Looking back on the last 100 years or so, three events stand out as having had a significant impact on the Middle East, and specifically the Arab-Israeli conflict. First, in 1917, we had what came to be known as the "Balfour Declaration." Then British Foreign Secretary, Arthur James Balfour, wrote to Lord Rothchild the following: "His Majesty's Government view with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people..." Prior to WWI, the Ottoman Empire controlled much of the Middle East for 400 years. Following the Allies' victory, Britain controlled the area of what later became Jordan, Israel and the West Bank. British authority came from the League of Nations in what was called the "British Mandate," also referred to as "Mandatory Palestine."
To be clear, there was never a country called Palestine on that land. There was a Kingdom of Israel 2000 years ago, and the country of Israel since 1948. But the geographic area was called "Palestine," and was home to Jews and Arabs. Yes, I've seen online articles referring to Palestine as if it was a country run by the Arabs. Simply not true. The second significant event was the 1947 UN General Assembly voting to partition the land of the British Mandate into a Jewish state and an Arab state. The Arabs immediately rejected the idea, and made war on the new country of Israel. But, the Arabs had been killing Jews since the 1920's. And while the Jews sided with the US and the Allies in WWII, the Arabs sided with Hitler.
Now we come to the third significant event - Trump's outline for the future of Gaza. Steve Witkoff has been Trump's emissary to the Middle East, and was instrumental in bringing about the current cease-fire and release of the hostages. Based on his speaking with people there, and his own observations, Witkoff said this: "There's 30,000 unexploded munitions. Buildings that could tip over at any moment. There's no utilities there whatsoever. No working water, electric, gas. Nothing. G-d knows what kind of disease might be festering there."
So, Trump has a different idea. Move the people out of Gaza, at least temporarily. Then, "level the site and get rid of the destroyed buildings. Level it out. Create an economic development that will supply unlimited numbers of jobs and housing for the people of the area...do something different. If you go back, it's going to end up the same way it has for 100 years." Exactly! It's been war after war after war, terrorist attack after terrorist attack after terrorist attack. Until October 7, 2023, when much of the Jewish world woke and acknowledged the failure of the two-state solution.
Trump has consistently shown that he thinks "outside the box," especially when it comes to the Middle East. It wasn't just moving the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, Israel's capital city. It wasn't just recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the strategic Golan Heights. During his first term, Trump acknowledged the reality that the Palestinians would never make peace with Israel. So, he said, let's make peace deals between Israel and the other Arab countries. Which is how the unthinkable happened with the Abraham Accords. No one thought that was possible. But Donald Trump did.
Here is how The Jewish Press described the situation since Israel's rebirth in 1948: "Over the next 78 years, the Western nations tolerated the Arabs' bloodlust and hatred, blaming most of it on the Jews for their insolent survival of Arab hostility, until yesterday, when an unusually practical American president put a stop to the charade." Trump said the Gaza strip "has been a symbol of death and destruction for so many decades and so bad for the people anywhere near it." Said the Wall Street Journal of Trump's idea: "however preposterous, does have the virtue of forcing the world to confront its hypocrisy over the fate of the Palestinian people."
The Journal: "The best the world can come up with is to mouth the 'two-state' platitude and let Gaza remain a hell-hole where Hamas will revive its reign of terror, and Palestinians who want something different will be tossed off buildings." In a 2/6/25 Op-Ed in the Journal, Elliot Kaufman wrote that UNRWA (the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine refugees) has had the singular goal of keeping the Arabs in Gaza as permanent "refugees." Refugees from where? From Israel, because they claim Israel has no right to exist, and the Jewish people have no right to live there. Think about that. Every other actual refugee group following WWII, moved on.
They moved to other countries around the world. Even 700,000 to 800,000 Jews living in the Arab world were forced to leave their homes where their families had lived for hundreds of years. But Kaufman explains that UNRWA's "job is to keep them (the Arabs of Gaza) in forever refugee status down into the third, fourth and soon fifth generation. This way, they stay poor and crowded in Gaza's permanent refugee camps, whipped up for a final return to overwhelm the Jews."
So, is Trump's idea crazy or brilliant. If by "crazy" people mean difficult to achieve, I agree. But the idea is brilliant because Trump is looking for a better life for all the people in the area, and he has a plan to get there. Do I think Trump will ask US taxpayers to pay for the cleanup and rebuilding? No. I think pressure will be put on the wealthy Arab countries (think Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar) to foot the bill. And maybe some pressure on the Europeans.
When Robert F. Kennedy was running for president in 1968, he often repeated a quote originally attributable to George Bernard Shaw: "some people see things as they are and say 'why?' I dream things that never were and say 'why not'?" But we know Trump will never get credit from the Democrats and the Left. So, let's look at a typical Democrat reaction - in Part II.
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