There is a popular adage that a good businessman turns every crisis and adversity into a business opportunity. Most parts of the world see the businessman Trump talking. At the joint press conference with Israel’s Premier Benjamin Netanyahu, President Trump announced to the world that he would resettle the Palestinians living in Gaza since 1948 in other countries so that they could live in peace and develop the strip into the most beautiful place (tourist spot or a watering hole like Beirut in Lebanon or Dubai or Doha).
Trump’s statement brings out the real estate aspect of his personality. In fact, many historians and diplomats have said that there is a strong link between the armaments industry and construction companies. War is business. More than a political ideology clashing its business that drives wars.
As Nicolas Cage, Hollywood actor reprising the role of a big time Ukrainian arms dealer, says in one of his movies, war is business. He is an arms dealer who sells discarded weapons and ammunition to countries particularly in Africa where rebellions have been fuelled against either democratic governments or despotic regimes by rebel groups which buy arms from him. “I did not cause those killings in these countries, that’s their problem, I am only in the business of selling arms, is that wrong”, he says.
This reflects the ruthlessness of the armament’s industry to destabilize governments particularly democratically elected governments, one can justify dismantling of despotic regimes though, but to keep themselves in business and rake in huge cash piles – this is another form of Blood Money, such as the rebel groups indulging in illegal mining using people as slaves to work open cast diamond mines. And exporting them.
All illegal business. That’s where the Kimberley certification of diamonds comes in. Intelligent people will not buy diamonds in jewellery unless accompanied by the Kimberly certificate issues from out of South Africa which says the diamonds are legally sold by governments to governments or B2B, and it’s not made out of Blood Money.
Now Ukraine, Gaza provide wonderful opportunities for real estate developers, construction companies to rebuild a new edifice from an utterly devastated property by an unnecessary war.
When US construction companies went into Japan and rebuilt it, it was more out of a guilty conscience for dropping the dirty bombs over the country. Much of rebuilding took place in countries devastated by World War 11 during Hitler’s obsession of a raw deal emerging from the Versailles treaty as Germany lost much of its territories in World War 1 and recapturing them provided opportunities for rebuilding to construction companies.
History is repeating itself in Ukraine, where Russian President Vladimir Putin applies the same Hitlerian principle of recapturing much of the states lost during the perestroika and glasnost of Mikhail Gorbachev to take back Crimea and Ukraine and then much of eastern Europe, which most EU countries fear will happen, if Ukraine were to fall.
Trump is making valiant efforts to end the war in Ukraine by bringing president Volodymyr Zelensky and President Vladimir Putin to the negotiating table, maybe with odds stacked against the former. Trump told an election rally that he felt for Ukraine, a beautiful country of vast pastures of Greenland and beautiful buildings razed by the war – war is ugly and buildings with people inside were razed to the ground.
Zelensky too shared with Trump his concerns to end the war once and for all as it had devastated his country and now the IAEA is concerned about nuclear power plants being damaged and the threat of nuclear radiation.
And this is Trump speaking, despite having Russian President Vladimir Putin as having his best friend in the eastern European and east Asian world. If Gaza is going to be redeveloped, then you can expect that once the war ends in Ukraine, he will facilitate redevelopment of Ukraine by leading construction companies.
It is a vicious cycle. The armament industry ruthlessly fuels wars in the world to stay in business for selling arms and making profits. Wars lead to destruction of properties and lives. People need to be rehabilitated and resettled. So, construction companies move in to rebuild properties for people to live peacefully, at least for a pause, not so much out of nobility to help people, but more to make profits out of the construction business.
We see the same cycle operating here. President Trump has good intentions in rebuilding Gaza but moving Palestinians out of a place where they sought refuge for a piece of land, they could call theirs, defies logic. As he settles into the Oval Office for a second time, Donald Trump is thinking big or, if you prefer, bigly, at least when it comes to geopolitics. The Panama Canal, Greenland and Canada were already in his sights. Now add the Gaza Strip. It seems that Trump may be on the verge of granting it statehood as well as Canada. Who gets to be #51 and #52? an American publication commented.
