Trump Wants US to Take Over & Ethnically Cleanse Gaza

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The president stunningly said Gaza should become a U.S. territory, and be turned into the “Riviera of the Middle East,” minus 1.8 million Palestinians. Hamas will have something to say about that, reports Joe Lauria.

Netanyahu and Trump at the White House on Tuesday. (White House/YouTube)

By Joe Lauria
Special to Consortium News

U.S. President Donald Trump has said that the United States should become party to a major crime against humanity by expelling 1.8 million people from their land in the Gaza Strip as it becomes a territory of the United States.

“The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip and we will do a job with it too,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Tuesday at a press conference with visiting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.  “We’ll own it and be responsible” for the territory, Trump said, which would be turned into “the Riviera of the Middle East.” 

Trump did not explain under what legal authority the Israeli occupied territory of Gaza could become the territory of the United States. It is not legally Israel’s territory to give away to anyone, but international law has rarely impeded Israel, or the United States. 

Trump failed to mention that Hamas, which still controls Gaza, would have to be defeated first, something Israel has failed to do.

Trump said the U.S. would “level the site, get rid of the destroyed buildings, create an economic development and supply an unlimited number of jobs and housing for the people of the area.”  

Trump did not define who the “people of the area” are going be who get new housing in a rebuilt Gaza, but said people from all over the world would live there. In the meantime he said he expected as many as 1.8 million Palestinians to be removed permanently. “I don’t think people should be going back to Gaza,” Trump said in the Oval Office next to a beaming Netanyahu. 

“They live like they’re living in hell,” he said. “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.”

Hamas’ Answer

Sami Abu Zuhri, a senior Hamas official, indeed offered an alternative: “What is needed is the end of the occupation and the aggression against our people, not expelling them from their land,” he said in a statement.

Abu Zuhri called Trump’s shocking proposal “a recipe for creating chaos and tension in the region. Our people in Gaza will not allow for these plans to come to pass.”

Any authority trying to force the population out of Gaza would have to contend with the still armed and trained militias of Hamas and other militant groups. The U.S. would almost certainly have to go to war with Hamas in order to make Gaza a U.S. territory. 

It does not seem Trump and his people have fully thought out the implications of U.S. ground troops trying to defeat Hamas to take over Gaza, when Israel has failed to do that in 15 months of unrestrained attacks. 

Asked by a reporter whether the U.S. would send troops to Gaza to “secure the security vacuum,” rather than the real task, to takeover the territory, Trump said, “We’ll do what’s necessary, if it’s necessary we’ll do that. We are going to take over that piece, and we’re going to develop it.” 

Netanyahu told the press conference that he’s committed to militarily defeating Hamas, so one can be certain the ceasefire will not last. 

Israel’s real aim in the war is doing exactly what Trump is proposing, removing the Palestinian population from Gaza. For Netanyahu’s and members of his radical cabinet who have expressed genocidal intent, this is the chance they have been waiting for, to fulfill Israeli Founding Father David Ben Gurion’s promise of an ethnically cleansed historic Palestine (including Gaza and the West Bank) to create Greater Israel. 

“I think it is something that could change history,” Netanyahu said of Trump’s proposed takeover of Gaza, “and it is worthwhile really pursuing this avenue.”

West Bank Coming

Asked by an Israeli reporter if he supported “Israeli sovereignty” over “Samaria, which many believe is the Biblical homeland of the Jewish people,” otherwise known as the West Bank, Trump said, “Well, we are discussing that with many of your representatives … who do like that idea, but we haven’t taken a position on it yet. We will be making an announcement on that specific topic over the next four weeks.”

If the U.S. runs Gaza for Israel, the West Bank would be the final piece of controlling all of historic Palestine — from the river to the sea. 

Despite their already firm rejection, Trump said in the end Jordan and Egypt will not refuse to take in the Palestinians. “They won’t say no to me,” Trump said.

