In the midst of setting up his country’s post-revolution government, the president of Syria condemned President Donald Trump’s plans to remove Palestinians from Gaza, which he sees as a “crime” doomed to fail.
President Ahmed al-Sharaa, a former rebel warlord who just months ago was tearing through the country’s standing army with a ragtag terrorist coalition, made the assessment Monday on “The Rest is Politics,” a British political podcast.
“It would be neither wise nor morally or politically right for Trump to lead an effort to force Palestinians out of their land, in my view,” al-Sharaa said.
The leader went on to call the proposal a “serious crime that will ultimately fail,” drawing an unclear connection to Trump’s deportation policies — “Why is he pushing Mexicans out of America now? He is doing the same thing.”
Trump announced last week his intention to take the Gaza Strip under U.S. control, committing to a “long-term” infrastructure reconstruction plan that would require the removal of Palestinians from the region.
The U.S. president has fluctuated on his ideas for removed citizens’ ultimate fate — he has at times alluded to a return to the Gaza Strip after the war-ravaged wasteland is rebuilt but also denied that they would have a “right to return.”
This proposal has infuriated both allies and enemies across the Middle East who have long championed a two-state solution that would give Palestinians sovereignty over their own nation-state.
Sharaa is skeptical that such a plan can even be implemented, citing Gazans’ increasingly hardened resolve to maintain their land rights at all costs following the devastation of the Israel-Hamas war.
“I believe no power can drive people from their land,” the Syrian president said. “Many countries have tried to do it, and they have all failed, especially during the recent war in Gaza over the past year and a half.”
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“The people endured pain, killing, and destruction, yet refused to leave their land,” he continued. “Over 80 years of this conflict, all attempts to displace them have failed. Those who left have regretted their decision. The Palestinian lesson that every generation has learned is the importance of holding on to their land.”
Trump is meeting with King Abdullah II of Jordan on Tuesday for a closed-door discussion at the White House.
Abdullah, one of the most vocal opponents to Trump’s plan, has been in contact with fellow Middle Eastern powers such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates since it was announced.