The Consequence of Saying Too Many No’s

Newly re-elected President Donald Trump shocked the world this week with a radically alternative vision of the Middle East. Four years away from the Oval Office apparently resulted in the kind of original thinking that would never have occurred to all those think tank “experts” running on empty. They prefer doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result.

Insane, yes, but there’s good money in it.

Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005. Not a single Jew has lived there since. Yet on college campuses, youthful imbeciles and malignant professors shout, “Occupation!” In 2007, Palestinians elected a terrorist organization, Hamas, as their official government in Gaza. Officially, no further elections were necessary after that. The Gazans got what they wanted.

Rather than build a state, Hamas chose to start three wars against Israel, losing each one decisively, including the one winding down right now. Rather than build hotels along the Mediterranean Sea, they dug 350 miles of tunnels underground to hide their weapons and themselves. Tens of thousands of Gazans above ground got killed. Yet, unfathomably, Hamas remains wildly popular among the people.

This is Israel’s reality, one that became even more foreboding on October 7.

What would most world leaders choose for Gaza at this time? Allow Hamas to remain in charge, cheered on by bloodthirsty Palestinians, and await Gaza vs. Israel, Round Four? That is a dead end long since traveled, with deadly consequences.

Trump’s eureka moment may have been hatched while sitting on his gold toilet on Fifth Avenue. The man knows real estate, after all. Gaza has great weather and beautiful beaches. Why not transform the enclave to another Riviera, or Singapore, or Macao? Casinos and surfing, imagine that!

Gazans, of course, could have done this themselves, starting back in 2005, if they weren’t so intent on annihilating all the Jews in Israel.

But prosperity and a bright future were never a priority for them. It should be. In 2022, long before the war, Gaza’s unemployment rate peaked at 45 percent. A majority live below the poverty line. In March 2024, during the war, the World Bank blamed Hamas for the 1.2 million who were homeless, with 62 percent of the buildings still standing uninhabitable, and 90 percent of the roads destroyed.

Who in good conscience really believes that the best solution is to consign two million people who have yet to begin the 12 steps required to lick their addiction to terrorism, to remain right where they are, even more destitute and desperate than before?

Trump wants the United States to take possession of the Strip and supervise its rebuilding—financed by the very same oil-rich investors who signed the Abraham Accords, and possibly private entities, as well. While this is all happening, Gazans will move to Egypt, Jordan and other Arab countries.

Palestinians already comprise 60 percent of the Jordanian population; and a significant number of Egyptians are followers of the Muslim Brotherhood, the very same sect of Islam that dominates Gaza. Mass population transfers after wars are a global reality. Palestinians should be no exception.

Naysayers who have never done a thing for Palestinians say that this proposal is tantamount to ethnic cleansing and land theft.

Really? Two million Syrians fled to Europe during its civil war. Has anyone said that the 800,000 who now live in Germany have been ethnically cleansed? Nearly a million Jews were expelled from Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Algeria, Morocco, Yemen and Lebanon after the creation of Israel. Were they ethnically cleansed?

All people throughout history who have survived war-torn nations naturally migrate to neighboring countries and begin anew. I, for one, never expected—nor less, demanded—to return to Poland. My parents moved to America after the Holocaust.

Only Palestinians, seemingly, are allowed to repeatedly start unprovoked wars and not suffer the consequences of their defeat. Instead, they demand ceasefires and the opportunity to reload as a reward for their wartime failures.

Only Palestinians, seemingly, are allowed to repeatedly start unprovoked wars and not suffer the consequences of their defeat. Instead, they demand ceasefires and the opportunity to reload as a reward for their wartime failures.

Trump speaks of taking over Gaza because he correctly believes that the Palestinians must finally suffer the consequences of saying “no” far too many times to offers of statehood—five, to be exact, dating as far back as 1947! The “Two-State Solution” is by now a Middle East unicorn, a myth of the forsaken Oslo Accords, an artifice of diplomacy ruined by the Second Intifada.

After the barbarism of October 7, it’s time that Palestinians pay the price for decades of intransigence, petulance and stomping their feet, screaming, “Not this olive tree! That olive tree!”

How about no olive trees?

The risk of never behaving like statesmen is that, eventually, you forfeit your right to a state. Whatever sovereignty you may have once had gets lost. Especially when that sovereignty was always suspect to begin with.

Palestine, as a nation, was never a political reality—it never existed at all. What Palestinians are claiming as their home was always in dispute. Israel, frankly, always possessed a better legal title. It was a tragic mistake to allow the word “occupation” to emanate from Oslo. It has led to a lot of confusion, demonization and bad blood.

That’s not to say that Palestinian statehood should be off the table forever. Let’s see what Gaza looks like when Trump gets done with it. Let’s see whether placing Palestinian children in schools not run by the antisemites of UNRWA will result in a new generation determined to become brain surgeons and not bomb makers.

Let’s see what Gaza looks like when Trump gets done with it. Let’s see whether placing Palestinian children in schools not run by the antisemites of UNRWA will result in a new generation determined to become brain surgeons and not bomb makers.

Trump once owned casinos and imagines newly gleaming ones in Gaza. With a poker face, he’s unafraid to call a spade a spade: Palestinians are nowhere near ready for statehood, and what’s more, after October 7, they don’t deserve it.

Maybe they will someday. In the interim, perhaps Trump is right: Let’s do something positive with the enclave, and hold out the hope that Palestinians will one day long for a life of prosperity, which will require that elusive acceptance of their Jewish neighbors.

Since his first term, Trump continues to shock the Middle East system. He proved that wealthy Gulf nations had natural incentives to make peace with innovative Israelis. And that these alliances could be made without first achieving a political solution for the Palestinians.

After the sickening evidence produced on October 7, 2023, he is the first world leader to take a hard and honest look at Gaza and conclude: These people, right now, are just destined to detonate. Let’s build something, instead.

Thane Rosenbaum is a novelist, essayist, law professor and Distinguished University Professor at Touro University, where he directs the Forum on Life, Culture & Society. He is the legal analyst for CBS News Radio. His most recent book is titled “Saving Free Speech … From Itself,” and his forthcoming book is titled, “Beyond Proportionality: Israel’s Just War in Gaza.”