When President Donald Trump vowed to empty Gaza of its population and turn it into a “Riviera of the Middle East” under U.S. control, even Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, standing next to him at the White House, looked stunned by the announcement.
Since then, amid unnerving ultimatums on the release of hostages and a resumption of fighting in Gaza, the president has doubled down on the bombshell idea, despite accusations it would constitute a war crime.
In Israel, the idea of uprooting Palestinians – here known as “transfer” – was once an almost taboo word associated with what’s known as “ethnic cleansing,” most commonly raised by figures on the far right.
Why We Wrote This
President Donald Trump’s plan to take over Gaza and expel its residents was received in an Israel exhausted by conflict and lacking a government “day after” plan of its own. Many hailed its activism, while others saw a dangerous fantasy.
It’s now been dubbed by some here as “Trumpsfer” and, according to polls, appears to be gaining broad public support – especially when floated as Palestinians in Gaza choosing “voluntarily” to move from the ruined coastal enclave.
The Trump plan was received in an Israel exhausted by conflicts with Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran; still traumatized by the Oct. 7, 2023, attack; and lacking a government “day after” plan for Gaza, which is still ruled by Hamas despite the army’s crushing offensive.
“Every Israeli, barring the most delusional ones on the outer reaches of the left, ought to welcome this initiative,” wrote Ben Caspit, an influential, mainstream columnist, in the Maariv newspaper.
Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar welcomed Mr. Trump’s comments in the Knesset this week.
“We must try to find a different solution, a new approach,” he said. “This is what the U.S. president is trying to do, and we can only welcome it.
“As long as migration happens by an individual’s free will, regardless of the location in the world, and as long as there is a country willing to accept that person, can anyone claim it is immoral?” he said.
A Channel 12 poll aired last Friday found 69% of Israelis said they backed Mr. Trump’s proposal to “evacuate” Gaza’s residents, with supporters of Mr. Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition polling highest. A poll by the Jewish People Policy Institute, a Jerusalem think tank, found about 80% of Jewish Israelis support the idea that residents of Gaza “should relocate to another country.” Some 30% of those surveyed called the plan “not practical, but desirable.”
“Magic solutions”
Michael Milshtein, a professor of Middle East history at Tel Aviv University, says he is concerned that Israeli politicians, both in and out of government, are failing to tell people the truth about the idea’s moral and practical dangers.
Not only does the proposal endanger the current ceasefire, he says, but it could put Israel’s very security at dire risk by destabilizing neighboring Egypt and Jordan, with whom Israel has peace treaties.
Mr. Trump is trying to strong-arm the two into taking in 2 million Gaza refugees, threatening to withdraw foreign aid if they don’t.
“We would all want magic solutions that solve the situation in Gaza if they were actually realistic,” says Professor Milshtein. “But this is expulsion; it is not about relocation. I am not sure even Israeli government members are aware of the damage already caused and that will be caused between us and the Arab world because of it. … I am deeply concerned by this fantasy.”
Analysts have also been warning that it is not Israel’s interest to have thousands of Gaza Palestinians, among them likely to be Hamas militants, along the country’s borders with Egypt and Jordan.
Israelis are living in “la-la land,” Professor Milshtein says, if they think that after the wars of 1948 and 1967, which displaced hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, the deaths of 47,000 Gazans in this war might diminish their longing for a homeland.
American activism
Lianne Pollack-David, co-founder of the centrist Coalition of Regional Security and a former adviser in the Prime Minister’s Office, says Israeli mainstream support for the plan is a reflection of there being “no better, concrete idea on the table.”
“The Israeli public wants to see the U.S. forging a bold and proactive policy for the future of Gaza,” she says.
That said, she adds, “The vast majority of the public understands it is not realistic to drive away 2 million Gazans somewhere else. But there is a sense of an initial relief that the new administration wants to put their skin in the game, taking responsibility.
“Acting a little like the new sheriff in town implies the kind of activism Israelis want to see from the U.S. administration in the region. I think it is more about that sentiment rather than, ‘This is a great plan and we support it.’”
The idea of voluntary evacuation helps shift the conversation, says Sara Eisen, a marketing executive who lives in central Israel.
“I see it more as forcing the Palestinians and their supporters to choose a narrative,” she says. “No more both ways. If you are indeed refugees, relocating is a great deal – much more humane than the resumption of war. If Gaza is your beautiful home and you can’t leave it, then build it and stop trying to ‘return’ to or destroy Israel. Stop supporting and enabling Hamas, which has made your lives miserable and uses you as pawns.
“This new idea,” she adds, “as crazy as it sounds, provides a way for the end of Hamas rule that does not include the death of their human shields and in fact commits those that wish to live in peace a way forward.”
Dahlia Scheindlin, a pollster and expert in Israeli public opinion, suggests the vocal embrace of Mr. Trump’s Gaza idea is not necessarily new. She cites a 2016 Pew Research poll that found 48% of Jewish Israelis in favor of a broader question in support of Arabs being “expelled or transferred” from the country.
Aluf Benn, editor of the left-wing Haaretz newspaper, writes that the support reflects a mainstream drift toward the once-marginal ideas of the followers of the late far-right Rabbi Meir Kahane, whose party was outlawed as racist.
“Their ideas did not go away, and a generation and a half later, they’ve arrived in the mainstream, which still hides behind hypocritical arguments such as ‘humanitarian concern for the Palestinians,’ or ‘we’ve already tried everything and the conflict has not been resolved; perhaps it’s time for another solution,’” he writes. “The demon of ethnic cleansing that … was in hiding until now, will be hard to put back in the bottle.”
