The world press is commenting today on Donald Trump's proposal to resettle Palestinians from the Gaza Strip elsewhere and the US president's relations with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, BTA reports.
The French newspaper "Le Monde" notes in a commentary from Jerusalem that Netanyahu is coming out politically stronger after his visit to Washington, and Trump's plan for Gaza undermines the ceasefire agreement, which the Israeli prime minister reluctantly accepted.
After his meeting at the White House, Netanyahu is once again following his previous policy. The Israeli prime minister's position has never been stronger than the formation of his coalition in December 2022, whose approval ratings have always been weak in opinion polls, the newspaper said.
The series of events that began on January 19, when the Gaza ceasefire agreement came into effect, led to the release of 10 Israeli hostages and an unprecedented momentum in public opinion in favor of a final end to the war, could destabilize Netanyahu. He feared that a return to calm could lead to the withdrawal of his far-right partners and the launch of an investigation into the complete failure of the Israeli government over October 7, for which he would bear the main responsibility, the newspaper said. "Le Monde".
But Donald Trump's announcement of his grandiose plan for the Gaza Strip - the expulsion of all its inhabitants and the assumption of control of the Palestinian territories by the United States - had three concrete results, all of which were very favorable for the Israeli leader, the French newspaper notes. It undermined the ceasefire agreement, to which Netanyahu only reluctantly agreed under pressure from Washington, strengthened the weakened ruling coalition in Israel and normalized the idea of massive ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians.
When President Trump proposed that the Gaza Strip be liberated from about 2 million Palestinians, he revived an idea that has long been taboo in official Israeli policy, the "Wall Street Journal" commented. But this week, not a single Jewish leader of a political party in Israel condemned the proposal. Some even said they supported such a move. Right-wing Israeli lawmakers noted Trump's statement as exceeding even their ambitions, and some insisted that the plan be implemented as soon as possible, the American newspaper points out in its analysis.
"Donald, this looks like the beginning of a wonderful friendship," wrote in "Ex" far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said yesterday that he had instructed the military to prepare a plan for "voluntary departure" of Gaza residents to countries that would accept them.
The expulsion of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, which is in practice ethnic cleansing, has long been a red line in major political discussions in the Middle East, including for many years in Israel, notes the "Wall Street Journal". Two Israeli extremist political groups that promoted this idea were finally banned in the mid-1990s. The enthusiastic reaction in Israel to Trump's proposal is a sign of how far the political discourse in Israel has come, the newspaper commented.
The British newspaper "Financial Times" points out that President Donald Trump's plans for the US to take control of the Gaza Strip were met with anger and horror in the Palestinian territories and the Arab world, raising fears of a new flare-up of the conflict in the region.
The newspaper draws attention to the fact that Arab countries have long rejected any further expulsion of the remaining 2.2 million Palestinians from the devastated Gaza Strip, entire areas of which are in ruins after more than a year of war with Israel. The displacement of the Palestinian population during the creation of the Jewish state in 1948, known to Palestinians as the so-called Nakba, or Catastrophe, triggered waves of displacement of some 700,000 Palestinians to neighboring countries and years of instability in the region.
Neighboring Jordan and Egypt, which have yet to respond to Trump's offer, have previously rejected his idea that they should accept displaced Palestinian refugees. Trump's intention to secure the Gaza Strip with US troops will also revive memories of the disastrous US invasion and occupation of Iraq, which further destabilized the region and tarnished America's reputation in the Arab world, the Financial Times said.
Trump's intervention also threatens to undermine his goal of doing more to normalize relations between Israel and Arab states in the region. Saudi Arabia, considered Trump's closest ally in the oil-rich Persian Gulf region, has also rejected the displacement of Palestinians and said it would not hold peace talks with Israel unless an independent Palestinian state is established, the British newspaper notes.
