Donald Trump is not only the US president and a billionaire businessman – he's also, what seems to be overlooked quite often, a TV personality. And he's using his experience with the media to force them to do what he wants them to.
And the best way to influence them is to use hyperbole – frequently and loudly.
Starved for eyeballs and clicks, the press will happily take your words and circulate them across the spectrum, as it drives their business.
Who wants to dig through reports of dreary meetings and dry statements of state bureaucrats? But when the most powerful leader on Earth wants to blow up the existing world order, the news reports write themselves.
Trump's use of exaggeration has successfully put him in the White House twice. It likely helped his business career too, made him a TV star (of course) and is now shaping US foreign policy.
One of the latest examples is his plan for Gaza, which would require relocation of all ca. 2 million Palestinians to neighbouring countries, while the US takes control of the strip and rebuilds it.
Predictably, those countries – chiefly Egypt and Jordan – as well as the entire Muslim world have reacted with disbelief, protest and even outrage. As did the UN and some European nations.
Reportedly the proposal caught even Israelis off guard.
None of that is its weakness, however, but its main feature.
Killing a flock of birds with one stone
Forget about two, Trump's proposal – whether entirely intentionally or not – kills a whole flock of birds with one stone, with pretty much no downsides for the USA.
Of course it's so outlandish that no career politician could propose or even entertain the idea. But Trump is not a bureaucrat and he's certainly not a slave to convention – and has surrounded himself with people who are able to prepare policy proposals that reflect his mercurial character.
Let's be clear that:
- Nobody seriously thinks the US could take over Gaza and rebuild it.
- Nobody seriously thinks that it wouldn't involve US soldiers if it ever came to this.
- Nobody seriously thinks it would take just 5 years.
- Nobody seriously thinks that any neighbouring country would willingly accept 2 million refugees from the strip.
- Nobody seriously thinks that they would be able to return.
But now that this idea is out there, it becomes a reference point for every other proposal of the current administration.
Can you do better?
On the face of it, after all, it's a gesture of remarkable generosity. USA is offering to clean up the rubble and rebuild a beautiful, prosperous Gaza strip! That would be worth tens of billions of dollars – more than Palestinians have ever received.
It's equally true that the current living conditions in the area are very poor and will remain so for a long time, given the need to clear the debris. You can't build anything until you do that.
Hence, resettling all people affected – i.e. the entire Palestinian population – while reconstruction takes place sounds like a great idea.
Of course, for historical and political reasons, nobody trusts it or is willing to take it at face value.
However, it provides the Trump administration with flexibility in talks with all stakeholders.
First of all, he is now able to say: "if you don't like the idea, propose something better, we're waiting". It's easy to criticise, so why don't you make a commitment of your own? It puts all opponents under pressure to contribute something.
The dire conditions in which Gazans will have to live now are fact. How do you propose they are addressed, while providing security assurances to Israel?
Secondly, if the neighbours are so unwilling to take all two million Palestinians, how about taking 100,000? 200,000 maybe?
Egypt is a country of 112 million people, surely 200,000 is not a figure that would necessarily upset its stability, especially if Americans can provide billions of dollars to aid it?
Jordan, meanwhile, is essentially a Palestinian majority state already. What difference would it make if they took in some vulnerable thousands if, again, Americans throw some money in to keep them there?
So, from "ethnic cleansing", we're down to "helping the weak", with American dollars.
The real, hidden goal of the policy is to encourage migration out of the strip. Even if moving everybody in one swing is not possible, getting thousands of people to leave will encourage many of their relatives to follow.
In the past few years leaving Gaza was difficult, in large part because Hamas wanted as many people to stay in place as possible. First of all, it increases their recruitment pool and, secondly, it spills more Palestinian blood for the media of the world to broadcast globally. They need both fighters and martyrs.
What they don't want is Palestinians just leaving altogether for a better life somewhere else.
