RUTHFULLY YOURS

February 4, 2025, the White House, Washington, DC. President Donald J. Trump is at a press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Trump says that Hamas must be eliminated, and that “the US will take over the Gaza Strip”, dismantle “all of the dangerous unexploded bombs”, “get rid of the destroyed buildings” and “create an economic development”. He adds that Gaza’s Arabs should go to other countries and “be able to live in comfort and peace”.

Netanyahu seems happy and moved. Trump, he says, is “the greatest friend Israel has ever had in the White House” and details every act Trump did to help Israel during his first term.

Many journalists in the room appear surprised and shocked by what Trump said; some seem angry. Negative reactions were on the way.

“This is an insane proposal” said Chris Van Halen, (D-Maryland) who added that Trump wants “ethnic cleansing”.

Ruben Gallego (D-Arizona), said Trump’s plan was “absolutely dumb, stupid and illegal”.

Tina Smith (D-Minnesota), said that Trump is “completely ignoring the sovereignty and the self determination of the Palestinian people.”

Almost all elected officials in the Democratic Party lashed out at what Trump had proposed. Only Pennsylvania Democratic Senator John Fetterman said that while Trump’s ideas were “provocative,” they were “part of the conversation.”

Most Democrats in the US seem to have forgotten the absolute horror of the attack of October 7, 2023. They seem not to understand why most Israelis think that there is no way to coexist with a Gaza Strip in the hands of terrorists thirsty for Jewish blood. These Democrats appear not to see that relocating Gaza Arabs elsewhere has nothing to do with “ethnic cleansing.” Trump did not propose to eliminate the Arabs, but to relocate them to safer places. These Democrats also appear to ignore that ethnic cleansing is precisely what is at the heart of the intentions of the members of Hamas, an organization with explicitly genocidal goals. Many Democrats talk about the “sovereignty and self-determination of the Palestinian people” — not that Hamas exercises a ferocious dictatorship over Gaza and allows no sovereignty or self-determination to a population it massively fanaticizes and relentlessly incites to hatred and mass murder.

Reactions in Europe were pretty much the same.

“The future of Gaza lies in a future Palestinian state…” a spokeswoman from the French foreign ministry announced. “Any forced displacement of the population in Gaza would be unacceptable.” She added that Trump plan “would not only be a serious violation of international law, but also a major hindrance to the two-state solution.”

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said that Palestinians “must be allowed home” in Gaza. “They must be allowed to rebuild, and we should be with them in that rebuild on the way to a two-state solution.”

“It is clear,” German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said, “that Gaza – along with the West Bank and East Jerusalem – belongs to the Palestinians. They form the starting point for a future state of Palestine.”

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, less critical, nevertheless said that she does not believe Trump has a “defined plan”.

The leaders of the main European countries talk about the “two-state solution” while knowing perfectly well that the only outcome Hamas wants is a one-state solution: the destruction of Israel, not a state alongside Israel. The Palestinian Authority has refused many Israeli peace proposals, even ones dangerous for Israel’s security. Europe’s leaders ignore countless polls showing that the residents of the Gaza Strip, as well as those, in the territories mismanaged by the Palestinian Authority, celebrate the October 7 massacre and want above all else Israel’s destruction. That, in fact, seems to be the actual goal of everyone who disagrees with Trump.

The majority of Israelis – regrettably, to many others — are not suicidal. They see that a “Palestinian state” would be a terrorist trampoline for relentless attacks on Israel. The Israeli government voted overwhelmingly to reject a Palestinian state, at any price, as “an ‘existential danger’ to Israel.”

A Palestinian state would indeed be — as the Palestinians have openly stated (such as here, here and here) — a launching pad from which to keep trying to destroy Israel.

By now, everyone should know that in 2005, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon forcibly expelled every last Jew from Gaza, which became a de facto autonomous territory – and a “failed experiment“. It could have become a Singapore or a Dubai on the Mediterranean. Several American Jews paid $14 million to preserve the Israelis’ greenhouses to give the Palestinians a running start. Within days, every greenhouse was stripped and its parts stolen.

A year later, in January 2006, in a vote held at the insistence of US President George H.W. Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the Palestinians elected Hamas into power, and Gaza quickly became a terrorist hellhole.

Europe’s leaders are fully aware that Gaza’s Arabs cannot live in rubble, with virtually no electricity, sewage or running water but with massive amounts of unexploded ordnance. Europe’s leaders are also fully aware that Hamas is a “government” that not only shoots its own people trying to flee or trying to take humanitarian aid intended for them, but that deliberately places civilians to be killed in crossfire so people will blame Israel, and not the rulers of Gaza, for all many “civilian deaths.”

To Gaza’s rulers, Hamas, the suffering of their citizens clearly does not matter: “We are called a nation of martyrs, and we are proud to sacrifice martyrs,” announced senior Hamas official Ghazi Hamad. To Hamas, apparently, their citizens are just useful tools with which to vilify Israel; why should they deprive themselves of such a perfect ploy?

