Trump Wants Resorts, Casinos, and His Statues in Gaza — but No Palestinians

A recent AI video shared by the POTUS depicts Gaza as a place of glitz and glamour, with towering statues of Trump.

US President Donald Trump wants to take over the Gaza Strip, which belongs, as per international law and as recognised by the United Nations, to the Palestinians. 

(Photo: Instagram/The Quint)

(This piece was first published on 11 February ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's meeting with US President Donald Trump in Washington. It is being republished in the wake of widespread criticism over an artificially rendered and offensive video shared by Trump, depicting Gaza as reimagined by the Trump administration, in line with his declarations of transforming the conflicted strip of Palestinian land into a 'Riviera of the Middle East'.)

“Jiski laathi uski bhains.” One who has the big stick owns the buffalo.  

Proverbs, especially those colloquially rooted in India’s village life, have universal and timeless relevance. For proof, apply the popular Hindi kahaavat (saying) to the announcement made by US President Donald Trump at the White House on 4 February, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sitting by his side and wearing an approving smile.

What Trump said, and for which he is being excoriated around the world, translates to this: One who has the world’s biggest army with a track record of causing deaths and destruction on a scale unmatched by others, now wants to grab a piece of a distant nation, own it and transform it into pricy real estate ─ all this, by displacing its own hapless people.

Israel's Diplomatic Shield

Trump wants to take over the Gaza Strip, which belongs, as per international law and as recognised by the United Nations (UN), to the Palestinians.

Until Israel, which had occupied it, began bombing it and reducing most of it to rubble, Gaza was where over two million Palestinians lived ─ and they continue to live there. It had schools, colleges, universities, hospitals, playgrounds, mosques, churches, orchards, cafes and also poets, journalists, engineers, and ordinary people living ordinary lives.

They were not living in absolute freedom as we do in India because Gaza has been languishing under a land, air, and sea blockade by Israel since 2007. Nevertheless, they lived on land that belongs to them for thousands of years.

Then, on 7 October 2023, Hamas terrorists from Gaza launched an attack killing close to a thousand Israeli civilians and capturing many Israelis as hostages.

Hamas’ heinous crime was condemnable. But Netanyahu’s vengeful response was even more so. More than 50,000 civilians in Gaza, close to a third of them women and children, were butchered in a genocidal bombing operation that lasted 15 months. The International Criminal Court (ICC), in November last year, held Israel guilty of committing a “war crime."

Disregarding the ICC verdict, Israel also extended its bombing and killing to neighbouring Lebanon, killing nearly 4,000 people, mostly innocent civilians. Note that all the killing machines used in Gaza and Lebanon, along with the money and training for using them, were supplied by the US, which also provided, with its veto power in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), the much-needed diplomatic shield to protect Israel. 

Donald Trump: Peacemaker or Profiteer?

Then, Joe Biden went and Trump came. Ceasefire happened. Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners began to be exchanged. Trump, in his second stint at the White House, famously described his agenda as that of a “peacemaker”. Many in the world were elated when he said in his inaugural speech on 20 January: “My proudest legacy will be that of a peacemaker and unifier.” 

An honest and credible peacemaker is one who is fair and even-handed. He is guided by the principles of justice and morality. He has no desire to profit from the conflict or its resolution.

In most violent conflicts, no side is fully right or fully wrong. But a peacemaker must know who is more in the wrong ─ and never side with one who is more culpable. In other words, he must do justice to the victim and not reward the initiator of the problem.

Of course, pragmatism also has a place in peacemaking, and therefore he has to pursue what is achievable ─ and not merely what is ideal ─ by including all other stakeholders in the pursuit of lasting peace.  

In the case of the Israel-Palestinian conflict, the main stakeholders are Arab countries in the region, the UN, the European Union, and G20. And for decades, there has been a broad consensus among these stakeholders that the only just and practical way forward is a two-state solution — a Palestinian state on the basis of the pre-1967 borders, living peacefully with an adjacent Israeli state.

This means, Israel must vacate both, the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and the Gaza Strip, which have been militarily occupied by Israel since the 1967 Arab-Israel war. All Indian governments, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s, have consistently supported the demand for an independent Palestinian state as per this solution. 

'Riviera of the Middle East' 

Trump did nothing that an honest peacemaker should do. Consider this: the first foreign leader he invited to meet him, after being sworn in as president for the second time, was Netanyahu.

In a news conference he held in Netanyahu’s presence, he announced that the US would “take over” the Gaza Strip, “own” it and rebuild it as a “Riviera of the Middle East.”

