During his inauguration, Trump clearly expressed his desire to be remembered in history as a “peacemaker”, unlike the legacy left by his predecessor who instigated wars in the world. He took pride in the pressures he exerted which led to a ceasefire agreement between the Palestinians and the Israelis, only one day before his inauguration, pointing out that he succeeded in achieving what Biden failed to do throughout the prolonged months of the warfare in a very short period.
Trump spoke in various press conferences about the destroyed Gaza Strip, claiming that he would work on rebuilding it with the help of other partners in the region. To ensure the continuation of the ceasefire, his special envoy, Mr. Steve Witkoff, is directly supervising the implementation of the agreements reached on the ground. His envoy also announced his intention to visit the Gaza Strip to personally assess the situation there and see the destruction caused by the war.
We initially welcomed the position of Trump and his special envoy, as they seemed determined not to allow the ongoing blood shedding of the innocent civilians, random destruction, displacement and starvation of the people; however they never addressed the suffering of the people over the 15 months of genocide during their press conferences while, at the same time, Trump focused on the smallest details to highlight the suffering of the Israelis, such as mentioning seeing a photo of a recently released female prisoner who had lost one of her fingers.
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Trump and his special envoy, as media reports described them, deal with such serious issues with an aggressive business mentality, where they put pressure on the Palestinian side publicly through threats and intimidation, while using implicit statements in the press and explicitly pressuring Netanyahu behind closed doors, which led to Netanyahu accepting the ceasefire agreement.
Looking at the details of the agreement, it seems that Netanyahu’s acceptance of the deal did not come without a price. Upon assuming office, Trump issued an executive order to cancel all sanctions imposed by the previous administration on settlers and settlement entities accused of committing violence against Palestinians and working on seizing their lands in order to displace them. Furthermore, it clearly appears that Trump granted Netanyahu carte blanche to launch widescale operations in the West Bank, which he called the “Iron Swords”, an operation that is still ongoing, and its declared objective is to eliminate so-called “outlaws”.
During the genocide in Gaza, arms shipments from the West, led by the United States, continued relentlessly. Without these supplies, Netanyahu would not have been able to continue committing his crimes. However, under increasing pressure, some countries, including Britain, symbolically halted the export of certain types of weapons. Additionally, Biden decided to suspend the export of 1,800 MK-84 bombs, each weighing 2,000 pounds, due to the extensive human losses it causes.
Despite this decision, which was taken in May, being symbolic, it had no effect on the course of the genocide. The Israeli war machine continued to pound Gaza from land, sea and air with tonnes of various munitions, committing massacres that doubled the death toll and caused widespread destruction across the Gaza Strip. This continued until the ceasefire agreement came into effect on 19 January, 2025, of which one of the undeclared provisions apparently involved lifting the ban on the lethal MK-84 bombs.
Last Friday, Israeli officials revealed to the “Axios” website that the Trump administration had cancelled Biden’s aforementioned decision, and the shipment of bombs was en route to Israel. All these decisions taken by the Trump administration following the ceasefire agreement, coupled with the appointment of officials known for their pro-Israel and anti-Palestinian rights positions in the administration, confirm that Trump is a deceitful person who aligns with the projects of extremist Zionists. He does not really want to be remembered as a peacemaker in the Middle East according to international law, but rather through the standards of religious books.
The clearest evidence of this is the sudden White House statement issued on Sunday, 25 January, 2025, which disclosed Trump’s discussions with Jordan’s King about relocating “a number” of Gaza’s residents to Jordan and neighbouring countries. The statement also mentioned plans for similar discussions between Trump and the Egyptian President. Ben Gvir and Smotrich quickly welcomed these statements, considering them as the embodiment of their plans they have wanted to implement since the beginning of the genocide.
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Open and secret displacement projects are nothing new in the history of the conflict. Many projects have been proposed since 1948, some of which were implemented with military force, while others were quietly implemented through increasing settlement activity and tightening restrictions on Palestinians’ daily lives to push them to migrate. Nevertheless, all these projects failed as Palestinians remained steadfast in their homeland, while those whom Israel forcibly displaced through military aggression continue to refuse resettlement in host countries, clinging to their right of return.
Jordan, which hosts the largest population of Palestinian refugees following the 1948 and 1967 catastrophe, is often presented by the Zionists as an alternative homeland for Palestinians. However, Jordan remained completely silent over Trump’s statements, although we have been accustomed to hearing fiery statements from the Jordanian Foreign Ministry and Jordanian officials directly on every position or statement by an Israeli official calling for the displacement of the Palestinians. This behaviour was evident since the start of the genocide, where Jordan firmly opposed Netanyahu’s plans to displace Gaza’s residents.