Something ‘Spectacular’

Without naming them, he said other countries have come forward to take in the population. Trump also said wealthy nations in the region, an obvious reference to the Gulf monarchies, could pay for the new “location.” In reaction, Saudi Arabia’s foreign ministry put out a statement at 4 am local time calling for a Palestinian state.

“It would be my hope that we could do something really nice, really good, where they wouldn’t want to return [to Gaza],” he said, trying to couch his proposal as great humanitarianism on his part. He called for something “spectacular” for the “wonderful” Palestinian people, something the “entire Middle East” would be proud of — proud of ethnic cleansing.

“If we can get a beautiful area to resettle people permanently, with nice homes and where they can be happy and not be shot at, not be killed, not be knifed to death … I would think that they would be thrilled,” he said.  “I see a long-term [U.S.] ownership position.”

Trump left no doubt that this would be the permanent, forced relocation of 1.8 million people in clear violation of international humanitarian law. 

Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention “prohibits the forced transfer of protected people out of or into occupied territory” and customary international law considers involuntary population transfers to be illegal.

Dayan’s Prediction

Israeli army in Gaza in 1956. (National Library of Israel/Wikimedia Commons)

Palestinians living in Gaza are descendants of an earlier crime of ethnic cleansing at the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. 

In what can be seen as a prediction of the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas breakout and attack on Israel, Moshe Dayan, one of Israel’s other Founding Fathers,  predicted  in 1956:

“What cause have we to complain about their fierce hatred to us? For eight years now, they sit in their refugee camps in Gaza, and before their eyes we turn into our homestead the land and villages in which they and their forefathers have lived. … We are a generation of settlers, and without the steel helmet and gun barrel, we shall not be able to plant a tree or build a house. . . . Let us not be afraid to see the hatred that accompanies and consumes the lives of hundreds of thousands of Arabs who sit all around us and wait for the moment when their hands will be able to reach our blood.”

It is unlikely Dayan could have foreseen a U.S. president who wanted to finish Israel’s job for them. 

Joe Lauria is editor-in-chief of Consortium News and a former U.N. correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, and other newspapers, including The Montreal Gazette, the London Daily Mail and The Star of Johannesburg. He was an investigative reporter for the Sunday Times of London, a financial reporter for Bloomberg News and began his professional work as a 19-year old stringer for The New York Times. He is the author of two books, A Political Odyssey, with Sen. Mike Gravel, foreword by Daniel Ellsberg; and How I Lost By Hillary Clinton, foreword by Julian Assange. He can be reached at [email protected] and followed on X @unjoe.

38 comments for “Trump Wants US to Take Over & Ethnically Cleanse Gaza

  1. Em
    February 6, 2025 at 11:40

    At the close of WW II the US did not want to formally take over and out rightly, in the open, own the utterly smashed Nazi Germany.
    Instead, they instituted the so-called Marshall Plan to revivify the erstwhile enemy’s land.
    Then as now, for Gaza, the US did not implement that policy for humanitarian, moral reasons.
    Generations later, and after all these years of so-called human enlightenment, why not a Marshall-like plan to revivify all of Palestine, for truly humanitarian reasons; and out in the open?
    Perhaps because America is not, and has never been what its Constitution proclaims it to be.

  2. Tony
    February 5, 2025 at 18:30

    “Israel’s real aim in the war is doing exactly what Trump is proposing, removing the Palestinian population from Gaza.”

    Perhaps the Israeli government deliberately allowed 7 October to happen so that they could achieve this goal.

    • bill
      February 6, 2025 at 04:46

      of course a false flag where in view of the real reason for Israel originally financing HAMAS,to divide Gaza from the West Bank and undermine Arafat,its continuing support,and the well-documented role of Israeli counterintelligence within HAMAS,and Israels own declared operational plans at cabinet level for this region and beyond, a bigger question should be asked

  3. Roslyn Ross
    February 5, 2025 at 17:38

    With most Americans, particularly young Americans, including 66% of Jews on the side of the Palestinians and Hamas, just how does Trump think he can sell hundreds of bodybags to the American public to make his genocidal dream of ethnic cleansing a reality?