Trump doubled down on his smash-and-grab foreign policy, announcing that the United States “will take over the Gaza Strip.” He did not stop there. “We’ll own…. We will defuse the bombs that remain unexploded. Maybe his takeover would result in a good thing, shutting down tunnels from where militant outfits such as Hamas operated and kept hostages holed in for more than a year in inhuman conditions.
Trump has been staffing the Pentagon with opponents of intervention in the Middle East such as Dan Caldwell. The notion that America, which was supposed to be distancing itself from the ructions in the Middle East to focus on the China threat, should send in the Marines and take over. The Australian opposition leader has praised Trump’s stance over Gaza comments – as it happened.
A proposal by Donald Trump that the US could “take over” the Gaza Strip and that the Palestinians could live in “peace and harmony” elsewhere has sparked widespread international condemnation. Trump insisted on Wednesday that “everybody loves” his proposal.
Trump’s top diplomat, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and spokesperson, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, appeared to backtrack from his proposal that he wants a permanent relocation of Palestinians from Gaza. “The president has made it clear that they need to be temporarily relocated out of Gaza,” Leavitt said during a White House briefing. Rubio said the idea “was not meant as hostile”, describing it as a “generous move – the offer to rebuild and to be in charge of the rebuilding”.
Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, reportedly said the US president does not want to put any American troops into Gaza. “Witkoff said that the president doesn’t want to put any troops into Gaza, and that he doesn’t want to spend any US money on Gaza,” the Republican senator for Missouri, Josh Hawley, said, according to the Washington Post.
Defence secretary Pete Hegseth said the Pentagon is prepared to look at “all options” when it comes to Gaza. Hegseth made the comments on Wednesday before meeting with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Gaza was “an integral part of the State of Palestine” and that “we will not allow the rights of our people … to be infringed on”.
The UN secretary general, António Guterres, warned against “any form of ethnic cleansing”, adding that it is “vital to stay true to the bedrock of international law”. The UN chief said that any durable peace will require a “tangible, irreversible and permanent” progress toward the two-state solution as well as the establishment of an “independent Palestinian state with Gaza as an integral part”.
An EU spokesperson said Gaza is an “integral part” of a future Palestinian state, and that the bloc remains “fully committed” to a two-state solution.
UK prime minister Keir Starmer said the Palestinians “must be allowed to rebuild” and pursue a two-state solution, while the German foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, said Gaza belongs to Palestinians and their expulsion would be “unacceptable and contrary to international law”.
Saudi Arabia’s foreign ministry rejected “any attempts to displace the Palestinians from their land” while the Egyptian foreign minister, Badr Abdelatty, expressed support for recovery projects in Gaza without Palestinians leaving the territory.
The UN said forcible deportation of people from occupied territory is “strictly prohibited” under international law, while Human Rights Watch said the policy would be a “moral abomination”. Amnesty International condemned Donald Trump’s comments as “inflammatory, outrageous and shameful”. International law experts said it could amount to a war crime or crime against humanity.
Israel’s far-right former national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, who resigned last month in protest over the ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas, said that “encouraging” Palestinians to leave Gaza was the only correct strategy to end the war and urged the Israeli government to pursue the policy “immediately”.
The estimated death toll in Gaza since the start of Israeli operations in the territory after the 7 October attacks reached 47,552, according to the Palestinian ministry of health on Wednesday.
AUZ opposition leader Peter Dutton is in awe of Trump’s proposal on rebuilding Gaza and praises his efforts.
Australian opposition leader Peter Dutton has praised Donald Trump as a “big thinker” in response to the US president’s calls for America to take over Gaza in what would probably be a breach of international law, saying he brought “gravitas” to international affairs.
Dutton claimed Trump’s incendiary remarks could be a negotiating tactic to get other countries in the Middle East to “step up” and help rebuild the Palestinian territory devastated by Israeli bombing. The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, meanwhile continued to avoid commenting directly on the situation on Thursday, saying he believed it was prudent to sometimes “sit back” and not comment on all of Trump’s claims.
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Here’s more of Palestinians rejecting Trump’s call for them to vacate Gaza.
Saeed Abu Elaish’s wife, two of his daughters and two dozen others from his extended family were killed by Israeli airstrikes over the past 15 months. His house in northern Gaza was destroyed. He and surviving family now live in a tent set up in the rubble of his home.