Gazans could enjoy far better lives just about anywhere else. Many want to leave and those who could, already did. Claims that Gaza’s Arabs do not want to leave appear unfounded. British journalist Jake Wallis Simons, a frequent visitor to the Gaza Strip, says that many of the Arabs there want to leave if given the opportunity – and many already have. A poll by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, showed that 44% of Gaza Arabs aged 18 to 29 would like to emigrate, and that nearly a third (31%) of all Gaza Arabs have the same aspirations.

The leaders of the larger Arab world — who mostly seem happy to have the Palestinians as far away from them as possible –- quickly rejected Trump’s plan from the start. While Arab leaders outwardly support the “Palestinian cause”, they seem to want nothing to do with the Palestinians. Arab leaders unsurprisingly see the Palestinians as a dangerous population that has brought devastation to every country that has tried to help them.

These Arab leaders have a point. The Palestinians have repaid with unmitigated horror everyone who ever offered to take them in – from attempting to overthrow Jordan’s King Hussein in 1970, or, after fleeing Jordan, by starting a war in Lebanon. Kuwait expelled 400,000 Palestinians for supporting Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait in 1991, rather than Kuwait. Paying lip service to Palestinians at arm’s length, however, deflects attention away from their own often questionable regimes while conveniently posing as solidarity for their “brethren”.

Most Arab rulers have no intention of officially changing that position. Many Arab leaders have also, for decades, indoctrinated their own people to support the “Palestinian cause” – it was cost-free and sounded grand. After poisoning their own populations with Jew-hate for decades, they might now find it awkward to appear disloyal to the ummah, the Muslim nation. They might prefer a stance along the lines of, as the saying goes, “That is not my suitcase, that is Gaza’s suitcase.”

If, however, they think that Trump’s plan has a low chance of success, they might want to think again.

Even though Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and Jordanian King Abdullah II have so far refused to accept Gaza’s Arabs, the United States might have ways to help them reconsider.

Egypt finds itself in a difficult economic situation. Total interruption of American financial aid could lead to major unrest in the country. Jordan’s situation is equally precarious; it also needs American help.

When Abdullah came to Washington on February 11, Trump told him that he would not budge on his plan. Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty went to Washington and received the same answer from Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Words of refusal will probably continue to come from Arab leaders — presumably for political expediency; in reality, Arab leaders do not like the Palestinians any more than the Israelis do, but it is considered impolite to say so. The positions of at least several leaders of the Arab world might become flexible.

The situation in the Middle East today is quite different from what it was in October 2023. The actions taken by Israel over the past 17 months have been astonishingly effective. Hezbollah in Lebanon is decimated. The Assad regime in Syria has fallen. While it may be too soon to know whether the new regime in Damascus will actually renounce terrorism — many observers are not holding their breath — Syria is now under the patronage of Turkey, and no longer hosting Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. The mullahs’ regime in Iran has been seriously weakened. At present, it might longer have the means to wage another proxy war against Israel — only the imminent promise of its own nuclear weapons program. The Israel Air Force destroyed almost all of Iran’s anti-aircraft defense systems, leaving the country vulnerable to attack.

Trump has discussed with Netanyahu “how Hamas can be eliminated”. Rubio has agreed. Hamas’s “elimination” may not be violent if its members agree to lay down their weapons and depart (unlikely). If Hamas interrupts its hostage release, however, matters might be quite different. While deferring the final decision to Netanyahu, Trump made it clear, that he would “let all hell break out.”

Trump said on February 4:

“Today, I also took action to restore a maximum pressure policy on the Iranian regime, and we will once again enforce the most aggressive possible sanctions, drive Iranian oil exports to zero and diminish the regime’s capacity to fund terror throughout the region and throughout the world.”

He did not speak of military intervention against Iran, but emphasized that the mullahs “cannot have a nuclear weapon,” and that if the Iranian leaders nevertheless tried to have nuclear weapons, it would be “very unfortunate for them” — implying that the US would support military action against Iran’s nuclear installations.

Trump added that he had “once again designated the Houthis as a terrorist organization. They’re trying to destroy world shipping lanes. And that’s not going to happen.”

Trump, however, possibly in a hurry to solve the Iran-Hamas-Israel War, should not under any circumstances “go wobbly”. He made it clear to leaders of Arab countries during his first term that the best interest of the Arab world was to stop financing terrorism and come to an agreement with Israel, and that the alternative would be a sharp slide towards violence and decline.

Statements that Gaza’s Arabs are attached to their land are fallacious, except under the laws of the Ottoman Empire, which has been defunct for more than a century. Hamas propaganda has been telling its people for decades that their land is the land of Israel, which will be theirs if only persist in their jihad (holy war) to exterminate Israel’s Jews. Almost all Gaza Arabs hold UN refugee cards – which mean they are supposed to be living there temporarily. Few Gazan Arabs can believe they actually have extensive historical roots there.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has instructed the IDF to draft a plan enabling Arabs to leave Gaza for other countries. He stated that the plan includes several exit options: land crossings, departures by sea and air.