    And who the fuck do Americans think they are, rampaging around the world slaughtering and tearing apart other countries?

  4. Lois Gagnon
    February 5, 2025 at 17:17

    I get the sneaking suspicion this is all baloney. This so called plan is in no practical way achievable. It will become another quagmire with body bags returning to US military bases. Trump’s popularity will plummet. That will be the end of the empire. The Palestinians having been the final nail in its coffin. May they finally be given back their land to rebuild and live in peace.

  5. bardamu
    February 5, 2025 at 17:11

    Same program, next step.

    It’s going to be hard for Westerners to call off the dogs until we get more than marginal control over our governments and political systems. Meanwhile, though, why not withhold support for these where we can?

    Hopes for justice aside, we head for some sort of larger reckoning here in this world. Why not support some sort of local and non-predatory economy insofar as we are able? It is not less fun than the sort of softened servitude that the more fortunate indulge these days, and it draws energy from these sorts of mass-produced calamity.

  6. joe Ell the 3rd
    February 5, 2025 at 14:38

    The Clapper
    I just can’t keep up .
    The news cycle moves so fast .
    Acronyms , euphamisms catch me off guard .
    Why the Make America Great Again seems like Build Back Better ?
    Have I gotten out of the wrong side of the bed and put my shoes on the wrong feet ?
    I have fallen and can’t get up .
    I clap so hard , yet the light seems has a dimmer .
    I try to turn the dial but just trip over and unplug the cord .
    Now I know why I’m laying on the floor .
    The phone , out of reach now answers itself , saying it call back later .
    While I lie upon the floor , its just too far to get ahold of the handle on the door .
    It seems so dark now , the night is at the fore .
    Who will find me lying on this floor ?
    I feel alone now yelping mad and oh so sore .
    My voice is weak now just praying for a little more .
    I know someone hears this but seems they just ignore .
    I feel my hope not lost , to drift towards another shore .
    Not to sink while traveling there but to be a bird and soar .
    I’ll fly right over where I lay no more .
    A sight to see , room now empty , the cord plugged in , shown brightly , wide open is the door .
    The ringing heard now , is but the bell outside door .
    Come on in it calls to you , please lay upon the floor .
    There is room for all who enter , and oh so many more .

  7. Rob
    February 5, 2025 at 14:25

    It appears that Trump has forgotten about the failure of the U.S. military to subdue the Taliban in Afghanistan despite nearly twenty years of trying, including during his first term as President. Why should anyone expect a different outcome in Gaza? Let us also not forget that we have troops and bases spread over the Islamic world, and they are highly vulnerable to all manner of attacks.

    Trump is seriously deranged, which was perfectly evident during the recent election campaign, but the American people chose either to ignore or accept the fact.

  8. Share
    February 5, 2025 at 14:23

    I wonder if U.S. citizens notice that Trump hasn’t suggested fixing up U.S areas such as places devastated by wildfires or recent storms.
    I have long thought Israel was just a huge military base of the U.S. government. Evidence: USS Liberty, the flotilla, other murders our government has turned a blind eye to, even prior to Oct 7.

  9. Sam F
    February 5, 2025 at 13:15

    We can hope that the egoism of “They won’t say no to me” Trump exposes and isolates the empire of selfishness.
    The absence of idealism or even diplomacy in a capitalist clown will be an historic landmark in the decline of the US.
    The unregulated market economy at last elevates it lowest tyrant personalities and oligarchs to the very top.
    They do have the virtue of displacing status quo tyrants better at concealing their abject self-interest and corruption.

