OPINION - Trump’s Riviera proposal for Gaza’s day after

The author is professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University, and former UN Human Rights Council special rapporteur on occupied Palestine.

• Israel is not even held accountable for reparations or bearing the burdens of economic and social reconstruction, much less are its leaders made accountable for the commission of genocide and related crimes

ISTANBUL

US President Donald Trump surprised the world with his proposal for the reconstruction and development of Gaza after the genocide subsides. The main features of the plan were the forced transfer of the surviving Palestinian population to neighboring countries and the takeover of the Gaza Strip by the United States to manage the formidable reconstruction effort, with financing mainly extracted from the Arab governments in the region, especially the rich Gulf countries.

Since its issuance on Feb. 4 at a press conference at which Trump was standing next to the visiting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the global response to the plan was largely one of shock unaccompanied by awe. Even the Israelis seemed puzzled by how to respond, Netanyahu displaying a soft form of support, likely pragmatically driven, for the general contours of the proposal, but with an explicit endorsement only of its most objectionable feature – a clear commitment to the ethnic cleansing of the entire Palestinian population of Gaza, which currently numbers over 2 million traumatized Palestinians. So far, Israel has officially refrained from responding to the real estate and imperial aspects of the plan, that is, the vision of a Middle Eastern Riviera and an imperial US grab of land over which they had neither a prior claim nor a present connection.

From a human rights and international law perspective, the plan’s population transfer aspect drew the strongest opposition – not only from Palestinians but also from human rights advocates and governments worldwide. A weak form of justification was offered by Trump and his most loyal supporters, mainly in the US, in the form of insisting that nothing previously had worked, so it was time to try something different. Yet an outlandish, one-sided proposal that serves Israel’s interests by depopulating the occupied Palestinian territory in the largest and most dramatic removal of Palestinians since the nakba (catastrophe) of 1948, when upwards of 750,000 Palestinians were coerced and terrorized to leave their homes, discover that their villages were being demolished, and learn that their right of return bestowed by international law was permanently denied. These days Palestinians argue whether this phase of massive ethnic cleansing should be treated as a second nakba or the nakba be viewed as a continuous process of the denial of the basic rights of the Palestinian people that commenced in 1948 (or earlier) and continues into the present. Both perspectives have merit. A focus on the most traumatic events illuminates the high points of oppression but so does giving attention to the continuity of abusive denial of rights.

International law and the right to self-determination

The most persistent abuse in Palestinian history is the denial of their fundamental right to self-determination. This right, enshrined in Article 1 of both the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ratified in 1966), has long been recognized as essential in resisting colonial rule. The UN, often criticized by Israel for supporting Palestinian rights, played a key role in undermining them in 1947 by proposing the partition of mandate Palestine – a continuation of Britain’s colonial "divide and conquer" strategy. The Zionist movement accepted the partition proposal, as set forth in General Assembly Resolution 181, while the Arab countries and the Palestinian people rejected it, leading to the 1948 War. Such a division was to be expected as all along the Zionist project was opportunistic in taking what it could get in various political climates but never abandoned its ambition to have all of Palestine.

This tactical ploy of pretending to be satisfied by an improvement of their position in relation to their goals was a master stroke of international public relations. In this sense "partition" was an improvement on the UK colonialist Balfour Declaration that pledged support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine but not a state, while partition offered the Jewish people a state of their own. From a Palestinian perspective the UN was furthering the colonialist goals of Britain, which sought to neutralize Palestinian nationalism by the counterweight of Jewish immigration, and its competing nationalist vision, which indeed backfired by producing a Zionist phase of anti-colonial struggle seeking the removal of Britain’s hegemonic presence in Palestine under the guise of being the mandatory power with a supposed “sacred trust” from the League of Nations to promote the well-being of the people under its protective control.

Decisions without the people: Who speaks for Gaza?

Trump’s proposal is a radical extension of policies that deny Palestinians agency over their own future as a people or a nation. The initiative issuing from the White House presumes an imperial prerogative and a reminder that Orientalism persists in the 21st century, here taking the form of superior Western civilizational management and entrepreneurial skill when it comes to global problem-solving. As if to be unashamed of such an approach, Trump makes not the slightest claim that he has consulted with respected Palestinian leaders or even sought genuine Arab or Turkish advice, much less overt endorsement.

The only possible saving grace is to suggest that this is an application of Trump’s preoccupation with deal-making in international relations. The purpose of his Riviera proposals is to agitate other political actors to put forward alternative plans of their own, and sure enough the Gulf governments are meeting prior to an Arab summit in Cairo with Gaza on the top of the agenda, both in relation to assuming some economic responsibility for restoring viability to the social existence in the Gaza Strip and offering to allow substantial number of Gazans to be transferred to their respective countries. Even if this dynamic produces a more plausible plan for Gaza, its evolution seems to exclude Palestinian participation or consent, and if anything, will likely stir a new cycle of militant resistance. The Palestinian people, more generally, have suffered too severely and too long to swallow some arrangement devised by others that does away with its long-deferred legal and moral entitlement to self-determination.

Subtly embedded in the Trump proposal are valuable “get out of jail” cards for Israel. It is notable that Israel is not even held accountable for reparations or bearing the burdens of economic and social reconstruction, much less are its leaders made accountable for the commission of genocide and related crimes. Instead, the core perverse idea is that the victims should pay for the crimes of the perpetrators, yet again prolonging the underlying injustice inflicted for more than a century on the Palestinian people.

*Opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Anadolu's editorial policy.