Netanyahu Bows Down to Trump’s ‘Remarkable’ Plan for U.S. Occupation of Gaza
With a ceasefire deal in place, the Israeli prime minister now wants to move on to rebuilding.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu approves of Donald Trump’s plan to have millions of Gazans relocate and for the U.S. to “take over” and develop their land, he told Fox News on Wednesday.
Netanyahu, accused of war crimes in connection with Israel’s actions in Gaza, called Trump’s ideas for the territory “remarkable.”
“The actual idea of allowing, first, Gazans who want to leave, to leave—I mean, what’s wrong with that? They can leave, they can then come back, they can relocate and come back,“ Netanyahu said, without addressing those who don’t want to leave.
The forced displacement of a civilian population is a crime under international law.
President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hold a joint press conference in the East Room of the White House.
Anadolu/Anadolu via Getty Images
“But you have to rebuild Gaza. If you want to rebuild Gaza, you can’t have—this is the first good idea that I have heard," he continued. “It’s a remarkable idea and I think it should be really pursued, examined, pursued, and done, because I think it will create a different future for everyone.”
The reaction to Trump’s statements among the vast majority of Democrats, human rights groups, and Arab nations has been starkly different than Netanyahu’s, with even some Republican lawmakers bristling.
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“I think most South Carolinians would probably not be excited about sending Americans to take over Gaza,” Sen. Lindsey Graham told reporters Tuesday. “I think that might be problematic, but I’ll keep an open mind.”
Sen. Josh Hawley similarly told Politico: “I don’t know that I think it’s the best use of United States resources to spend a bunch of money in Gaza, I think maybe I’d prefer that to be spent in the United States first... But let’s see what happens.”
In any event, Trump and Netanyahu appear to see eye-to-eye on it.
As an apparent gesture of goodwill, Netanyahu reportedly gifted his counterpart on Tuesday a golden beeper, symbolic of Israel’s covert operation last year against terror group Hezbollah through thousands of detonated pagers.
Trump reciprocated with a signed photograph of the two of them.
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