We remain uncertain about the position of Egypt’s Sisi regime, which once headed the “Deal of the Century” project. Sisi had initially rejected similar plans at the start of the genocide, and he stated at the time that, if Israel intended to displace Palestinians, they should be relocated within Palestine itself, to be returned to the Gaza Strip after the completion of Israeli operations against the Palestinian factions.
We have not heard any response from international or regional actors on this project. As usual, everyone including the United Nations, the European Union, the Arab League and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation buried their heads in the sand and did not issue any statement or even a shy response directly expressing their rejection of such projects for being in violation of the peace project in the region.
Watching tens of thousands of citizens returning to their homes in the northern Gaza Strip and their steadfastness in front of the Occupation’s bullets is a direct response to Trump’s project. These people who have been waiting for fifteen months, sleeping on the ground with no cover to warm them in the cold or protect them against the tons of bombs thrown at them, only to return to their homes which have become nothing but rubble, will never accept replacing their homeland with any other homeland.
In light of the weakness of the ceasefire agreement, the best practical response to such projects is for international actors to work to reinforce and support this agreement by intensifying all sorts of humanitarian relief operations by establishing temporary housing, mobile hospitals and establishing important facilities, repairing electricity and water networks, bringing in specialised medical teams and evacuating the wounded in order to provide the Palestinians with the minimum standards for life, which had been destroyed by the Israeli war machine over the course of 15 months.
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After the killings, displacement and destruction of the Gaza Strip, the international actors should call for an international or regional conference to add practical steps to reinforce and support the emergency relief and reconstruction operations, like the conferences which were held for countries that had been exposed to a much lesser suffering than that of the Gaza Strip. This would also send a message of hope to the residents of the Gaza Strip, asserting to them that they are not alone, and would also be a message for Netanyahu and his supporters that going back to fighting according to his plan is impossible and is a thing of the past now.
The blatant promotion of such malicious and dangerous projects by the President of the most powerful country in the world reflects his disregard for the security and stability of the Middle East. He continues to ignore the history of the conflict, which has always been fuelled by the desires of the Occupation governments to empty the land of its indigenous people. Any displacement plans of this kind would be a recipe for igniting a bigger war than the one that broke out on 7 October and the ones before.
This level of reckless and hostile thinking towards other nations’ interests, coupled with the audacity to propose such plans without consideration of their catastrophic repercussions, reflects the mindset of an immigrant who still lives in the era of his ancestors who established a state contained of immigrant who killed the indigenous peoples of the lands. Such a mindset disregards the importance of regional dictatorships, which had been in place thanks to Western colonialism, which are always also subject to blackmail.
The Palestinian people, who have just emerged from a genocide and struggling hard to rebuild their lives as it was before the genocide, reject all displacement projects. They are determined to rebuild what the Occupation has destroyed and to thwart the Netanyahu government’s attempts to undermine the ceasefire agreement which has been reached, which it has worked so hard from the outset and sought to sabotage the agreement by preventing displaced people from returning to northern Gaza as stipulated. This reveals the malicious intentions of Netanyahu’s government, which is keen to resume killing, destruction and displacement of the Palestinians.
Trump’s decisions and the displacement project align with Netanyahu’s project to return to fighting in the Gaza Strip. A true peacemaker in the region would not supply the war machine that committed the mother of all crimes with deadly bombs, propose displacement schemes or grant carte blanche to the Israelis to wreak havoc in the West Bank to implement its old-new project of annexing the West Bank.
If Middle Eastern regimes have chosen to be subservient to Trump and others, and willing to implement their demands and paying billions in tributes to please him, then the people of the region, led by Palestinians, categorically reject such projects. They are the people of the lands, owners and builders of it, not a group of migrants seeking pasture.
In Arab heritage, the homeland is not a mere bag of belongings or just a physical place. It is rather a profound emotional and spiritual state that represents identity and the feeling of belonging. Exile or displacement is tantamount to death.
It is surprising that the proponents of such foolish displacement schemes have failed to learn the lessons and morals from the killing and destruction which the Palestinians have endured over 15 months to thwart Netanyahu’s announced displacement plans, which have failed miserably, and they remained in their homeland.
If Trump and his administration wish to open a new chapter of peace and security in the region, they must avoid being dragged behind the agendas of delusional individuals who are eager to ignite another devastating war in the region. Instead, they should prioritise implementing the ceasefire agreement, which was fragile from the outset and which Netanyahu is desperately trying to undermine, as evident in his current actions in southern Lebanon.
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The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.