What happens to the Palestinians living there? They would have to be relocated to neighbouring Egypt and Jordan. Why? Because the place had anyway become a “demolition site,” a "hellhole,” and hence, uninhabitable.

So, in effect, Trump was telling the Palestinians that he was rendering a humanitarian service to them by ethnically cleansing Gaza of the native population because it had become a place unfit for them to live in. But he did not care to explain who had turned Gaza into a demolition site and rendered it uninhabitable, because that “who” was sitting right next to him. 

In a grotesque redefinition of “freedom” and “happiness,” Trump later justified his plan by tweeting that the Palestinians would "actually have a chance to be happy, safe, and free."

Trump's Beach Resort Ambitions for Gaza

Who would live in that Riviera ─ that “billionaire’s paradise,” as Bernie Sanders has called it? Trump has been explicit: people from around the world. It now transpires that redeveloping Gaza into an US-controlled international beach resort was a dream he had cherished for a long time.

In October last year ─ one year into Israel’s relentless airstrikes and a ground invasion that had left much of Gaza in ruins ─ Trump, then a Republican presidential candidate, had told a radio interviewer that Gaza could be "better than Monaco," a Mediterranean haven for the super-rich, if rebuilt in the right way. He remarked that it has the "best location in the Middle East, the best water, the best everything.” 

It also transpires that this desire was first nursed by Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner. In February 2024, he had said,

"Gaza's waterfront property, it could be very valuable. It's a little bit of an unfortunate situation there, but I think from Israel's perspective, I would do my best to move the people out and then clean it up."

Like his father-in-law, Kushner was himself a property developer before he became the US’ special Middle East envoy in Trump's first term. Obviously, Trump and family saw a lucrative property deal in a grim situation of mass killing, devastation, and misery for Palestinians. 

What Does the Law Say?

If this shows the absolute lack of morality in Trump’s Gaza plan, what about legality? There is none.

The US can take over Gaza only if Israel hands it over to the US. But does Israel “own” the territory? No. Israel has illegally occupied it, and this illegality has been time and again highlighted by UN resolutions and also by the ICC.

In fact, the court has issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu for war crimes in Gaza. So, what does “peacemaker” Trump do? He signs an executive order imposing sanctions on the court over investigations of Israel. Please note: the US and Israel have refused to be members of, or to recognise, the court. 

Trump’s plan not only makes a mockery of international law; it also shows his contempt for the concept of sovereignty.

When neither Israel nor the US has sovereign rights over Gaza, how can they either ask its rightful inhabitants to move out, or build anything on their land? Article 49 of the Geneva Conventions, which are international humanitarian laws, prohibits an occupying power from coercively transferring or removing people from a territory.

Contempt for International Opinion

Those who have no respect for morality or law cannot be expected to care much for the opinion of the international community. Both Egypt and Jordan have rejected Trump’s plan for permanent or temporary relocation of Palestinians from Gaza. So have a whole host of countries ─ not only other Arab countries like Saudi Arabia, not only Russia and China, but also the US’s own allies and NATO members such as the UK, France, Germany and Spain.

China’s reaction has been particularly harsh.

"Gaza belongs to the Palestinian people. It is an inalienable part of the territory of Palestine, not a bargaining chip for political games, still less a prey of the strong. Palestinians governing Palestine is an important principle that must be upheld in the post-conflict governance of Gaza, and China opposes the forced displacement of the people of Gaza."

Guo Jiakun, China's Foreign Ministry spokesperson

Antonio Guterres, Secretary-General of the UN, a body which has been greatly weakened by the US, also said that in the search for solutions on Gaza, it was vital to "stay true to the bedrock of international law" and essential to avoid any form of "ethnic cleansing."

That Trump has zilch respect for the UN is evident from his recent actions. He has withdrawn the US from the World Health Organisation. He has stopped America's engagement with several UN agencies, including the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC). He has continued to halt funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), a Palestinian relief agency. He has also ordered a review of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). His grouse? All these UN agencies have an "anti-American bias". 

It’s not out of place here to mention here that the Trump administration has also begun to accuse G20 of this "anti-American bias.” Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, has announced that he would not attend the upcoming G20 summit in Johannesburg. According to him, South Africa was using G20 to promote solidarity, equality, and sustainability, which, in other words, is DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion).

Rubio stated that his job was to “advance America’s national interests, not waste taxpayer money or coddle anti-Americanism.” 

Is Israel the 51st State of the US?