  10. joe Ell the 3rd
    February 5, 2025 at 12:30

    Am I just hearing things ?
    Is 1.8 million others range 1.5 million to move or those who remain ?
    Did the quiet part be said out loud ? I heard this elsewhere .
    What number are lost if some claim 2.5 million existed before .
    Are the reported numbers correct or fungible ?
    Would George burning Bush agree ?
    I am an idiot ? no reply needed about myself , its rhetoric this line .

  11. Vera Gottlieb
    February 5, 2025 at 12:20

    And I am willing to bet that Real Estate businesses are already licking their chop$. How much lower can the Western ‘culture’ sink? Palestinians aren’t the animals…WE ARE!!!

  12. Steve
    February 5, 2025 at 11:49

    I support Trump in most things …. this ain’t one of them.

    Throw aside the whole humanitarian/political argument of which side is evil and/or committing war crimes. Let’s just assume that those arguments are immaterial for a moment and look at it on purely transactional terms. How does this benefit American interests? I don’t see much upside for America in sticking it’s nose in even more than it already is, but a potentially CATASTROPHIC downside (getting mired in yet another boots-on-the-ground Middle Eastern war). This cockamamie idea is a potential return to the Dubya Bush policies of Team America World Police, where ‘murica tries to impose a worldview at gunpoint on people who don’t want it, don’t value it, and in fact, hate it with a burning passion. EVERYTHING America tries to do over there turns to poop, so maybe we should butt-out and stop trying to do stuff. Sometimes doing nothing is the best choice you can make.

    This is a pie-in-the-sky scheme that could only have been cooked up by a property developer. Trump sees all the monetary upside of building a sparkling new Gaza, but none of the downside of construction workers getting blown up or America getting dragged into a shooting war as Hamas takes pot-shots at those occupying American troops and the folks back home demand a response. We all saw what that got us after 9/11. This is just more of the same. No thank you.

    Hopefully, this is just an ‘Art of the Deal’ negotiating ploy where Trump takes a crazy opening position that he plans to give up as a ‘concession’ in later negotiations, and not something he plans to seriously pursue. But in the event he really means it, this is one Trump policy that I hope gets scuttled before it ever gets off the ground.

    • Bobok
      February 5, 2025 at 17:43

      Great job papering over the fetid stain that is Donald J Trump.

  13. Robert E. Williamson Jr.
    February 5, 2025 at 11:40

    Joe my hat is certainly off to you once again.

    It is obvious I ‘m a layman struggling at times to keep up with you folks. So be it. This activity helps me keep a youthful edge on my ability to think critically. The inflow of new knowledge to the brain is never a bad thing.

    I will be going to the book store and not on line to get to acquire J. J. Trento’s Prelude to Terr0 and Mike Gravel and Joe Lauri’s A Political Odyssey.

    Mike Gravel was a very bight guy who I was always impressed with.

    Thank you for caring so damned much! My brother!

    Have any comments on Lina Kahn?

    Stay strong and keep yourself safe!

  14. Bushrod Lake
    February 5, 2025 at 11:37

    These guys are going to bounce themselves off the trampoline of politics.

  15. Abu Lincoln
    February 5, 2025 at 11:24

    “It is unlikely Dayan could have foreseen a U.S. president who wanted to finish Israel’s job for them. ”

    A different world in 1956, and a different USA. At approximately that time, President Eisenhower opposed Israel’s war to seize the Suez Canal. Israel had the support of UK and France. But Ike stepped in and opposed both the NATO allies and Israel and said no. The Suez Canal remained in Egyptian hands. In its creation and early years, Israel was supported more by the UK and less by the USA. It took Nixon’s Imperial Presidency before Israel became America’s 51st state, but without paying taxes.

    The Suez Canal came under American control with the Mubarak dictatorship that replaced leaders like Nassar and Sadat. Now of course Egypt is an American backed military dictatorship which holds ‘elections’ where the General gets 90% of the votes. In other words, elections that look a lot like a modern Democrat primary.

