For all the millions of words written about Donald Trump’s inexplicable (to his opponents, anyway) political appeal, the simplest explanation may be the way he channels coffee shop banter into actual policy proposals. Too many immigrants? Build a wall. Greenland’s a commodity? Let’s buy it.

Gaza is a wasteland? Let’s clear it out — of people and rubble — and build something better.

Thomas Friedman this week called Trump’s the “bar-napkin presidency” — his executive orders and tariffs a series of “half-baked ideas” followed by “chaotic seat-of-pants wrangling between Trump and his aides and lobbyists over which industries will be hit and which will be spared.”

Method or madness, perhaps that is also what is going on behind his proposal, at a bombshell news conference Tuesday, that “all” Palestinians leave Gaza for other countries, and that the United States “take over” the territory and turn it into “the Riviera of the Middle East.” 

Many Middle East observers and partisan American Jewish groups consider the idea appalling, delusional and unworkable, absent a sort of military intervention that would make other historical examples of ethnic cleansing look quaint by comparison. At a White House briefing on Wednesday, his press secretary Karoline Leavitt hailed the Gaza proposal as “historic” and “outside of the box.” A number of right-wing Jews celebrated Trump’s proposal.

Some called the announcement an intentionally extreme opening bid ahead of future concessions — like Trump’s threat of military or economic coercion to gain control of the Panama Canal. Israeli journalist Amir Ettinger, writing in the right-leaning Israel Hayom newspaper, said “Trump must be taken with a grain of salt,” suggesting the gambit was a negotiating tactic.

Rachel Brandenburg of the Israel Policy Forum, which advocates for a two-state solution, said in a webinar Wednesday that Trump’s “unique style” demands and even inspires creativity on the part of his negotiating partners. Because Trump is “willing to push things to the brink,” she said, “you have to be willing to do some creative thinking alongside him or behind the scenes.”

But in terms of real-world consequences, it is one thing for your neighbor to advocate expulsion or annexation at the Shabbos table, and another when it comes from the leader of the free world. Even if the Gaza idea is an inflated opening bid — what, according to NPR, Israelis call “laying down a goat” — the real world consequences could be enormous — for Israel, for the Palestinians, for Jews and for the world. 

The very idea of expulsion emboldens Israel’s far right and its supporters, who dream of annexing the West Bank and “transferring” its Palestinian residents. Treating Palestinians as unlucky residents of an area subject to eminent domain robs them of agency and undermines any claims they have to a state of their own. 

In the Times of Israel, David Horovitz writes that the Gaza proposal is not just immoral but politically disastrous, especially in the signal it sends to China regarding Taiwan and Russia regarding Ukraine.“By what international right,” he asks, “does the US intend to occupy, empty, and repopulate a territory that, indeed, has no legitimate sovereign government, but is also not open and available to the United States simply by virtue of its desire to take it over?”

The proposal also does Israel no favors. For Palestinians and their supporters, the idea is bitter confirmation of Palestinian-American scholar Rashid Khalidi’s argument that from its founding Israel has been an imperial project of the Western world’s great powers. In recent years perhaps no charge has rankled the pro-Israel community more than the accusation that Israel is a “settler colonial” project of the West. It’s harder to deny the “settler colonialism” label if your best idea is to collude with a major power to remove a population from a territory and take over their land. 

Trump and his team might not have thought these things through, but the first two weeks of his second presidency suggest that consequences are not his priority. Disruption and being seen as a problem solver — at least of the problems he uniquely identifies and amplifies — are his brand. The ideas that Trump’s critics see as his most preposterous and norm-breaking are usually applied to problems for which politics-as-usual have failed to find a fix, from illegal immigration to the flow of illegal drugs to inflation. At the height of the pandemic, his public ruminations about injecting bleach and trying untested cures resonated among frightened people looking for silver bullets.  

What problem seems more intractable than Gaza? Tens of thousands dead, hundreds of thousands homeless, the strip in rubble, and Israelis still not convinced the Hamas can no longer kill or kidnap its people. In that context, repopulating Gaza sounds like what Trump calls “common sense.” If you can convince yourself that, despite their own objections,  Gazans will be better off living in Egypt, Jordan and other countries, safe from conflict, it almost sounds humanitarian.

