Trump’s Gaza ‘Riviera’ plan is the most outlandish idea in the history of US Middle East peacemaking

 https://edition.cnn.com/2025/02/05/politics/trump-gaza-takeover-analysis/index.html

To see an American president endorse what would be the forcible expulsion of Palestinians from their home, in an exodus that would subvert decades of US policy, international law and basic humanity, was breathtaking.

Trump followed up with the most imperialist reflex yet of a second term in which he’s already threatened to annex the Panama Canal, Greenland and Canada. He envisaged a real estate deal whereby he’d assume responsibility for Gaza and mastermind a job-creating urban regeneration project. He called it an American “ownership position.” A better phrase would be colonialism for the 21st century.

Trump’s plan was greeted with huge skepticism by Republican senators. And Democratic Sen. Chris Coons put his face in his hand and rubbed his temples. “I’m speechless. That’s insane,” the man from Delaware said.

But while his proposal, which would perhaps be the world’s largest ever real estate development deal, is unlikely to ever happen, it’s quintessential Trump.

“You say things others refuse to say,” Netanyahu said. “And after the jaws drop, people scratch their heads and they say, ‘You know, he’s right.’”

The first sentence is undoubtably true. The second one, not so much.