But he says he will not be driven out, after President Donald Trump called for transferring all Palestinians from Gaza so the United States could take over the devastated territory and rebuild it for others. Rights groups said his comments were tantamount to a call for “ethnic cleansing” and forcible expulsion.
The former Jordanian ambassador to the US Murwane told PBS news hour the proposal was fraught with consequences. These are Palestinians who did not have a land of their own moved into Gaza and build homes and live on a land they could call their own, and this happened in 1948. Can this be reversed by taking them out, he asked.
“We categorically reject and will resist any plans to deport and transfer us from our land,” he said from the Jabaliya refugee camp.
A man sells bread under the destruction of his bakery destroyed by the Israeli air and ground offensive in Jabaliya, Gaza Strip on 5 February. Courtesy – AP
Trump’s call for depopulating Gaza has stunned Palestinians. Hundreds of thousands in the territory rushed to return to their homes – even if destroyed – as soon as they could following the ceasefire reached last month between Israel and Hamas.
Mustafa al-Gazzar was five years old, he said, when his family and other residents were forced to flee as Israeli forces in 1948 attacked their town of Yabneh in what now central Israel is. Now in his 80s, he sat outside his home in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, flattened by an airstrike, and said it was unthinkable to go after surviving 15 months of war.
“You think you’ll expel me abroad and bring other people in my place? … I would rather live in my tent, under rubble,” he said. “I won’t leave. Put that in your brain.”
The conflict in the Middle East has destroyed countless lives and the horrific scenes since 7 October 2023 from Gaza and Israel have haunted millions around the world.
Understanding what has happened – and what comes next – is more important than ever.
Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, said the US president does not want to put any American troops into Gaza. Witkoff was on Capitol Hill on Wednesday to clarify Trump’s comments the day before, during which he did not rule out deploying US troops to the Palestinian territory.
“Witkoff said that the president doesn’t want to put any troops into Gaza, and that he doesn’t want to spend any US money on Gaza,” the Republican senator for Missouri, Josh Hawley, said, according to the Washington Post.
But Witkoff did not suggest that Trump had abandoned his proposal that Gaza’s population of 2.2 million Palestinians be displaced from their land, the paper writes. It cited one senator as saying:
Witkoff painted a scenario of a Gazan family moving back into tents, thinking ‘I’m going to get back into a dwelling in five years,’ and that is just not going to happen. It is a wasteland of rubble.
Dozens of UK Labour MPs and four Labour peers have written to the foreign secretary, David Lammy, slamming Donald Trump’s proposal to take over the Gaza Strip. The letter, signed by 68 parliamentarians in total, describes Trump’s plans as “ethnic cleansing” and urges Lammy to recognise an independent Palestine and voice the government’s disapproval “in no uncertain terms”.
Trump’s plans amounted to the “forcible removal and dispossession of an entire population,” said Labour MP for Tooting, Dr Rosena Allin-Khan, according to Labour List.
Donald Trump’s description of Gaza as “demolition site” completely fails to include the Israeli government’s responsibility for causing the devastation to the Palestinian territory, Amnesty International said.
Palestinians walk in the destruction caused by the Israeli air and ground offensive in Jabaliya on. Wednesday. Photograph: Courtesy -AP
Trump also did not acknowledge the “US government’s role in providing arms that have repeatedly been used to carry out deadly, unlawful attacks in Gaza,” the statement from the rights group said. In the face of President Trump’s dangerous threats, it’s more important than ever for the rest of the international community to categorically reject these proposals and expedite diplomatic efforts, in line with international law, to end Israel’s unlawful occupation, dismantle apartheid and uphold human rights for Palestinians and Israelis.
Amnesty says Trump’s Gaza proposal is ‘appalling’ and ‘flagrant violation’ of international law. Amnesty International has condemned Donald Trump’s proposal to deport Palestinians from Gaza to neighbouring countries, describing his comments as “inflammatory, outrageous and shameful”.
Trump’s proposal “amounts to a flagrant violation of international law” and must be “unequivocally and widely condemned”, the rights group’s secretary general, Agnès Callamard, said.
Any plan to forcibly deport Palestinians outside the occupied territory against their will is a war crime, and when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack on the civilian population, it would constitute a crime against humanity.