In the hours after the Trump-Netanyahu news conference, the media trotted out the usual Middle East experts and pundits to comment. It was striking how many decades many of them have been in the game — and equally striking how far away, despite their best efforts, Israelis and Palestinians are from a future that doesn’t include them killing each other. Against this track record of futility, Trump brings in neophytes and cronies who have their own ideas. Occasionally it works, as when Jared Kushner, his advisor and son in law, ran point on the Abraham Accords despite his experience. More often, Trump moves on to the next idea.

“Above all else, Donald Trump’s superpower is his willingness to ignore anything he said yesterday or at any other point before now in the interests of what feels right today,” writes Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo. “That gives him an almost unimaginable flexibility.’

In the face of complex, intractable problems, Trump flexes his unpredictability and “common sense.” It may not solve the problem, but that may not be the goal.

 

The Pink Peacock, the anarchist, queer-friendly kosher Yiddish café that operated in Glasgow, Scotland for three years, is looking to reopen in Brooklyn this summer.

The cafe, which opened in 2020, generated serious buzz for likely being the only queer, Yiddish, anarchist and vegan pay-what-you-can café in the world. In 2023, it closed after its owners suffered from burnout, citing an “astonishing amount of antisemitic vitriol” during its three years of operation from other “self-described leftists.”

But now, according to Pink Peacock co-founders Moishe Holleb and Miles Grant, who are both American and independently wound up back stateside, the cafe hopes to find lasting success in New York City’s hippest borough.

“We saw that there was no anti-Zionist, queer, anarchist Jewish spaces in New York City, and where there’s a gap, we realized that this needs to continue to exist,” Grant said.

As for how they ended up looking in Crown Heights, Grant said it “just happened,” while they scoped out Jewish neighborhoods in New York. “There’s a good intersection between being the Jewish community, and also a lot of other communities who are in that same area,” he said. “And I think that’s really important to us, sort of saying, ‘we’re all connected, and there’s a lot of overlapping struggles,’ and I think that’s what spoke to us a lot.”

At least one local Jew is excited about the forthcoming venture. For Abby Stein, the ex-Hasidic transgender rabbi and activist, the prospect of a queer, Yiddish, anti-Zionist café not too far from her Park Slope home “seems really cool.”

“I mean, it’s queer Yiddish,” Stein said. “It’s some of my favorite stuff!”

“My favorite thing about New York Judaism is that it’s a buffet, and you can literally get anything and everything you’re looking for,” Stein added. “We don’t need another generic New York Jewish space.”

Crown Heights is home to large Caribbean, African-American and Jewish populations, though they tend to inhabit different pockets of the neighborhood.

“We see the same needs here: our communities are hungry for a Jewish anti-Zionist space which is accessible to Orthodox queer Jews, and unfortunately people are also literally hungry,” Holleb said. “We envision a community space that is centered around meeting these needs but open to everyone, with an ethos of solidarity and coalition building. We’re still in the very early stages, but hoping to open in the summer.”

The name of the café, which also goes by its Yiddish name, “Di Rozeve Pave,” is inspired by “di goldene pave,” or the golden peacock, a mythical symbol from Yiddish literature — though the color was changed to pink out of solidarity with the LGBTQ community. Yiddish — a language that has become increasingly popular among anti-Zionist Jews as an alternative to Hebrew — is sprinkled across the cafe’s menu, which refers to “tunah” for tuna, and “shmir” for shmear.

Like the Glaswegian original, Brooklyn’s Pink Peacock will also be an anti-Zionist prayer and community space that will host activities such as art exhibitions, interfaith events, Yiddish choir practice and holiday celebrations like a Shavuot anarchist book fair and a drag Purim spiel.

During their three-year run in Scotland’s most populous city, the Pink Peacock was no stranger to controversy, having once sold universal handcuff keys ahead of a major climate conference protest. The café, which shuttered for good a few months prior to Oct. 7, had a Palestinian flag on display, as well as a poster with the slogan “Jews and Queers for a Free Palestine.”

For several months in 2020-2021, a tote bag was displayed in the window with the words “f— the police,” which led to Holleb  being charged with committing a breach of the peace — a criminal offense in Scotland. At one point, the cafe also displayed a flyer for a Yom Kippur Ball “in the Jewish anarchist tradition,” to be held on the somber holiday.