From Israel's perspective, however, the apocalyptic post-war conditions are a good environment to encourage emigration, especially as Hamas has been badly weakened.
The more people leave, the fewer problems Israelis will have in the future and the higher the chance more will follow their families abroad.
And it's a rare opportunity for Palestinians to move on a foreign dime. If they don't take it now it may not be offered again.
Exposing Palestinian manipulation
The cherry on top of Trump's bombastic move is how it pops the entire narrative upon which the Palestinian demands towards Israel are built.
You see, most Gazans are already classified as refugees by the UN. 1.6 million out of an estimated total of 2.4 million to be exact.
This means that they have for decades been claiming not to be from Gaza at all.
They are mostly descendants of Palestinians who fled other areas of what now constitutes Israel, in the aftermath of the 1948 war (which was started by them and their Arab allies, in opposition to the two-state plan approved by the UN in 1947).
In other words, they themselves have long admitted that Gaza is NOT their home.
How could a relocation plan, funded by the US, be considered "ethnic cleansing" then, if it would not alter their refugee status, just the current location?
We've seen much of this flip-flopping throughout the war that started with Hamas' butchery of innocent Israelis in 2023.
When it suited the narrative, Gaza was labeled the "largest open-air prison in the world", only for Palestinians to later lament how beautiful it was now that it was turned into rubble. Happy, sunny video clips of pre-war life were circulated in the media right after the claims of enduring Israeli oppression of the strip (usually omitting the fact that Egypt participated in the blockade for the very same security reasons).
Which one was it, then?
“Gazans’ land is Gaza and Gaza must be part of the future Palestinian state” said the Spanish foreign minister after Israel accused the country of hypocrisy if it does not accept Palestinian refugees when it condemned Israeli conduct in the strip. But over a million and a half are self-identifying as non-Gazans – so, maybe Spain could take those at least?
Trump's proposal tests the limits of Palestinian propaganda and the international support for it.
If two thirds of the people in strip are recognised as refugees already, what difference does it make if they live somewhere else, arguably in much better conditions? But if they refuse to leave, calling Gaza their home, while everybody else claims it's an ethnic purge – then shouldn't they be stripped of their refugee status?
This is especially true given that very few people who were actually displaced in the 1948 war are still alive. Everybody else was already born in Gaza so labelling them refugees is, at the very least, a grave injustice to all real refugees fleeing for their lives from conflicts around the world.
It's an internationally aided effort to prop up the Palestinian claims against Israel, by people who don't even know how it looks like – while, paradoxically, denying Jews the rights towards their very own ancestral land that they currently inhabit.
Trump's plan for Gaza lays it all bare for the world to see and will be used against Palestinians in the future, especially if they refuse to even talk about the American proposal – which is expected, of course.
The US president has just given them an offer difficult to refuse but one which they must refuse because it would destroy their entire elaborately constructed narrative.
As a result, however, both Israel and the US will point to yet another Palestinian refusal of some sort of progress, even as billions are officially thrown their way.
What do they really want (other than the disappearance of Israel, that is)?
Even if the unthinkable happened and the plan was miraculously accepted, every reconstruction effort controlled by the US and Israel would grant both the ability to thoroughly inspect Gaza, dismantle all hostile structures left behind by Hamas and rebuild the strip in ways that would, in the future, permit better control over it in case of another conflict. Every nook and cranny would be mapped.
Trump's idea, as outlandish as it sounds to mainstream observers, really has no weak spots and the US has nothing to lose regardless of the outcome.
If it's accepted it would give the Washington complete control over what happens to the strip. If it's rejected it will, yet again, show that Palestinians are not willing to move on and provide Americans with every excuse to support Israel with everything it requests to crush Hamas and control the civilian population.
If Palestinians complain about something again, Trump and his allies can always say – "we've offered you billions that you didn't even take a look at."
In reality the target lies somewhere in the middle – make the shocking offer an entry point to negotiations with Arab countries to share the burdens and participate in defusing Palestine.