The Italian newspaper "Repubblica" quoted White House spokeswoman Caroline Levitt as saying that Donald Trump's plan for the Gaza Strip would not involve "boots on the ground" in connection with a possible US military intervention and it "will not be funded by American taxpayers".
Levitt told Fox News that Trump "is trying to reach an agreement to ensure that the Gaza Strip can actually be a habitable place for human beings who want to live in peace with real economic development", and added that "partners in the region have begun to discuss this" with the US administration, the newspaper notes.
The British newspaper "Independent" notes that Trump's proposal comes two weeks after the start of a fragile ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, during which the Palestinian Islamist movement "Hamas" released some Israeli hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons. The Israeli military has launched a campaign to destroy "Hamas" in response to the unprecedented cross-border attack on October 7, 2023, in which some 1,200 people were killed and 251 Israelis were taken hostage.
Since then, more than 47,500 people have been killed in the Gaza Strip and about 111,000 have been injured, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. According to UN data, almost 70% of the buildings in the enclave have been damaged or destroyed, and the health, water, sanitation and hygiene systems have been destroyed. There are widespread shortages of food, fuel, medicine and shelter, especially in the northern Palestinian territories, the newspaper commented.
In an analysis on the same topic, entitled "Who will show Trump and Netanyahu that they are not above the law? This must be Europe", another British newspaper - "The Guardian", notes that Donald Trump's proposal to evict about 2 million Palestinians from the Gaza Strip is a shameless declaration of support for ethnic cleansing. As is often the case, he seems ready to ignore both moral and legal imperatives. "Deportation or forcible transfer of population" is included in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court as a crime against humanity. Yet the US president has put this idea on the table. Trump insists that it would be in everyone's interest, the newspaper comments.
The observer of the newspaper "The Guardian" Steve Crawshaw draws a parallel with events from more than 30 years ago, when in the first months of the bloody war in Bosnia, which he covered as the Eastern Europe editor of the newspaper. "Independent", the leader of the Bosnian Serbs, Radovan Karadzic, explained to him that the ethnic cleansing of the Muslim population, which was carried out at that time, was actually doing a favor for the Bosnians. "We let them go," Karadzic explained with a smile, "with their luggage and everything else,", Crawshaw recalls.
Like Karadzic, Trump does not hide the fact that the Palestinians who are forced to leave their homes would not have had a choice in the matter, concludes the commentator of the British newspaper.
The American newspaper "Washington Post" notes that it is often difficult to understand whether Trump is serious or simply provoking, whether he is describing a considered policy or thinking in fragments. But his strange proposal for the Gaza Strip should not obscure a more serious issue. The next few days will show whether Israel will resume its devastating war in Gaza, or whether the current truce will be extended into its second phase - a permanent cessation of hostilities, the newspaper commented.
The talk about turning Gaza into the "Riviera of the Middle East" misses the point of whether Trump has pressured Netanyahu to begin negotiations on the second phase of the ceasefire, which would not only end the fighting but also lead to the release of all remaining Israeli hostages, as well as the release of hundreds more Palestinians from Israeli prisons. In any case, Netanyahu may decide to resume the fighting against Trump's wishes in order to appease hardliners in his fractured ruling coalition and extend his rule, the "Washington Post" points out.
"Politico" quoted White House spokeswoman Caroline Levitt as acknowledging that there was no written plan for President Trump's comments, saying that any relocation of Palestinians would be temporary. Reporters briefed ahead of the announcement were told only that rebuilding the Gaza Strip would take years, without any further explanation of Trump's plan for a U.S. takeover. Many allies in Congress and around the world were taken aback - either angry, stunned, or both, the publication said.
Amid strong pushback from Arab allies in the Middle East and skepticism from Republicans on Capitol Hill, the White House recast Trump's proposal as a serious attempt at real and lasting diplomacy. But they have pulled back on many of the details Trump laid out, instead presenting the "takeover" as an opening salvo in what they see as ongoing negotiations over the fate of the Gaza Strip and its population, "Politico" concludes.