When President Donald Trump first floated the idea of moving the Palestinians away from Gaza, the entire notion was largely dismissed as “Trump being Trump.” In particular, the foreign policy “experts” brushed it aside as a silly idea, something they placed in the same category as “buying Greenland” or “taking back the Panama Canal.” But no more, not after yesterday afternoon’s formal public announcement, made as part of a joint public meeting with visiting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
This time around, Trump clearly means to be taken seriously, particularly given that he went so far as to offer U.S. forces to manage and rebuild Gaza. It’s also evident that he means that, once the Palestinians are gone, they’re never coming back, that his proposal is meant to resolve the nearly eight-decade-long conflict that has repeatedly roiled the Middle East. Trump wants to make it happen, and he has placed his personal stamp and the authority of his presidency on the line to see that it does.
In the days and weeks to come, the proposal will be parsed endlessly, and most of the usual suspects will weigh in to dismiss the whole thing as impossible at best and objectively dangerous at worst. For my part, I’m willing to step back and watch things develop, in the meantime giving credit to Trump and his foreign policy team for having given this serious thought before putting it on the table.
That Egypt and Jordan have categorically refused to play the role of accepting the Palestinians is unsurprising. The Arab world’s longstanding dirty little secret is that not one Arab country wants to take in the Palestinians, long recognized as troublemakers wherever they go. That the “Arab Street” similarly rejects the idea — and the rumblings have already started — should be completely unsurprising. The “Arab Street” for decades has been nurtured on the notion of “from the river to the sea,” the complete destruction of Israel and the genocide of its population. Riots are likely to follow if this idea gains any traction.
The Saudis, of course, have announced their opposition, even as one suspects a pro forma element. Still, they want an end to the conflict, so that attention can finally be turned, decisively, to the threat from Iran. Given the right encouragement, the Saudis will come around. Iran, of course, will scream loudly, and its enablers in Moscow and Beijing will add their voices to the chorus.
Meanwhile, we can expect the pro-Hamas radicals in our cities and colleges and their counterparts in Western Europe to take to the streets, and one can suspect that the members of “the Squad” and their counterparts in other Western governments will egg them on. One shudders, for example, at what we are likely to hear from Keir Starmer’s Labour government in the U.K., determinedly gutless in the face of Islamism even at its most trivial.
Resistance, then, will be massive, and Trump will be showered with contempt at every step. Even those of us who support the proposal must acknowledge from the outset that accomplishing it will be a gargantuan task, and one that lies right at the outer boundary of American capabilities. Putting a man on Mars may not be much more difficult.
The best argument in favor of the scheme, however, is a very simple one. Nothing else has worked, and none of the previous half measures, notably the much ballyhooed “two-state solution,” have ever shown any sign of working. Going after the root of the problem, once and for all, represents the best chance for finally resolving this conflict, not least for the sake of the children of the present generation of Palestinians, who surely deserve better than being raised in Hamas’s incubator of hatred.
Working out the plan, however, is a matter for the days ahead, and, as I said, I’m content to sit back and await further details and developments. Instead, my purpose this morning is to make a simple, but essential observation. Donald Trump’s proposed peace plan for Gaza represents an absolutely monumental display of personal — not just political — courage. Let me say that again, with all due emphasis. Donald Trump’s proposed peace plan for Gaza represents an absolutely monumental display of personal courage.
We’re only a few months away from Butler, Pennsylvania, from a moment when a rank amateur came within a few millimeters of killing Donald Trump. We can comfort ourselves with the notion that, now that he is president, Trump will no longer be hung out to dry with the Secret Service practice squad. He should have the very best protection possible.
We can even appreciate a hitherto hidden wisdom in his choice of JD Vance as vice president. The political experts wondered often and loudly at why Trump would forego the opportunity to achieve “balance” on the ticket, as opposed to selecting someone who so closely mirrors his own positions and attributes. The best answer, of course, is that Trump saw qualities others missed, qualities that in moments such as the debate with Walz demonstrated that Vance is a genuine political asset. The bad actors who would wish Trump gone now have to reckon with a successor, who, in the aftermath of such horror, would be even more dedicated to seeing Trump’s agenda through.
The threat to Donald Trump’s personal safety simply went through the roof with the announcement of his Gaza plan. This will bring out the crazies in full force, and it will also ratchet up the threat from Iran’s mullahs, and an array of Islamist bad actors — and this on top of the burgeoning hatred of the drug cartels.
I’ve worked in the executive protection field, and I know firsthand how surpassingly difficult it is to provide effective protection 24/7, month in and month out, particularly for a protectee who wants, indeed needs, to be out in the world, engaged with the public, visible every day in his leadership and involvement
Just over 40 years ago, the Irish Republican Army attempted to blow up Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and her key cabinet members as they assembled for a conference at a hotel in Brighton. The bomb detonated, but Thatcher was uninjured. Afterwards, the IRA Army council issue a statement, which concluded as follows: “Today we were unlucky, but remember we only have to be lucky once, you will have to be lucky always.”
This is where things stand as Donald Trump dares to take on those who traffic in the most extreme violence. He knows the odds, having come so close to death, and he’s chosen to defy them. This is a profile in courage the likes of which John F. Kennedy and his ghostwriter, Ted Sorensen, never imagined. Barack Obama received a Nobel Peace Prize for uttering all the usual globalist platitudes. If Trump pulls this off, he will deserve a dozen such prizes. In the meantime, let’s at least take a moment to applaud his courage.
James H. McGee retired in 2018 after nearly four decades as a national security and counterterrorism professional, working primarily in the nuclear security field. His most recent novel is Letter of Reprisal.