Whatever the merits of President Donald Trump’s proposal to depopulate Gaza, the potential downsides are significant. Among the greatest is that the plan has unnecessarily alienated America’s most important Arab partners at precisely the time Trump should be laser-focused on advancing an issue of much greater import to US interests: brokering an historic Israel-Saudi peace deal. Trump would be better served if he instead turned to a different plan – the one he proposed in January 2020 to address the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
Trump’s obsession with “fixing Gaza” is misplaced. To say that it’s a long shot is an understatement of breathtaking proportions. Gaza has forever been a mess and will likely remain one for the foreseeable future. It’s a chronic problem to be managed, not solved. It’s certainly not a candidate for the idyllic Mediterranean paradise to which Trump aspires.
Worse yet, Gaza’s fate is at best peripheral to vital US interests. Its importance pales in comparison to the historic opportunity Trump now has to transform the Middle East by normalizing relations between Washington’s two most powerful regional partners, Israel and Saudi Arabia, and isolating the tyrannical regime in Iran that poses the overriding threat to US security.
Trump’s pipedream of a Middle East Riviera has served as a major distraction from that priority. I’ve just returned from Saudi Arabia and can confidently report that they are pissed. Trump’s proposal completely blindsided and embarrassed Saudi leaders. It’s put them on the defensive in front of their own people who see the plan as a sure-fire formula for a second nakhba, or catastrophe – a reference to the mass displacement of Palestinians that followed the failed Arab war of 1948 to snuff out Israel at its birth. That’s helping fuel a longstanding Iranian narrative that paints Washington’s Arab friends as handmaidens to a US-Israeli conspiracy to wipe out the Palestinian national movement.
Far-reaching transformation
A more productive path forward would be for Trump to set aside his Gaza fantasy and instead resurrect some version of his 2020 “Peace to Prosperity” plan. While far from perfect, that plan at least sought to address certain core needs of all sides. At a minimum, it offers a starting point for re-launching a serious discussion on what can realistically be done to put Israelis, Palestinians, and the broader region on a better path following the devastation wrought by Hamas’s horrific October 7 attack. That, in turn, could help kickstart the process of Israel-Saudi normalization that Iran and its terrorist proxies have worked so hard to derail.
Since October 7, the Saudis have insisted that normalization cannot move forward without concrete steps to revive prospects for a Palestinian state. Exactly what it would take on this score to satisfy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom’s de facto leader, remains to be seen. But the fact is that Trump’s 2020 plan clearly identified a Palestinian state in parts of the West Bank and Gaza as its preferred end state.
To have a powerful American president like Trump revive the two-state proposal that bears his name and the imprimatur of the United States is no small thing. It would put the long-term vision of a Palestinian state back on the international agenda. That, together with the sidelining of Trump’s depopulation scheme for Gaza, could give Crown Prince Mohammed the kind of victory he needs on the Palestinian question to jumpstart not only his relations with Israel, but the qualitative upgrade in US-Saudi defense ties that are among his highest priorities and closely linked to normalization.
For Israel, the prospect of a Palestinian state is clearly anathema after October 7. But Trump’s plan made clear that such a state will never emerge without both the West Bank and Gaza undergoing a process of far-reaching transformation that will take years, if ever, to implement. Crucially, the elimination of Hamas rule in Gaza — one of Israel’s foremost war aims — was an essential element of what Trump proposed. So, too, the complete demilitarization of both Gaza and the West Bank, as well as the thorough deradicalization of Palestinian society by ending all incitement against Israel in schools, media, mosques, and government programs. Absent sustained performance along these metrics, the plan made clear that no Palestinian state will materialize.
Trump’s plan has other appealing aspects for Israel, not least for the right-wing elements in its current government. It would allow Israel to apply its sovereignty to all existing Israeli communities established in the West Bank since 1967. Not a single Israeli settler would be required to leave their homes. Under Trump’s plan, the Jordan Valley would also be incorporated into the Jewish state, establishing a vital security buffer along Israel’s eastern border. More broadly, Trump’s plan makes clear that Israel will retain absolute freedom of action should any threats emerge from a future Palestinian entity.
Unlike Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Palestinian Authority refused to even discuss Trump’s plan five years ago. I have it on good authority that, at the time, Saudi Arabia’s top leadership urged PA President Mahmoud Abbas to accept Trump’s proposal as a starting point for negotiations. Abbas’s refusal to do so exasperated the Saudis and spurred them to explore deepening their own relations with Israel.
Whether Abbas’s attitude toward Trump’s 2020 plan has changed in light of Gaza’s destruction and Trump’s own dalliance with the idea of exiling Palestinians is an open question. But another outright rejection of a US initiative that would resurrect discussion of a two-state solution should, in theory, again give the Saudis license to disconnect the pursuit of their own national interests with Israel and the United States from a failed and corrupt Palestinian leadership incapable of making peace.
Rather than divide America’s friends, Trump’s 2020 proposal provides a modicum of common ground that can bring them together – to rid Gaza of Hamas, create hope for Palestinians and security for Israel, and, most importantly, unlock an historic Israel-Saudi peace deal that would strike a crushing blow against the Iranian threat. That’s a deal that would genuinely advance vital US national interests and, perhaps, even win Trump the Nobel Peace Prize.
John Hannah, Randi & Charles Wax Senior Fellow at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, served in both Republican and Democratic administrations, including as National Security Advisor to former Vice President Dick Cheney.
Originally published in Times of Israel.