Position: Has Trump really backed down from the idea of deportation?

Muhannad Mustafa*

During his meeting with the Irish Prime Minister at the White House, US President Donald Trump said he would not expel Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, in response to a question from a journalist. Does this statement constitute a retreat by Trump from his idea of expelling Palestinians from the Gaza Strip?

Trump's statement has two interpretations:

First, he does not consider his plan to be an "expulsion" or displacement of Palestinians, but rather a fulfillment of their desires. Therefore, he did not understand the meaning of the question when it was directed to him about the expulsion, and he also dismissed the question, as he is convinced that his plan enjoys the support of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

Second, he actually backed down from his plan to displace the residents of Gaza. This was after he realized the difficulty of implementing this proposal, the Arab states' rejection of it, and his desire to achieve greater goals from the Gaza Strip. Displacement could create greater problems for him than the displacement itself and the gains he would gain from controlling the Gaza Strip.

The truth is that this debate is pointless, and it is risky to analyze his views on the idea of displacement based on a sentence he said in an interview, like many sentences he said and then retracted, or statements that were more harsh than realistic. Even Gaza itself bears witness to the man's claim regarding the release of all Israeli prisoners at once with a specific time limit, and nothing happened.

On the other hand, it is possible to risk misunderstanding the context of Trump's statement, which may indicate (i.e., the context, not the statement) that the idea of displacement is no longer a serious idea on the US administration's agenda. Hence, another statement by Trump regarding the annexation of the West Bank can be invoked.

During the joint meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in which he presented his plan to displace the residents of the Gaza Strip, Trump promised to examine the West Bank annexation project within four weeks and publish his position on the matter. The result was that nothing happened, and after four weeks, the White House has not issued any position on the idea of annexing the West Bank.

Trump believed the idea of displacement was "outside the box thinking," which is in fact how the Israelis described Trump's proposal. However, he encountered a unified Arab position against the proposal, as well as a new Arab initiative to rebuild Gaza and resolve the general political impasse, represented by the failure to grant Palestinians their national and political rights.

The Arab initiative took a political direction similar to Trump's approach, offering not only a plan for the reconstruction of Gaza, but also a clear and timetabled political horizon for "peace," a term Trump frequently uses.

While Trump's approach was to raise the ceiling of his demands to get what he wanted, the Arab initiative came with a political ceiling that went beyond reconstruction and preventing displacement, with the goal of reclaiming Gaza from the captivity of the displacement idea that Trump launched, which has become entrenched in the Israeli imagination, and has become a department within the Israeli Ministry of Defense to implement the proposal.

The clear Arab and international stances played a restraining role in curbing Trump's push for this plan. Regardless of his recent statement, the most important thing is that he does not repeat the proposal. His silence on the proposal is important, not his discussion of it, even in a single sentence. Failure to discuss the idea indicates a retreat from it or the US administration's skepticism about its feasibility.

In comparison to Trump's reiteration of his other plans, the idea of displacing Gaza has been a topic of little interest to him for some time, compared to the mineral deal with Ukraine, the annexation of Greenland, the imposition of tariffs on Canada, and other plans that Trump continues to repeat and boast about, unlike his proposal to displace the residents of the Gaza Strip.

The US administration understands that ceasefire negotiations in Gaza will lead to a reality that opposes displacement. There is no clearer evidence of this than the talks conducted by US Special Envoy for American Hostage Affairs Adam Boehler with Hamas, which discussed a truce for at least five years in the Gaza Strip—a truce that would last beyond the terms of Trump and Netanyahu.

Boehler emphasized that his discussions were personally endorsed and supported by Trump, which is further evidence that the idea of displacement is not a priority for the Trump administration or for him personally. Regardless of the success or failure of these discussions, what matters to us is this indicator regarding the displacement idea, which confirms that the displacement proposal is no longer realistic or practical in the eyes of the US administration.

Moreover, Trump realizes that displacement contradicts his most important ambition to achieve peace in the Middle East, as he understands and defines it. It undermines all his plans to revive the normalization project in the region, stabilize it, and prevent wars.

Displacement threatens regional stability, in addition to returning the conflict with Israel to its original point in 1948, when Israel expelled the Palestinians from their homeland. Displacement will not resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict; rather, it will return it to square one, after Trump believed this conflict no longer exists, as Israel also believed. Therefore, there is a contradiction between stability and displacement, and between normalization and displacement.

So, there are more important indicators than Trump's statement that the idea of displacement is declining in the man's thinking. Frequent silence is one indicator, and practice is another indicator that this idea is declining and may even be abolished.

However, the Zionist entourage behind Trump, led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, National Security Advisor Michael Waltz, and others, should not be underestimated. They may be pushing to keep this proposal on the table with Trump, not to mention the idea's strong appeal to the Israeli side, which is awaiting the opportunity to implement it, or at least preparing for it and taking it seriously.

But Trump's retreat from his proposal will have an impact on the Israeli side. Indeed, voices in Israel have begun to rise against this proposal, either for moral or political reasons, considering it an unworkable plan. Discussing it will cause harm to Israel on both the regional and international levels, in addition to threatening the lives and safety of Israeli prisoners and hostages.

* Palestinian lecturer in political science and history, and researcher at the Mada al-Carmel Center for Social Research in Haifa.