Less than two weeks into his presidency, Donald J. Trump's impact reverberates through Washington and beyond. Those who dismissed him as merely a president of "noise and Twitter posts" are discovering that Trump means business. Having learned from his first term, he has returned to the White House more mature and determined to advance his agenda at any cost, "taking no prisoners."
Trump's influence is particularly evident in the Middle East – even before taking office, he facilitated a ceasefire in Gaza and brokered a deal in Lebanon. Now he surprises with his proposal to relocate Gazans to Egypt and Jordan, explaining: "Almost everything is destroyed and people are dying there, so I would like Egypt or Jordan to take them, as part of a temporary or long-term move." While some may dismiss this as fantasy, it's actually an outside-the-box proposal that demonstrates more logic and realistic understanding of the situation than those who rush to reject it.
Trump is a shrewd businessman. He sees the Gaza Strip as an area with immense potential that could be transformed into the "Singapore of the Middle East," thereby addressing the suffering of Gaza's civilian population. Hence the logic of his proposal. Any reasonable person understands that the war in Gaza has reached its end, and unfortunately Hamas has survived and now seeks to maintain control of the strip. It's also clear that no one – certainly not Arab states or the Palestinian Authority – has the power or desire to militarily confront and uproot Hamas from Gaza. In such reality, we will witness continued cycles of violence between Israel and Hamas, and in such a situation, no one will be willing to invest in Gaza's reconstruction, leaving it in ruins and a source of suffering and distress for its residents.
Trump offers a way out of this cycle of bloodshed. He proposes evacuating the civilian population from Gaza, even if temporarily, allowing the process of rehabilitation and rebuilding to begin in a Gaza empty of both residents and Hamas. Yet everyone rushes to refuse the proposal.
In truth, the negative response from Egypt and Jordan is understandable. President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi explained that Gazans, under Hamas's influence, are carriers of terrorism and violence, and if absorbed into Egypt would pose a threat to national security – hence he doesn't want them. Jordan fears Palestinians from Gaza would threaten the fabric of life in the kingdom, destabilize its delicate balances, and lead to its collapse. What's harder to understand is the Palestinians' negative response, though it's been said they never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity to advance their cause and find a solution to their problem.
During his previous term, Trump proposed the "Deal of the Century" to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. While this deal fell far short of Palestinian demands – and what the Israeli Right would accept, incidentally – it involved establishing an independent Palestinian state on part of the territory, which would have given Palestinians a better future and certainly spared them the disaster Hamas brought upon them on October 7. But the Palestinians, true to form, rejected the proposal, and no one in the Arab world stepped up to help Trump advance it.
Now we wait to see if Trump speaks not just the language of business but also that of the Middle East – where, as is well known, one must show the stick, not just offer the carrots, to convince the customer that the proposed deal is good for them.
True, Trump has already explained that if his proposals are rejected, "the gates of hell will open on Hamas" – but the question is how important the Middle East issue is to him. The answer is probably not very. More important issues likely top his agenda, and if Palestinians and their Arab brothers aren't interested in a better future for themselves and their children, Trump presumably doesn't intend to "break a sweat" solving their problems.