European leaders have offered no alternative solution. Qatar is reportedly trying to come up with a potentially duplicitous “peace plan” to allow its treasured client and Muslim Brotherhood associate, Hamas, to remain in power in Gaza so it can attack Israel again. Qatar and seven other Arab states are reportedly trying to work out a plan to present in Cairo on March 4, at an emergency summit of Arab League countries, but what is known about this plan shows that it is above all an attempt to save the dying “Palestinian cause”.

No one bothers to explain how the Gazans can continue to live in an area studded with unexploded ordnance, where 70% of the buildings are destroyed, and which Trump has rightly defined as a “demolition site,” while leaving nearly two million people to reside there and hundreds of armed terrorists in tunnels.

No one explains why “creating an economic development” cannot take shape in the present conditions.

No one admits that massive population displacements have successfully taken place in the past. Millions of Germans were moved from territories conquered by Germany after 1945, with no protests voiced. Nazi Germany had started a genocidal war and been defeated. Hundreds of thousands of Jews were forced out of Arab countries during and after the creation of the State of Israel. Jews who lived in the Gaza Strip before 1948 were expelled by the Egyptian army in 1948-49, and Jews who lived in the Gaza Strip were expelled in 2005 by decision of the Israeli government to give the Palestinians there a chance to create a peaceful “Singapore on the Mediterranean.”

Instead, as noted, the Palestinians used the billions of dollars given to them by gullible donors — who never laid down conditions or demanded an accounting – to build 350 miles of terror tunnels, a city under a city. A significant portion of Gaza’s Arab population has been complicit in Hamas’s atrocious crimes. Hamas has carried out genocidal actions, waged a war and been defeated. If one starts a war then loses it, usually there are consequences.

The journalist Lee Smith wrote:

“Gazans, not just the enlisted members of the Hamas brigades, waged an exterminationist campaign against Israel, and they lost. At virtually any other time in history, save the last 75 years, they would be lucky to lose only territory and not have their legend and language permanently deleted from the book of the living.”

American Democrats and European leaders cannot possibly say that the UN should repair the situation. The UN and UNRWA have been complicit in the ongoing campaign against Israel, a “secret” that is no longer hidden. Many of UNRWA’s employees were members of Hamas. UNRWA facilities were used by Hamas to hide weapons, hold hostages, and serve as torture sites. Even though Trump eliminated funding to UNRWA, and it has been banned from operating on Israeli territory, it apparently is functioning anyhow.

What American Democrats and European leaders should be committed to is preventing Hamas, a terrorist organization, from remaining in power. Netanyahu explains:

“[Y]ou can’t talk about peace, neither with Hamas or in the Middle East, if this, you know, toxic murderous organization is left standing, any more that you could make peace in Europe after World War II, if the Nazi regime was left standing and the Nazi army was left standing.”

American Democrats and European leaders still grant legitimacy to the Palestinian Authority (PA) and say that they would like to entrust it with the management of Gaza after the war. They apparently do not want to see that the PA is a corrupt entity that rewards terrorism and supports the atrocities perpetrated by Hamas. They appear to want Gaza to remain a terrorist entity able to attack Israel again and again. Interesting.

Trump sees that all attempts to bring peace to the Middle East have failed. Trump said:

“[E]verybody feels that continuing the same process that’s gone on forever, over and over again, and then it starts, and then the killing starts, and all of the other problems start, and you end up in the same place. And we don’t want to see that happen.”

It was Trump’s vision for the Middle East — initiated by his son in-law and advisor, Jared Kushner — that brought about the Abraham Accords, signed in 2020. The Accords were the greatest step forward for peace in the Middle East in seven decades.

Trump’s newest vision to revive the Gaza Strip as an “economic development area” -– also initiated by Kushner – but under US leadership — wrote former US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman on X, is “a very good plan”:

“Israel completes the war, achieving total victory against Hamas. The non-terrorists in Gaza move to a place where they can live in peace and dignity. The US and others then rebuild Gaza and recover their costs through the commercialization of 25 miles of what will become pristine beachfront, now open to the world.

“Israel wins, Hamas loses, peace prevails with no American boots on the ground nor expense to the American taxpayer.

“Hard to quarrel with this if you believe in peace, prosperity and human dignity.”

“President Trump came with a completely different, much better vision for Israel,” Netanyahu said on February 10, “a revolutionary, creative approach… He is very determined to implement it.”

Trump appears determined to profoundly change the Middle East. It is to be hoped at that he will not allow himself to be discouraged, misled or have his impressive visions diminished.

The Trump revolution in the Middle East is just beginning.

If Trump successfully manages to overcome the pressures and obstacles placed in front of him, what he is setting in motion today can magnificently transform the Middle East.

Dr. Guy Millière, a professor at the University of Paris, is the author of 27 books on France and Europe.