In New York City, anti-Zionism is “a missing voice,” Grant said. “Jewish New Yorkers definitely have a much wider stream of opinion than is represented in a lot of Jewish institutions in New York. So we think it’s important that we’re clear in our values and that we also provide a home for people who share those values.”

“It makes sense that this unique Jewish voice should exist in a place where there’s other Jewish voices as well,” said Grant, who is also a climate activist. “We’re not, just, in the middle of nowhere in Scotland. We’re actually sort of among other Jewish communities here.”

Glasgow’s Jewish community is quite small, numbering around 9,000. New York City’s Jewish community, by contrast, numbers nearly 1 million, and the borough of Brooklyn is home to the most Jews in the area at 462,000.

Many of Brooklyn’s Jews are Orthodox or Hasidic — particularly in Crown Heights, which is home to the global headquarters of the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic movement. Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the last Lubavitcher rebbe, believed any Israeli concession of land to the Palestinians would endanger the Jewish people, and the vast majority of Chabad adherents are pro-Israel.

However, the Pink Peacock doesn’t have a lease signed yet, and it’s possible the café won’t be located within the Chabad-oriented part of the neighborhood.

“In my mind, there’s a lot of people, even from my community, who live in not the Chabad part,” Stein said, referring to local indie Jewish groups like Minyan Atara, which is an independent egalitarian prayer community, and Brooklyn Shabbat Kodesh, an anti-Zionist minyan, as well as individuals associated with Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, which has its headquarters in the borough. “I think [the Pink Peacock] fits in perfectly in that way.”

A tool for policing campus antisemitism, which since Oct. 7 had been largely limited to the U.S. Department of Education, is now expanding into other federal departments under President Donald Trump’s directive.

The Department of Health and Human Services announced this week that it, too, will be conducting Title VI investigations into allegations of antisemitism.

The first investigations are into four elite medical schools — at Harvard, Columbia, Brown and Johns Hopkins universities — that the department said received “reports of antisemitic incidents during their 2024 commencement ceremonies.”

In a statement, HHS said it will seek to determine whether those medical programs “acted with deliberate indifference regarding events that may have impacted Jewish students’ rights to access educational opportunities and benefits.” And authorities are signaling that federal funding for medical research at these universities could be on the line if they fail to comply, with the release spotlighting hundreds of millions of federal dollars that have reached the schools under investigation.

“The reviews come in response to reported incidents of antisemitism and displays of offensive symbols and messaging during the ceremonies, including alleged expressions of support for terrorist organizations,” a press release from the department announced Monday. 

The expansion of Title VI investigations comes as Trump is reportedly taking steps to dismantle the education department, which also opened five new Title VI probes this week.

The two departments and the Justice Department are represented in Trump’s new federal task force that pledges to tackle campus antisemitism more aggressively. (The Biden administration also favored Title VI as an enforcement tool and the former president’s education department opened some investigations into medical schools specifically.)

At least one of the new HHS investigations appears to be inspired by a study published in an Israeli medical journal by two American Jewish doctors. The study’s authors, Steven Roth and Hedy S. Wald, reviewed footage of recent commencement ceremonies at a range of medical schools, including Harvard, for signs of clothing or behavior they considered “either openly antisemitic or potentially offensive or insensitive.” (The study was summarized in a New York Post article cited by HHS investigators in a letter to Harvard, according to the Harvard Crimson.)

Roth and Wald — the latter is a Brown professor and commissioner of  The Lancet medical journal’s Commission on Medicine, Nazism and the Holocaust — found that 2.5% of the graduating cohort they studied wore “symbols representing antisemitic themes” and 1.7% wore buttons, banners or signs or engaged in verbal protests. 

The doctors say in the study that they classified the wearing of a keffiyeh, or traditional Palestinian head scarf, as “antisemitic regalia.” (The issue of whether keffiyehs are antisemitic has been hotly debated among Jews, and the Anti-Defamation League has stated the garment by itself is not antisemitic.) 

Among other examples the study classified as antisemitic: signs reading “Stop Bombing Hospitals,” “Honor Our Oath — Free Palestine” and “Harvard Med Funds Genocide.”

