Donald Trump's land grab goes from Greenland to Gaza – The Times of India

WASHINGTON: In an idea that is audacious and incredible to some and outrageous and abominable to others, America’s realtor-turned-President Donald Trump on Tuesday proposed the US seizing control of Gaza, scattering its 2 million devastated people elsewhere in the region, and developing the territory into a dazzling “Riviera of the Middle East.”
In an astonishing proposition that drew the proverbial clattering of jaws, bursting of blood vessels, and gasps of disbelief, Trump casually dropped the bombshell at a joint White House presser with visiting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, treating what Palestinians regard as a hallowed homeland as a piece of real estate that is too wasted and dangerous to be re-occupied by them, but which could be rebuilt for others.
“I don’t think people should be going back to Gaza. I think that Gaza has been very unlucky for them. They’ve lived like hell,” Trump said, referring to Israel’s devastating razing of Gaza to avenge the Oct 7 terrorist attacks on Israel that has rendered the territory uninhabitable. “Gaza is not a place for people to be living, and the only reason they want to go back, and I believe this strongly, is because they have no alternative,” he added in a proposal tantamount to a US-led ethnic cleansing.

Incredulity coursed through the journalists’ throng as Trump proposed wiping out Palestine from history. “You are talking tonight about the U.S. taking over a sovereign territory. What authority would allow you to do that? Are you talking about a permanent occupation?” NBC’s Kelly O’Donnell asked.
“I do see a long-term ownership position,” Trump responded, adding, “Everybody I’ve spoken to loves the idea of the United States owning that piece of land, developing and creating thousands of jobs with something that will be magnificent.”
“The US will take over the Gaza Strip and we will do a job with it too. We’ll own it and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site, level the site and get rid of the destroyed buildings, level it out. Create an economic development that will supply unlimited numbers of jobs and housing for the people of the area…” Trump said, without explaining why it could not be rebuilt for Gazans, and by Gazans.
Trump’s stunning realty-centric proposal was immediately rejected by Arab countries, including by ally Saudi Arabia, which issued a statement at 4 am local time affirming that its position on the establishment of a Palestinian state is firm and unwavering.
Even Trump’s own allies in the US, including some MAGA principals, were taken aback, saying he should be focused on “America first” rather than get distracted by a middle-east project.
Senator Lindsey Graham, a loyal Trump ally, called the proposal “problematic,” while another Republican Senator Thom Tillis said there were “a few kinks in that slinky.”
Democrat lawmakers were less inhibited and called the idea “nuts” and “deranged.” Chris Coons, a Democratic member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee told reporters, “You can report that I was speechless,” before adding, “That’s insane. I can’t think of a place on Earth that would welcome American troops less and where any positive outcome is less likely.”
Trump’s stunning proposal was prefaced — and perhaps encouraged — by remarks from Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who praised the MAGA supremo’s “willingness to puncture conventional thinking… willingness to think outside the box with fresh ideas… cut to the chase, see things others refuse to see, say things others refuse to say and after the jaws drop people scratch their heads and say, ‘You know, he’s right.'”
Coming after other geo-politically stunning ideas like buying or absorbing Greenland and Canada into the US and retaking the Panama Canal, Trump’s Gaza gambit was not dismissed outright although some commentators did argue that it may have been aimed at diverting attention from the turbulent developments in Washington DC where the President’s major domo Elon Musk is hacking down the traditional establishment.
Some Trump aides suggested that the US President was merely grandstanding and his remarks were aimed at galvanizing other Arab states to come up with solutions rather than leave Palestinians in the lurch. “It’s going to bring the entire region to come with their own solutions,” Trump’s National Security Advisor Mike Waltz said in one TV interview.
While Trump appears to have loosened Chinese tentacles enveloping the Panama Canal and bullied Canada and Mexico into making modest concessions that his supporters are portraying as big wins, his grab for Greenland and Canada remains sketchy. Many MAGA activists are in fact unhappy that he is expending so much energy on geo-political projects after having pledged that the US would not get into foreign conflicts.