The US president’s comments “dangerously dehumanise” Palestinians, she said, noting that the majority of Palestinians in Gaza have already been “repeatedly uprooted and dispossessed by Israel” and yet have continued to “struggle to remain on their lands and defend their human rights.”
Donald Trump’s remarks that the US will “take over” Gaza and resettle the Palestinian population elsewhere have drawn outrage and criticism from Palestinian and Arab Americans across the US.
A group of Arab Americans that supported Trump during the 2024 election rebranded itself following Trump’s comments on displacing Palestinians, from “Arab Americans for Trump” to “Arab Americans for Peace”.
In a statement, the group said that while they still believed that Trump “is committed to achieving a lasting peace in the Middle East that is satisfactory to ALL parties”, they “take issue with the president’s suggestion of taking over Gaza and removing its Palestinian inhabitants to other parts of the Arab world”.
The group added that it was “adamantly opposed to the notion of transferring Palestinians outside of historic Palestine for ANY reason”.
Egypt’s president, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, told his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, that the international community must bear its responsibility to support the implementation of a two-state solution.
In its readout of the call, the Élysée Palace stated that the two leaders said agreed that any “forced displacement” of the Palestinian population in Gaza or the West Bank would be “unacceptable”, adding: It would be a serious violation of international law, an obstacle to the two-state solution and a major destabilising force for Egypt and Jordan.
Germany’s president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, said proposals for the deportation of Palestinians from Gaza were causing “deep concern in some people, even horror”.
Steinmeier, speaking after talks with his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, said such proposals were “not only unacceptable under international law” but would not serve as a “serious basis for talks” between regional actors and the US.
Donald Trump’s proposal to permanently move millions of Palestinians out of Gaza to allow its reconstruction under US “ownership” could amount to a war crime or crime against humanity, experts in international law have said.
The experts said the US president’s framing of his plan without any reference to international law set a dangerous precedent that would encourage other world leaders to do similarly and contribute to a global breakdown of peace and security.
The two most obvious codes potentially breached by the Trump plan are the Geneva conventions – international treaties agreed in 1949 governing the treatment of civilians and military personnel during conflicts – and the 1998 Rome statute, which established the international criminal court to bring to justice individuals suspected of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide where states either cannot or will not do so themselves.
Under both codes, the arbitrary and permanent forcible transfer of populations is a crime.
Canada’s foreign minister said that Canada’s position on Gaza had not changed, and that they are committed to achieving a two-state solution.
In a statement posted on social media, Melanie Joly wrote: Canada’s longstanding position on Gaza has not changed. We are committed to achieving a two-state solution, where Israelis and Palestinians can live securely within internationally recognised borders.
There is no role for Hamas in the governance of Gaza. We support Palestinians’ right to self-determination, including from being forcibly displaced from Gaza.
Pete Hegseth has said that the Pentagon is prepared to look at “all options” when it comes to Gaza. Hegseth made the comments on Wednesday before the start of his meeting with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the Pentagon, according to Reuters.
“I would just say, on the question of Gaza, the definition of insanity is attempting to do the same thing over and over and over again” Hegseth said. “The president is willing to think outside the box, look for new and unique, dynamic ways to solve problems that have felt like they were intractable” Hegseth added. “We’re prepared to look at all options.”
Trump turned into the Mad Hatter, a role that he seems to be playing with increasing relish. Bibi is surely confounded by the notion that America can turn the idea into a spot for Best Western or a new Trump Tower.
So is the Arab League which denounced his plan if that’s the right word for his madcap scheme as a threat to regional stability. Trump’s governing idea seems to be that the Palestinians — some 2 million — living in the Gaza Strip can be deported en masse to “countries of interest with humanitarian hearts.”
Then Uncle Sam swoops in to build casinos and hotels — “the Riviera of the Middle East,” as Trump put it., UK publication commented.
It’s nothing if not bold. Trump’s lucubration suggests that even though he’s become president for a second time, he can’t quite contain his inner real-estate developer. He’s not willing to give Israel first dibs on the Gaza Strip. Instead, he’s in acquisition mode — itching to build things. Perhaps he can finance it with his new meme coin. If not, maybe Elon Musk, who seems to have annexed the Treasury Department, can come up with the coin to make it happen. One way or another, Trump seems to be literally invested in establishing an American outpost in the Middle East.