In response to the investigation, Harvard Medical School issued a statement saying that it “condemns antisemitism and remains committed to combating all forms of discrimination and harassment.” Representatives at the other three universities under investigation did not immediately respond to Jewish Telegraphic Agency requests for comment.

Trump’s controversial nominee for health and human services secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has yet to be confirmed but recently won over key Senate votes that make his confirmation more likely. Kennedy has suggested that the COVID-19 pandemic was “ethnically targeted” to avoid Ashkenazi Jews and compared vaccine mandates to the Holocaust. 

Even without his confirmation, federal funding for medical research under Trump is facing significant cuts.

Police in the Melbourne, Australia, area have arrested a man who they say threw a “packet of bacon” at someone who interrupted his attempts at antisemitic graffiti.

The arrest, announced Tuesday, is the latest in a string as police crack down on antisemitic incidents in Melbourne and Sydney, home to Australia’s two largest Jewish communities.

The incident took place in a park on Jan. 31, the Victoria Police said in a press release. A 68-year-old man was seen allegedly scrawling “prejudice motivated graffiti” on a fence when “a passerby approached the male offender and was spat on and had a packet of bacon thrown at him,” the statement said. He was charged with three crimes including “offensive graffiti.”

“There is absolutely no place at all in our society for antisemitic or hate-based symbols and behaviour,” the police statement said. “Police will always treat reports of such crime seriously.”

The mayor of the suburb where the incident took place said it was a “cowardly” attack meant to stir fear in local Jews who are already reeling from the arson of a prominent synagogue in December.

Officials in Sydney say they believe actors paid by foreign governments are behind many of the recent antisemitic incidents there.

Bacon and other pig products, which are not kosher to eat under Jewish law, have been used in antisemitic assaults before and have historically shown up in antisemitic imagery. In January 2020, an upstate New York woman was charged with a hate crime after allegedly throwing pork at a local synagogue in the middle of the night.

Like many American Jews, Rabbi Shai Held has devoted considerable energy since Oct. 7, 2023, to praying for the release of the Israeli hostages taken by Hamas. Still, when Israel and Hamas struck a deal for some of them to be freed last month, he felt grief.

That’s because the deal required Israel to release nearly 2,000 Palestinian security prisoners — including the man convicted of murdering Held’s rabbinical school roommate.

“No matter what your perspective on the trade between Israel and Hamas, it is devastating and heartbreaking that this man gets his life back while Matt and Sara never will,” Held said.

Matt Eisenfeld and Sara Duker were 25 and 23, and on the verge of getting engaged, when a terrorist detonated a bomb inside their Jerusalem bus on Feb. 25, 1996, killing dozens.

Today, the study hall at the Jewish Theological Seminary, where Eisenfeld was a student, is named for the couple. And many of their contemporaries are — like Held, the president of the Hadar Institute — leaders of contemporary American liberal Judaism.

For them, the weeks since the ceasefire was announced have been emotionally turbulent. Even as they celebrate the release of the hostages, they are mourning their friends anew — and struggling with the injustice of seeing the killers go free.

“I surprised myself by bursting into tears when I read about some of the prisoners who would be released,” Rabbi David Wolkenfeld wrote on Facebook. “Somehow it had not occurred to me that people responsible for the deaths of people in my own close circles would be included.”

Wolkenfeld, the rabbi of Ohev Sholom Congregation in Washington, D.C., said news about which prisoners were to be released brought him back to the drumbeat of terror attacks against Israelis in the 1990s and during the second intifada, from 2000 to 2005.

“Being reminded of the staggering losses and unending grief from those years impacted me greatly,” he said.

Under the terms of the six-week ceasefire that began last month, Israel agreed to release 30 Palestinian prisoners for each civilian hostage and 50 for each female soldier Hamas freed.

The first security prisoners released were mostly women and teenage boys who had been charged but not convicted of crimes, or found guilty of offenses such as incitement that did not directly injure anyone. But as the ceasefire has proceeded, those released have included higher-profile prisoners, including many who were convicted of murder.

Freedom for Muhammad Abu Warda, convicted in connection with the 1996 bus bombing, was a “key demand” by Hamas, according to Samidoun, which advocates for Palestinian prisoners and has been sanctioned by the United States for raising funds for a terror group. He was serving 48 life sentences.