    • Tony
      February 5, 2025 at 18:26

      The big shift towards Israel came under President Johnson who reportedly told Golda Meir that this would happen.

  16. Carrie
    February 5, 2025 at 11:09

    A little history, please, on Palestinian rights to their own land, and the steal of it by Zionist leaders and settlers.
    Where are the Jews of conscience? The silence is deafening. Every American with dual citizenship in Israel should be crying out to protect the Palestinians whose legal homes and historical lands have been stolen, appropriated, by Zionist thieves.
    How much is Trump being paid to take the U.S. into war over Palestinian rights to their own land? How long are Americans going to remain silent? How many members of Congress have accepted bribes from Israeli sources to sell out their/our/your constituents? Who is Congress working for?

  17. Abu Lincoln
    February 5, 2025 at 11:01

    “Trump did not explain under what legal authority the Israeli occupied territory of Gaza could become the territory of the United States.”

    The legal authority that Trump quotes is the one stated by Richard Nixon. The Imperial Presidency hypothesis that says “if the President does something, then it is by definition ‘legal’. ”

    In other words, the President is the equivalent of an Emperor, and has more power than the tyrant King George III, whose more limited power at times required acts of Parliament. As an example, the tyrant did not have the power to punish Boston for the Boston Tea Party, and the King had to go to Parliament to pass the Punitive Acts that attempted to end democracy in Massachusetts.

    Donald Trump has never really said exactly when in the past “America was Great”. Now, Trump apparently is saying that America was great back when all Americans had to bend their knee to an English King. Except Trump would have gotten rid of the Parliament, and probably the whole Magna Carta as well.

    Resistance is not futile.

  18. Drew Hunkins
    February 5, 2025 at 10:41

    An obviously vile and outrageous proposal. Trying to turn Kushner into the most powerful landlord in the world.

    So when do the Palestinians get to completely cleanse the Upper East Side of Manhattan and do of it what they please?

  19. Abu Lincoln
    February 5, 2025 at 10:41

    How many casualties is America willing to accept for the Trump/Kushner Real Estate Development Plan?

    Because, while Trump likes to be a loud-mouth, if this is implemented, we will begin to see regular reports of dead Americans in Gaza. Because, unlike the Americans, the Palestinians are not submissives. How many body bags is America willing to accept to create real estate profits for the elites?

    Resistance is not Futile.

  20. Randal Marlin
    February 5, 2025 at 10:28

    The sooner the U.S. discovers they have elected a president who is a megalomaniac wingnut, and take away his power, the better.
    Unfortunately, H.L. Mencken may have been prescient when he wrote:
    “As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”

    It may help to realize that Trump has a forerunner in 1950s Senator Joe McCarthy, about whom journalist I.F. Stone observed: “He [McCarthy] is interested in hashing up enough exaggeration, falsehood and alarm to serve the purpose of advertising himself and making others fearful of his power.” (The Haunted Fifties, p. 20.)
    The turning point against McCarthy’s intimidation, as I remember, came when a brave witness decried McCarthy with the memorable accusation: “Have you no decency?”

    With Trump the accusation could be manifold: “Have you no compassion?” Have you no respect for law, reason, and the Constitution.” Have you no understanding of likely consequences? Etc.

  21. Richard Burrill
    February 5, 2025 at 10:15

    Since we now have a copy of the infamous Roman Empire dictator Nero in power in the U.S. Empire, one wonders how long our empire will last.

  22. Maure C Briggs
    February 5, 2025 at 10:08

    Trump wants this ? Are you saying the Dems don’t ? That the whole ruling class does not ? They all want that; but, Trump says the quiet parts out loud.

    • Litchfield
      February 5, 2025 at 16:31

      I agree.

      Trump is just the tip of the iceberg—which is the Israel Lobby’s control over the legislative and executive branches plus the mainstream media and more (too exhausting to try to list the many locuses of our society and state that are controlled by “Zionists”). Of course one cannot say this out loud. That is the measure of the control.

