Displacing Gazans is an unrealistic idea and a “war crime”.. How did the Western press view Trump’s plans?

Leading Western newspapers have criticized US President Donald Trump's proposal to "take control" of Gaza and forcibly displace its Palestinian population, saying the idea amounts to a "war crime," although some experts have downplayed Trump's plans as a "negotiating tactic."

"Yemeni Youth Net" monitored what the Western press reported after Trump announced during his meeting with Netanyahu that his country would control the Gaza Strip after displacing the Palestinians and settling them in several countries "or one large region", and this sparked Arab and international anger and rejection.

In an article in the Washington Post, columnist Ishaan Tharoor harshly criticized Trump’s plans to deport Gazans, saying they would be costly, destructive and politically explosive. For Trump, he said, Gaza has become the latest target of America’s manifest destiny.

The looming question, among many, that hangs over Trump’s vision of turning Gaza into a glittering “Riviera of the Middle East,” is what will happen to the two million Palestinians traumatized by months of war, the writer says.

Trump has been clear that he believes they should evacuate the area and seems to believe that many will not or should not return, and that the United States will take, in Trump's own words, "control of Gaza."

But the Gaza proposal, though unlikely, is even more surprising. Trump has denounced open-ended U.S. support for the Ukrainian war effort and lamented the ways successive U.S. administrations have wasted American blood and treasure in the Middle East. But on Tuesday, he laid out a U.S. commitment that would be costly, deadly and politically explosive.

Analysts believe that rebuilding Gaza will take decades and cost tens of billions of dollars, as Israel destroyed all civilian infrastructure, many neighborhoods were wiped off the map, and UN officials estimate that about 50 million tons of rubble and debris will need to be cleared before any reconstruction efforts can begin.

unworkable plan

The New York Times , for its part, considered that President Trump’s announcement on Tuesday evening that the United States could “take control” of the Gaza Strip and that its Palestinian residents could be permanently displaced quickly sparked criticism in the Middle East and beyond.

“Trump’s proposal, which runs counter to decades of debate about how to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, is intended to distract people from Elon Musk’s sweeping attempts to shrink the size of the U.S. government on Trump’s behalf,” said Sen. Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat.

Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland called Trump's proposal "ethnic cleansing by another name," adding: "This announcement will give ammunition to Iran and other adversaries while undermining our Arab partners in the region."

Former Michigan Republican congressman Justin Amash, whose family is of Palestinian descent, likened Trump’s proposal to ethnic cleansing. “If the United States deploys troops to forcibly remove Muslims and Christians — like my cousins were — from Gaza, the United States will not only be engaging in another reckless occupation, but it will also be guilty of ethnic cleansing,” he said. “No American in good conscience should tolerate this.”

On Saturday, Arab states rejected an earlier proposal by Mr. Trump to transfer Gazans to Egypt and Jordan, which made no mention of U.S. control of the territory. In a joint statement, the countries said such a plan would increase the risk of widening the conflict in the Middle East.

The American newspaper saw that President Trump's plan to place Gaza under American occupation and transfer two million of its Palestinian residents pleased the Israeli right, terrified the Palestinians, shocked America's Arab allies, and confused regional analysts who saw it as unworkable.

To some experts, the idea seemed so improbable—would Trump really risk American troops in another intractable battle against Islamist militants in the Middle East?—that they wondered whether it was merely an opening salvo in a new round of negotiations over the future of Gaza, according to a New York Times analysis.

The Israeli Right and the Doctrine of Displacement

On the Israeli right, Mr. Trump’s plan has exposed decades of unpopular orthodoxy about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, raising the possibility of negating the armed threat in Gaza without the need to create a Palestinian state.

In particular, settler leaders have hailed it as a way they might eventually repopulate Gaza with Jewish civilians, a long-held desire, the newspaper said.

For Palestinians, the proposal would constitute ethnic cleansing on a scale more horrific than any displacement they have witnessed since 1948, when some 800,000 Arabs were expelled or fled during the wars surrounding the creation of the Jewish state.

While Trump portrayed the idea as a kindness to Palestinians living in a devastated area, legal experts said forced displacement would be a crime against humanity, according to the New York Times.

Previous population transfers on this scale have often exacerbated rather than solved social and political problems, and caused great hardship for people forced to leave their homes. For example, the displacement of some 20 million people during the partition of India in 1947 had political consequences that lasted for decades and contributed to numerous conflicts.

The American newspaper downplayed Trump's idea of deporting the people of Gaza. It said, "Trump made bold threats in other places that he did not ultimately carry out. Some saw his maneuver in Gaza as a negotiating tactic aimed at forcing concessions from Hamas and Arab leaders."

In Gaza, Hamas has yet to agree to fully cede power, a position that makes the Israeli government less likely to extend the ceasefire. Elsewhere in the region, Saudi Arabia refuses to normalize relations with Israel, or help govern Gaza after the war, unless Israel agrees to the creation of a Palestinian state.

Israeli analysts said Trump’s extreme plans may have been an attempt to push Hamas and Saudi Arabia to change their positions. Faced with a choice between maintaining control over Gaza and preserving the Palestinian presence there, Hamas may settle for the latter, according to Michael Milstein, an Israeli analyst.

In turn, Trump has given the Israeli right a reason to support an extension of the cease-fire, Israeli analysts say. For more than a year, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing allies have threatened to collapse his coalition if the war ends with Hamas still in power. Now, those hardliners have a way out: a pledge from Israel’s biggest ally to empty Gaza of Palestinians at some point in the future, an idea Israel has pushed since the start of the war.

However, Mr Trump’s announcement has raised concerns within the Israeli mainstream amid fears that it could provoke Hamas into ending the ceasefire early. Relatives of hostages held in Gaza have avoided direct criticism of the plan but have implored him to focus first on persuading Israel and Hamas to extend the truce. Others have been more blunt about the potential disruptions the move could cause.

War crime and ethnic cleansing

Donald Trump's proposal to permanently transfer millions of Palestinians from Gaza to allow it to be rebuilt under US "ownership" could amount to a war crime or a crime against humanity, international law experts told The Guardian .

“Trump’s claim that the Palestinians in Gaza would be happy to leave, if true, would carry significant legal significance, even if it is unlikely to be a primary concern of the president,” the paper said. “Yet the claim is systematically contradicted by Palestinians in the region and elsewhere.”

In addition, Martin Limberg Pedersen, an associate professor at the University of Warwick, said that by describing Gaza as a “demolition site” and therefore a place where human life cannot continue, Trump has implicitly admitted that Israel violated the principles of distinction and proportionality during its attack on Gaza.

The Israeli attack reduced large areas of land to rubble, destroying schools, homes, roads, clinics, sewage systems, farms and much more. Vast areas of rubble were also contaminated with chemicals and unexploded bombs.

Critics said Trump's plan "tantamounts to ethnic cleansing," which the United Nations has defined as "...the making of an area ethnically homogeneous by force or intimidation to remove persons of particular groups from the area."