Also released under the ceasefire was Wael Qassam, a Hamas leader convicted of orchestrating the July 31, 2002, bombing of the Hebrew University cafeteria in Jerusalem, as well as two co-conspirators, Mohammed Odeh and Wissam Abassi.

Among the nine people who died there were several Americans, including two, Benjamin Blutstein and Marla Bennett, who were jointly enrolled at Hebrew U. and the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies.

“The planned release of the terrorist who was responsible for their murder together with 7 others at Hebrew University in 2002 weighs on us tremendously today,” Pardes, a frequent destination for Americans seeking to study Jewish texts in Israel in a coed space, posted on social media last month. “Marla and Ben were cherished members of our community, and their tragic absence continues to be deeply felt to this day.”

Amanda Pogany, then a Pardes student and Bennett’s best friend in Israel, said she had been blindsided by her reaction to the news about the terrorists’ release.

“I was surprised by how quickly I was transported back in time when I heard the news,” said Pogany, who today leads Luria Academy, a Jewish day school in Brooklyn. “The pain and the loss came flooding back —  it really knocked me out.”

Bennett, 24, had been on the verge of becoming engaged to her boyfriend, Michael Simon, who today is the executive director of Northwestern University’s Hillel.

After the list of prisoners who would go free was published, Simon posted on Facebook that knowing Bennett’s killer was on it had deepened his feeling that the ceasefire deal’s unevenness was “troubling, even horrifying.” He said he felt that way even as he supported the deal, believing it would ease the suffering of Israelis and Palestinians.

“Even 22 years later, the pain is still real,” Simon wrote. “The price of this deal is not abstract, and it’s absurdly high. But I still want the hostages to come home — every single one of them. And I still want today’s suffering to end.”

He added, “Even though it’s so, so hard just to breathe.”

Rabbi Daniel Burg wrote on Facebook that learning that the Hebrew U. terrorists would be released took him back in time not to 2002, the year of the bombing, but 1996, when he studied abroad in Israel.

“I’m transported to a magical junior year of college in 1996-1997, when peace between Israelis and Palestinians, a two-state solution, seemed like a real possibility,” he wrote. “That year, I discovered good friends, including Janis whom I dated for a time.”

He was referring to Janis Coulter, another American killed in the Hebrew U. bombing. Coulter had converted to Judaism in 1996 after studying in Israel. At the time of the bombing, she was working for the university’s Rothberg School of International Studies.

After learning that her killers would be released, Burg wrote that “intense feelings of loss, pain, anger, and sadness have come rushing back.” He also noted that among his congregants at Beth Am Synagogue in Baltimore are cousins of Blutstein, who was known for DJing at night before heading to Torah study in the morning.

Rabbi Ed Bernstein collected Eisenfeld’s and Duker’s writings on a range of topics into a “Love Finer than Wine,” a book released in 2016 ahead of the 20-year anniversary of their death.

Today a chaplain in Florida after working for decades in pulpits, he said hearing that Abu Warda would go free tempered an otherwise hopeful moment.

“Like many Israelis and Jews around the world, I am relieved to see hostages captured on Oct. 7 returning home. I pray that soon every single hostage will return home so that Israel can begin to heal from the trauma of Oct. 7. I also pray that the people of Gaza can rebuild and begin to heal,” Bernstein said.

“At the same time, I feel deeply angry that someone involved in the murder of my friends Matt and Sara is being freed,” he added. “It’s retraumatizing, and it’s not just. I’m holding all of these feelings simultaneously.”

For Pogany, the mix of emotions she is feeling this month, as she grieves Bennett’s death anew, is intense but not without precedent.

“As I’ve been trying to process it all I just keep thinking about how Jewish it all feels. We are a people that is constantly navigating joy and sorrow simultaneously,” Pogany said.

She added, “For now, I’m doing my best to ground myself in the joy of the return of the hostages, and doubling down on the work of raising a generation that is committed to bringing more kindness and even more joy into the world for all people.”

President Donald Trump cast his dramatic proposals for the future of Gaza as a boon to Palestinians. But it was the Israeli far right that received them with giddy appreciation.

“When I said this time and again during the war, that this was the solution to Gaza, they mocked me,” Itamar Ben-Gvir tweeted, referring to Trump’s pronouncement that Palestinians should leave Gaza as it is rebuilt into a global city controlled by the United States.