      We are lost if we cannot end the Zionist grip on the USA.

  23. joe Ell the 3rd
    February 5, 2025 at 09:56

    quote
    “I think it is something that could change history,” Netanyahu said of Trump’s proposed takeover of Gaza, “and it is worthwhile really pursuing this avenue.”
    I am confused . Help me understand .
    Change history like as is revisionism ?
    Ot like a Nostradamas “sense the future events to come ” and how ?
    Maybe write history in advance ?
    Where the future is the past ?
    Tommorow is the future , yesterday the past , Today is now .
    The circus act wears the elephant down , when the tiger goes hungry he thinks of eating and sees an easy meal .
    Barnum and Bailey ? similar like Animal farm when the ringmaster in his stupor eats the only meal .
    What will happen when he comes out of it and blames the chicken and the cow ?

  24. Caliman
    February 5, 2025 at 09:56

    I agree with the president. The Gazans should be moved to the nearest safe and adequate area for them, inside Israel itself, where the Gazans came from originally. Then, once Gaza is rebuilt, they should be given the choice of coming back or staying in Israel. Easiest solution, really …

    • Abu Lincoln
      February 5, 2025 at 11:12

      I haven’t heard this lately, but for a long time, one heard that many of them still had the old keys to their old homes. That for the refugees, this was their most prized possession. And often the one thing they’d been able to save as they’d been forced to run for the lives.

    • Blessthebeasts
      February 5, 2025 at 11:43

      “Israel” should be off the map forever…every U.S. president has enabled it to colonize and oppress the Palestinians, leading us to this moment. Why is anyone surprised?

    • Vera Gottlieb
      February 5, 2025 at 12:18

      Wake up!!! The Zionist murderers will NEVER agree to any plan that doesn’t foresee the total elimination (death or moving) of Palestinians. And the Real Estate business already licking its chops…

    • anaisanesse
      February 5, 2025 at 13:41

      Except you would have to remove every Zionist first.

    • Randal Marlin
      February 6, 2025 at 10:25

      Maybe easiest, but not the most reliable. Why not rebuild while the Palestinians remain there? They’ve shown the can move around.
      Rebuild one area at a time. That makes their continuing presence more secure than relying on the word of Donald Trump.

  25. TP Graf
    February 5, 2025 at 06:41

    In the last several months of Biden’s term, Larry Wilkerson said he had come to the conclusion that it wasn’t Israeli influence on US policy that driving the genocide, but America’s attack dog doing the bidding of its master. As per Trump’s gall, he now says the quiet part out loud. I have to think Larry is exactly right….

    • Robert E. Williamson Jr.
      February 5, 2025 at 13:09

      Larry is a very sharp guy.

      Because of the billionaires , see Forbes top 400 and their worth, our republic, IMHO,and the current climate of Earth and winner take all climare of politics I fear our nation is at very high risk of having our constitutional republic/democracy challenged, first by those members of these super wealthy elitists, “SWETS” as a DIRECT result of the SCOTUS ruling in Citizens United vs FEC.

      If everyone does not see the direct affect that money has had influencing our presidential elections, look up the money spent since the SCROTUS ruling. Then see Trumps plans for a “Riviara” on the West Bank of Gaza.

      Repeal the electoral college, no more jerrymandering.

      Nuff said!

  26. Kate
    February 5, 2025 at 05:09

    “…when Israel has failed to do that in 15 months of unrestrained attacks.”

    15 months? More like 80+ years, if not more.

    • Consortiumnews.com
      February 5, 2025 at 05:22

      Israel has not been trying to defeat Hamas fort 80 years, which is what that sentence says.

    • Steve
      February 5, 2025 at 12:40

      Why stop at 80?

      Why not go all the way back to Islamic conquest of the Levant in the 7th century AD?

      Or the migration of early humans from Africa to the Eurasian continent a few hundred thousand years ago.

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