the US takes ownership of Gaza.
Trump said during a press conference, “We’ll do a job with it, too. We’ll own it.”
Trump had previously said that the Palestinians in Gaza should be relocated to other areas. “The Gaza thing has not worked,” he told reporters in the Oval Office. “They should get a good fresh, beautiful piece of land and we get some people to put up the money to build it and make it nice and make it habitable and enjoyable.”
He said America could help Palestinians find “numerous pieces of land” somewhere other than Gaza and “build them some nice places.”
When asked who he envisions living in Gaza, Trump said, “World people.” “We have an opportunity to do something that could be phenomenal,” Trump said. I don’t want to be cute, I don’t want to be a wise guy, but the Riviera of the Middle East. This could be something that could be so magnificent,” adding, “We’ll make sure that it’s done, world-class.”
The plan seeks to remove the original inhabitants, the 2.3 million Palestinians who survived the war, which took the lives of about 47,000 of their community. To forcibly deport them to Egypt and Jordan, or other Arab countries, and with the land bare for reconstruction, bring investors and their construction companies to level the Gaza Strip, along with architects and engineers to draft new buildings, homes, hotels, restaurants, and casinos.
But, the Trump plan is not original. Shimon Peres proposed a similar concept following the Oslo Accords in 1993.
Shimon Peres
Shimon Peres served as the eighth prime minister of Israel from 1984 to 1986 and from 1995 to 1996 and as the ninth president of Israel from 2007 to 2014. He was a member of twelve cabinets and represented five political parties in a political career spanning 70 years. He died in 2016.
On September 13, 1993, Peres signed the Oslo Accord on behalf of the Israeli government in a ceremony at the White House, with Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat.
In 1994, in recognition of the Oslo Accords, Peres, Rabin, and Arafat were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, and in 1996, he founded the Peres Center for Peace.
“A day will come when Gaza will be the Middle East’s Singapore,” Shimon Peres said after the Oslo Accords, dreaming of a New Middle East.
Peres used the comparison of Gaza with Singapore to express a vision for transforming the Gaza Strip into a prosperous economy, recalling how Singapore had developed from a small, poor country into a wealthy, hi-tech hub and tourist destination.
Peres stressed the potential for Gaza to become a successful, peaceful place if it would choose peace and economic cooperation with Israel.
His vision was based on the idea that Gaza, with the right investments and international aid, could flourish through trade, tourism, and technology, as Singapore had done.
Under the Perez plan, the Gazans would be generating enough income to bring their living standard up to compare with Israeli society in general. With prosperity and a future for their children, the Gazans would reject resistance to occupation, and accept their status as inferior humans, according to Zionist ideology, while happily going to the bank. Instead of the young men looking for weapons, they would be driving the latest cars.
Gaza has great potential in agriculture and tourism. A long, sunny, and sandy beach while nearby Europe is blanked in snow all winter is a winning combination.
Envisioned are hotels filled with tourists along the beach, and border crossings with Israel for the passage of agricultural products like fresh strawberries, tomatoes, and ground crops.
Achieving peace through economic development was the cornerstone of the Peres plan, but there was no political will to implement it in either Tel Aviv or Washington. But, now Trump is at the helm.
Ethnic cleansing
The problem with the Trump plan for Gaza is that it calls for ethnic cleansing. According to the UN Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect, a Commission of Experts reported that the coercive practices used to remove the civilian population by forcible removal, displacement and deportation of civilian population can “… constitute crimes against humanity and can be assimilated to specific war crimes. Furthermore, such acts could also fall within the meaning of the Genocide Convention.”
The Commission described ethnic cleansing as “… a purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic or religious group from certain geographic areas.”
The US government has a long, and dark history of carrying out ethnic cleansing against the Native American population, where treaties were used to displace Native Americans from their tribal lands.
Will Egypt and Jordan be forced to participate in ethnic cleansing?
On January 25, Trump said he would like to “just clean out” Gaza, urging Egypt and Jordan to take in more Palestinians.
While on Air Force One, Trump said he had a call earlier in the day with King Abdullah II of Jordan and would speak with Egypt President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi later.
“I would like Egypt to take people,” Trump said. “You’re talking about probably a million and a half people, and we just clean out that whole thing and say: ‘You know, it’s over,’” while referring to the war in Gaza.
Trump said he appreciated Jordan for having successfully accepted Palestinian refugees and that he told King Abdullah II, “I would love for you to take on more, ‘cause I am looking at the whole Gaza Strip right now, and it’s a mess. It’s a real mess.”
Israel’s 15-month war on Gaza has displaced almost all of its 2.3 million residents, and Trump said Gaza’s inhabitants could be moved “temporarily or could be long term”.
“It is a demolition site right now, almost everything is demolished and people are dying there,” he said.
“So, I would rather get involved with some of the Arab nations and build housing in a different location, where they can maybe live in peace for a change.”
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a far-right Jewish extremist, welcomed Trump’s idea to relocate Gaza’s residents to Egypt and Jordan.
“The idea of helping them find other places to start a better life is a great idea. After years of glorifying terrorism, they will be able to establish new and good lives in other places,” said Smotrich.
Peres on the final solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
In 2009, Peres wrote, “Only the peaceful coexistence of Palestinian and Jewish states offers a realistic and just solution in the Middle East.”
Peres wrote the “two-state solution is not only the best resolution to this age-old conflict, but one within our reach,” while adding that the Palestinians “should not be denied the opportunity to take their national destiny into their own hands.”
Steven Sahiounie is a two-time award-winning journalist.
copyright Journalist Steven Sahiounie