“Now it is clear: this is the only solution to the Gaza problem — this is the strategy for the ‘day after,'” Ben-Gvir added. “I call on the prime minister to announce the adoption of the plan as soon as possible and to immediately take practical steps to advance it.”

Ben-Gvir, as well as far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, have repeatedly called for Israel to encourage Gazans to emigrate, and for Israel to build settlements in the enclave. Prior to Trump taking office, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had not prioritized either idea, and had rejected the idea of Israeli settlements in Gaza.

Likewise, large U.S. Jewish groups have said they oppose any call for Jewish settlement in the enclave.

Ben-Gvir, formerly Israel’s national security minister, quit Netanyahu’s coalition last month to protest Israel’s current ceasefire deal with Hamas, which Trump demanded. He said on the radio on Wednesday that he would return to the coalition if Netanyahu carries out Trump’s vision.

Trump’s call for “all” Palestinians to leave Gaza, and for the United States to take control of it, exceeds even the dramatic proposals that Ben-Gvir and others on the far right have made. Ben-Gvir has floated “voluntary migration” for Gaza Palestinians, while Smotrich has said he believed half the enclave’s population of roughly 2 million could be “encouraged” to leave within two years.

Forced migration is illegal under international law, and a number of the Arab countries that Trump sees as destinations for Gaza Palestinians have flatly rejected his proposal.

Following Trump’s press conference, Smotrich tweeted a passage of gratitude from Psalms about pilgrims returning to the land of Israel, recited on Shabbat and holidays, along with a picture of Trump and Netanyahu smiling next to each other.

“Even better and even better,” Smotrich wrote, echoing the lyrics of a hit song that channels rabbinic teachings but is widely popular in Israel. “Thank you President Trump. Together, we will make the world great again 🇮🇱🇺🇸.”

Reactions from partisan American Jewish groups to President Donald Trump’s proposals for Gaza — that “all” Palestinians leave and the United States “take over” the territory — began flowing in just as soon as their leaders picked their jaws up off the floor on Tuesday night.

The proposals — the latter of which was reportedly secret to even many in the Trump administration before the president aired it at a White House press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — elicited sharp revulsion from liberal Jewish groups and excitement from those on the right.

Mainstream Jewish groups did not immediately respond on Tuesday night but began to issue statements on Wednesday morning. The American Jewish Committee, for example, said it welcomed the support Trump expressed for the current Israel-Hamas ceasefire but expressed concerns about his norm-shattering proposals.

“At the same time, the President’s surprising, concerning, and confusing comments on an American plan to ‘take control’ and ‘own’ Gaza and the relocation of its population raise a wealth of questions – first among them the impact of the President’s announcement on the ongoing hostage-release agreement,” the group said in a statement.

Many groups did not strive for such balance.

“What do you even say about this absurd & dangerous press conference?” said Amy Spitalnick, CEO of the liberal nonpartisan Jewish Council for Public Affairs, on social media. “Unfathomably horrific and cruel for Palestinians. So incredibly foolish re: US interests. And fundamentally at odds with Israel’s own future — because there is no Jewish, democratic Israel without Palestinian self-determination.”

And Halie Soifer, CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, said in a statement, “The notion that the United States is going to ‘take over’ Gaza, including with the deployment of U.S. troops, isn’t just extreme — it’s completely detached from reality. In what world is this happening? Not the one we inhabit. Netanyahu praised his ‘out of the box’ thinking, but let’s be honest — it’s insane.”

Jeremy Ben-Ami, president of the liberal pro-Israel lobby J Street, had previously expressed openness to the idea that Trump’s iconoclastic approach to Middle East politics could allow for an elusive breakthrough toward peace. On Tuesday night, he channeled none of that optimism.

“J Street cannot express strongly enough opposition to the ideas being put forward by President Trump regarding Gaza. There aren’t adequate words to express our disgust at the idea of forcible displacement of Palestinians with the assistance of the United States of America,” Ben-Ami said in a statement.

“We call on leaders around the world, political leaders in this country and, of course, Jewish communal leaders in this country to express in no uncertain terms that these proposals are absolutely unacceptable – legally and morally,” he added.

Most American Jews did not vote for Trump. Among those who supported him, the reaction to his Gaza proposals — which matched the vision laid out by Israel’s far-right — included excitement.