All this shows that Trump sees Gaza as a place that Netanyahu has made ready for a “real estate transaction.” Further proof for this has come from a revelation made by former Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant, who was sacked in November last year. Gallant accused Netanyahu of deliberately stalling a ceasefire deal in April 2024 and thereby prolonging Israel’s attacks on Gaza.

According to him, the current ceasefire-hostage deal (agreed to by Hamas and the Israeli government on 15 January 2025) is nearly identical to one proposed in April last year. Doesn’t this mean Netanyahu was purposely destroying more of Gaza Strip to make it “uninhabitable” and thereby make it ready for Trump’s real estate deal?

Many people are asking: Is Trump’s Gaza plan implementable, especially when Palestinians have refused to move out of their own homeland and when neighbouring Arab nations have refused resettlement of the displaced population on their territories?

An examination of this question reveals one possibility, and one certainty: Trump may go slow on the plan or may modify it. After all, backtracking or partial backtracking on his own announcements has been a part of his track record.

But what is certain is that Netanyahu, who believes that a Palestinian-inhabited Gaza is a threat to Israel, will start building more heavily fortified Jewish settlements in Gaza, in the same way that Israel has already built in the Palestinian territory of West Bank and Golan Heights (Syrian territory which Israel occupied since 1967).

There are nearly 150 Israeli settlements in the West Bank, including 12 in East Jerusalem. The very presence, and expansion, of these Jewish settlements, is a source of humiliation and intimidation for the Palestinians, and evidence of them having been reduced to second-class citizens on their own land. 

If the international community turns a blind eye to Netanyahu transforming Gaza – with Trump’s approval – into an Israeli territory with Israeli settlers, what will it mean? It will mean that Trump and Netanyahu will have lit a matchstick to the “Two-State” solution and the idea of an independent Palestinian state.

When asked about Saudi Arabian support for an independent Palestinian state, Netanyahu contemptuously remarked on 7 February, “Saudis can create a Palestinian state in Saudi Arabia. They have a lot of land over there.”

By this logic, one could well ask: Why not relocate Israel to the US because the US has a lot of land? And why not give back all of Israel’s current territory to Palestinians, who anyway were its original inhabitants before the Second World War? In any case, doesn’t Israel act like the 51st state of the United States of America?

Will Modi Confront Trump on Gaza?

Finally, this brings us to the all-important question: Why is Narendra Modi’s government silent when almost the entire world has expressed its outrage at the Trump-Netanyahu plan for Gaza?

Israel commits a genocide of the Palestinians in Gaza. India is mum. The ICC pronounces its verdict on Netanyahu. India is mum. Trump imposes sanctions on ICC. India is mum. Trump withdraws from WHO and maligns the UN. India is mum. 

Does this kind of silence behove an independent nation, the world’s largest democracy, one that Modi’s supporters claim is led by the world’s strongest and most influential leader, and one that they further claim is “Vishwaguru” ─ a teacher to the world?  

There is also a question about double standards. We have heard the US giving lectures to the world, ad nauseum, on “upholding a rules-based global order.” This expression ─ along with calls for defending “democratic values, sovereignty, and territorial integrity” ─ appears invariably in every statement issued after meetings of leaders of Quad countries (US, India, Japan and Australia).

These homilies again appeared in the joint statement issued when Rubio hosted a Quad foreign ministers’ meeting in Washington on 21 January, a day after Trump was sworn in. It was attended by Dr S Jaishankar, India’s external affairs minister. The statement also strongly opposed “unilateral actions that seek to change the status quo by force or coercion.”

Quad leaders said this in the context of the Indo-Pacific ─ obviously with an eye on China, without naming it. But judge their stated commitments against what the US, in collusion with its ally Israel, has done and is planning to do in Gaza.

Do we see any respect for “a rules-based global order?” For “democratic values?” For the "democratic voice of Palestinians? For Palestinian “sovereignty?” For the “territorial integrity” of Palestinian land? And will Modi oppose Trump’s “unilateral actions” in Gaza that seek to change its “status quo by force or coercion?”

Well, Modi is meeting Trump during his visit to the US on 12-13 February. Let’s see whether he brings up Gaza and the Quad principles at all in his talks with the American president.

And let’s see whether any reporters ask the two leaders any questions on Palestinian statehood and “Middle East Riviera” in the post-meeting press conference. If they do, one hopes Modi will take a principled stand and uphold India’s honour.

(The writer, who served as an aide to India’s former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, is the founder of the ‘Forum for a New South Asia – Powered by India-Pakistan-China Cooperation’. He tweets @SudheenKulkarni and welcomes comments at [e-mail]. This is an opinion piece, and the views expressed are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)