“The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip and we will do a job with it too,” President Donald Trump declared Tuesday night (Feb. 4). “We’ll own it and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site, level the site, and get rid of the destroyed buildings, level it out.”
Standing next to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the White House, Trump added another target to his growing imperial dreams which also include taking over the Panama Canal, Greenland, and Canada. When asked by a reporter for more details, Trump committed to sending U.S. troops if “necessary.” He added that he envisions it becoming “an international, unbelievable place” for “the world’s people” to live after he turns it into “the Riviera of the Middle East.”
“I do see a long-term ownership position,” Trump added. “Everybody I’ve spoken to loves the idea of the United States owning that piece of land, developing and creating thousands of jobs with something that will be magnificent in a really magnificent area that nobody would know. … I think it’s something that could change history and it’s worthwhile really pursuing this avenue.”
Netanyahu initially dodged explicitly weighing in on Trump’s proposal, instead praising Trump for a “willingness to puncture conventional thinking” and a “willingness to think outside the box with fresh ideas.” When pressed more directly by a reporter, the prime minister still hedged a bit, saying he was focused on making sure Israel isn’t threatened by Gaza again.
“President Trump is taking it to a much higher level,” Netanyahu added. “He sees a different future for that piece of land. … He has a different idea, and I think it’s worth paying attention to this. We’re talking about it, he’s exploring it with his people, with his staff.”
President Donald Trump (left) and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speak during a news conference in the East Room of the White House in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 4, 2025. (Alex Brandon/Associated Press)
After controversy erupted and criticism grew about Trump’s Gaza proposal, the president doubled down on his idea early this morning: “The Gaza Strip would be turned over to the United States by Israel at the conclusion of fighting.” Meanwhile, Israel’s defense minister has also given orders seen as perhaps setting the stage for Trump’s plans.
Seizing another people’s land and ethnically cleansing the residents is “outside the box” of international law and morality, but it’s not exactly a “fresh idea” in human history. Whether he seriously pursues the idea or not, Trump’s outburst about taking over the Gaza Strip reveals a lot about the values we’re seeing throughout the proposals and actions of the new administration. And it reveals the immorality of some prominent Trumpian Christians who quickly backed the proposal and joked about Trump creating Mar-a-Gaza. So this issue of A Public Witness stakes out ground to consider a moral tragedy of our time.
‘Giant Real Estate Deal’
The idea of flipping the Gaza Strip like a land deal was floated before Trump returned to the White House. After Hamas’s terrorist attack against Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner suggested Israel do essentially what Trump now wants for the United States.
“Gaza’s waterfront property could be very valuable,” Kushner said in February 2024. “It’s a little bit of an unfortunate situation there, but from Israel’s perspective I would do my best to move the people out and then clean it up.”
Kushner, a longtime real estate investor, served as a senior advisor to the president during the first Trump administration. Among his various tasks, he was put in charge of Middle East peace efforts. Trump’s new Middle East envoy, billionaire property developer Steve Witkoff, has been described by friends as being like Kushner in seeing the Middle East’s problems as “one giant real estate deal.”
That lens aptly describes much of what we’ve seen so far in the first 17 days of the Trump administration: Billionaires looking for money-making deals while ignoring any devastation such decisions will bring to people.
The rest of this piece is only available to paid subscribers of the Word&Way e-newsletter A Public Witness. Subscribe today to read this essay and all previous issues, and receive future ones in your inbox.
