February 5, 2025 – A brilliant idea. Or a crazy one. Forty kilometers of golden beaches, blue waters, romantic sunsets, white-and-blue houses, and dazzling seaside resorts. A dream. But in Gaza… Such a wild project could only come from Donald Trump, the anarchic new U.S. president and the most powerful and unpredictable man on the planet. The idea is simple—and perhaps full of common sense.
After 15 months of Israeli bombings in response to Hamas’ atrocities on October 7, 2023, Gaza is now a heap of ruins. 90% destroyed. Uninhabitable. Reconstruction will take years and massive investments. And there is a high likelihood that, if Hamas retains control of the Strip, everything will eventually be destroyed again. Hamas seeks to wipe Israel and its Jewish inhabitants off the map. Though weakened by 15 months of war, it still controls Gaza—and its population, unable to rebel after 20 years of Islamic dictatorship and jihadist brainwashing in schools. Hamas has lost 30,000 fighters but has already recruited 15,000 new ones, many of them very young.
Trump’s plan appears, on paper, to be the only one that could provide a solution—albeit an unbalanced, terrible, and radical one—to the endless, irresolvable Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And theoretically, if implemented properly, it could finally allow both Israelis and Palestinians to live well and in peace—something that will never be possible with Hamas, which Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and Trump himself have vowed to destroy.
But Hamas cannot be eradicated in the foreseeable future. It is a cancer with metastases throughout Palestinian society. It is the most powerful force in Gaza, but also the most popular one in the West Bank. Weak and corrupt, Fatah—the party once led by Yasser Arafat and now headed by the aging President Mahmoud Abbas—would be swept away if Palestinians were finally allowed to vote after 20 years.
Certainly, Trump’s plan could resolve everything—or almost. It would uproot Hamas by emptying Gaza and relocating its two million residents elsewhere (but where? No one wants them!). The Strip could then be rebuilt as a profitable tourist paradise under American control. But for whom? At least some of its Palestinian inhabitants would have to return, “cleansed” of Hamas. Trump’s plan faces countless obstacles. The majority of Gaza’s two million Palestinians do not want to leave. Perhaps with strong incentives (funded by Saudi petrodollars and Gulf countries, as Trump suggests), many might agree. During the war, many would have fled to Sinai if Egypt had not closed its border. Then, countries willing to temporarily host two million people—many of whom have been indoctrinated by Hamas—would need to be found. And that includes tens of thousands of Islamist militants/terrorists and their families, as well as criminal clans allied with Hamas. Despite public declarations of solidarity, no Arab state wants the Palestinians, fearing terrorist infiltration.
Massacres of Palestinians have already occurred in Lebanon and Jordan. Amman and Cairo have made it clear they will not accept them. Perhaps Trump could persuade them with his characteristic “carrot and stick” strategy (mostly stick, in the form of tariffs), which he has previously applied to Mexico, Canada, and Colombia.Even Turkey, under “Sultan” Erdoğan, wants nothing to do with it and denounces the forced displacement of Palestinians as illegitimate cruelty—conveniently forgetting the ethnic cleansing it carried out in 1974 during the invasion of northern Cyprus, which it still occupies, having terrorized and forced 200,000 Cypriots into exile. Then there is the explosive issue of the West Bank—the other half of the impoverished pseudo-Palestinian state, now reduced to a patchwork of Israeli settlements, often built by violent settlers. This makes a “two-state solution” practically impossible.
Trump has promised to announce within a month whether Israel should annex the West Bank—a move that would trigger a bloody uprising. And at the end of the current ceasefire in Gaza, the war could resume. Israel, as Netanyahu reiterated in Washington, “wants to destroy Hamas.”.Trump’s Gaza project might be more of a provocation—perhaps a bargaining chip in negotiations with the Arab world that could lead to the partial implementation of the plan. During his first term, Trump achieved surprising results: he moved the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, recognizing it as Israel’s capital—a historic decision. He also brokered the Abraham Accords between Israel, Bahrain, and the UAE. Back then, however, he had the support of Putin’s Russia—now demonized by the West over the absurd war in Ukraine. Trump now plans to rebuild ties with the Russian leader. The American president is more powerful than ever, and he seems determined to reshape the world.
And of course, he wouldn’t mind a Nobel Peace Prize.
Francesco Cerri
International journalist. Originally a specialist in European politics and security. War correspondent in Sarajevo during the Balkan War, and at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Milosevic trial. Correspondent in Israel/Palestine during the Intifada, in Turkey during the Syrian war and the Gezi Park uprising. Also covered the Indignados movement in Spain and Portugal. Honorary President of the European Parliamentary Press. Knight of the Italian Republic.
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