Mort Klein, who heads the Zionist Organization of America, called Trump’s plan for the United States to take over Gaza an “extraordinary declaration that could assure the end of the Islamic-Arab terrorist group Hamas, and secure southern Israel after decades of terrorist attacks and missile launches from Hamas in Gaza. It will also be a major step towards a real peace in the region.”

Klein added, “Trump’s move could enable Israel and the US to develop this oceanfront oasis as a paradise in the Middle East while giving Israel the land it needs to thrive as a technological, scientific, cultural and religious giant. I see G-D’s hand here ultimately fulfilling his promise to the Jews of sovereignty over all of the Jewish land of Israel.”

Within minutes of Donald Trump’s meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Saudi Arabia threw cold water on one of the U.S. president’s pronouncements.

On Tuesday evening, when asked whether Saudi leaders were demanding the establishment of a Palestinian state in exchange for a treaty with Israel, Trump said they were not. “Everybody’s demanding one thing, you know what it is? Peace,” he said.

Saudi Arabia responded quickly: No, it had not not yielded on demanding the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, with east Jerusalem as its capital, as a condition of normalization with Israel, the kingdom’s foreign ministry announced in a statement.

“The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia emphasizes that this unwavering position is non-negotiable and not subject to compromises,” the statement said. Saudi Arabia also noted that it would object to any efforts to displace Palestinians, an idea Trump has repeatedly insisted on in recent days.

The firm statement illustrates the gap between Saudi Arabia and Trump, who made a series of shocking pronouncements on Tuesday, including that Gaza should be completely depopulated and then taken over by the United States. Those proposals fly in the face of the longtime Saudi demand for a Palestinian state in exchange for relations with Israel.

Trump is understood to view a deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia as a major goal of his foreign policy. Netanyahu has repeatedly touted the prospects of Saudi-Israeli normalization as well.

The president, who considers himself a master negotiator and frequently makes unprecedented demands that change the terms of debate, helped Israel ink deals with four Arab countries during his first term.

President Donald Trump said that the United States would take control of the Gaza Strip after the war there ends, a dramatic pledge and sharp change from previous American policy in the region.

Trump made the pledge in a press conference on Tuesday evening alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is visiting Washington D.C.

The proposal to take control of Gaza builds on Trump’s efforts to persuade Middle Eastern countries to take in Palestinians from Gaza — a plan he doubled down on in his remarks Tuesday. But in the press conference, he went further — saying that the United States would “take over” the area, clear it of explosives and rebuild it, a daunting task after much of the enclave has been destroyed.

“The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip and we will do a job with it too,” he said. “We’ll own it, and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site. Level the site and get rid of the destroyed buildings.”

He added that the United States would “create an economic development that will supply unlimited numbers of jobs and housing for the people of the area.” And he said he would visit Gaza on a trip to the region.

The idea Trump proposed has never been seriously suggested before. While various proposals have suggested that a multinational force could secure Gaza after the war ends, none of the plans that have been made public envision the United States fully taking control of the territory. The Biden administration had pushed for the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority to take a leading role in governing the site, an idea Netanyahu rejected.

Israel’s neighbors have rejected the idea of depopulating Gaza, and have historically supported Palestinians governing Gaza. In response to whether the United States had the right to take over Gaza, Trump said he saw the United States controlling the area long-term. He also said the United States would be making an announcement regarding Israeli West Bank annexation within the next four weeks.

“I do see a long-term ownership position and I see it bringing great stability to that part of the Middle East and maybe the entire Middle East,” he said. “This was not a decision made lightly. Everybody I’ve spoken to loves the idea of the United States owning that piece of land, developing and creating thousands of jobs.”

In his remarks at the press conference, Netanyahu appeared to support Trump’s proposal. He called it “something that could change history.”

“The third goal is to make sure that Gaza never poses a threat to Israel again,” he said, referring to his government’s objectives in its war against Hamas. “President Trump is taking it to a much higher level. He sees a different future for that piece of land that has been the focus of so much terrorism, so many attacks against us, so many trials and so many tribulations. he has a different idea, and I think it’s worth paying attention to this.”

Asked who would live in the Gaza Strip after all of its current inhabitants leave and the United States takes over, Trump envisioned an international population including but not limited to Palestinians.

“I envision a world people living there, the world’s people,” he said. “I think you’ll make that into an international, unbelievable place. I think the potential in the Gaza Strip is unbelievable, and I think the entire world, representatives from all over the world, will be there, and they’ll live there. Palestinians also, Palestinians will live there. Many people will live there.”

President Donald Trump doubled down on his controversial efforts to relocate Palestinians from Gaza, telling reporters that he would hope to resettle most if not all in neighboring countries, perhaps permanently.

Trump made the comments at the start of a White House meeting on Tuesday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Trump was less equivocal in his statements on other issues — including the future of the current Israel-Hamas ceasefire, normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia and his plans to counter Iran.

Netanyahu did not comment on the relocation plans. In response to questions about the ceasefire, whose second stage is now being negotiated, he repeated his vow to achieve the goals his government has set out in the war that began with Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel. Those include both releasing the hostages held by Hamas, and dismantling the terror group. The ceasefire’s second stage may place those goals in tension, as it is meant to include the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.

Here’s some of what Trump and Netanyahu said in their first meeting since Trump returned to office.

Trump on relocating Palestinians from Gaza:

Since his inauguration last month, Trump has pushed Egypt and Jordan, which have peace treaties with Israel, to resettle Palestinians from Gaza on their territory. Both countries’ leaders have rebuffed the requests, but Trump expressed confidence that they would accede to his demand. He said people have “no alternative” but to leave the enclave, which he compared to “hell.”

• “They say they’re not going to accept. I say they will… I think that Gaza, maybe, is a demolition site right now. If you at Gaza, there’s hardly a building standing and the ones that are are going to collapse. You can’t live in Gaza right now, and I think we need another location. And I think it should be a location that’s going to make people happy.”
• “You look over the decades, it’s all death in Gaza. This has been happening for years, it’s all death. If we can get a beautiful area to resettle people permanently in nice homes where they can be happy and not be shot, and not be killed, and not be knifed to death like what’s happening in Gaza… The whole thing is a mess.”
• When asked how many Gazans he hopes to resettle: “All of them. We’re talking about probably a million-seven people, a million-seven, maybe a million-eight. But I think all of them can be resettled in areas where they can build a beautiful life and not worry about dying every day.”

Trump was also asked about whether he supports building “Jewish settlements” in Gaza, and later “Israeli settlements.” Far-right Israeli leaders, and s segment of the population, support building Israeli settlements in Gaza, which were evacuated nearly 20 years ago. It was unclear whether Trump understood the question. He responded, “I don’t see it happening. It’s too dangerous for people. Nobody can go there.”

Trump on a Saudi-Israel normalization deal

Trump and Netanyahu have both expressed a desire for a normalization deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia, which would build on the Trump-brokered agreements between Israel and four Arab countries. Speaking about the chances for a deal, Trump was noncommittal.

• “We’re going to see, and we’re dealing with a lot of people, and we have steps to go yet, as you know. Maybe those steps go forward, and maybe they don’t. We’re dealing with a very complex group of people — situation and people. But we have the right man, we have the right leader of Israel, he’s done a great job and we’ve been friends for a long time… I think we have a combination that’s very unbeatable, actually.”

He was also asked whether Saudi leaders were demanding a Palestinian state in exchange for a deal with Israel, as has been widely reported. He said they weren’t.

• “Everybody’s demanding one thing, you know what it is? Peace. … We want people to stop being killed. Everybody’s demanding one thing, very simple: Peace.”

Netanyahu and Trump on the future of the ceasefire

The current Israel-Hamas ceasefire took effect one day before Trump entered office, and his negotiating team was reportedly key to making it happen. Netanyahu punted on whether Trump or former President Biden deserved more credit for the deal — though he praised Trump. And both refrained from elaborating on whether, or how long, the ceasefire will hold.

• Netanyahu: I support getting all the hostages out and meeting all our war goals. That includes destroying Hamas’ military and governing capabilities, and making sure that Gaza never poses a threat to Israel again…. Three goals. Not one, not two, three goals, and I will meet all three goals, and I think the president can help enormously.
• Trump: “We’re going to get this thing wrapped up. We’re going to get it done… We’re faced with a very complex and difficult situation but we’ll solve, we’ll solve the problem.”