A real estate developer’s guide to the Middle East

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump has a basic idea about everybody on the planet; he believes that people just want to live well in nice housing and safe communities.

The world saw that in Singapore in 2018 when Trump met with North Korean strongman Kim Jong Un; Team Trump made a video that offered the Hermit Kingdom a place at the world’s prosperity table.

The world saw that side of Trump again Tuesday when the president and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took press questions in the White House East Room.

Trump’s appeal: He wants to turn Gaza into “the Riviera of the Middle East” — and he wants the United States to own the land.

While some heads in the room exploded, Trump pitched his message to those outside the room.

What do Gazans have to lose?

Trump bluntly stated that Gaza is now a “hellhole.” For more than a year, Israel bombarded the seaside strip of land with the goal of destroying Hamas so that its thugs cannot repeat the atrocity of Oct. 7, 2023, when Palestinian terrorists murdered 1,200 and created 251 hostages.

Gaza was a “hellhole” before the 2023 atrocity.

After being bombed back to the Stone Age, it’s not habitable, Trump offered.

Let Egypt, Jordan and other nations take in Palestinians while the United States nation builds.

The obstacles are many. As Jonathan Schanzer, executive director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies put it, Palestinians have been “willing to live in rubble, live in tents, live without water or electricity, and suffer as living symbols of the Palestinian national cause. And this is what they have been encouraged to do. They’ve been incentivized to do by the rest of the Arab world since, since 1948.”

As if to prove Schanzer’s point, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas responded, “We will not allow the rights of our people, for which we have struggled for decades and made great sacrifices to achieve, to be infringed upon.”

I have to agree.

But if the Arab World sees welcoming Gazans as a betrayal, perhaps other Muslim nations — say, Malaysia or Indonesia — could pitch in, Schanzer offered. Bottom line: Trump’s rhetoric “forced the Arab world to begin to engage more seriously if they don’t want the transfer of Gazans, if they don’t want the U.S. to take over the Gaza Strip, they need to provide an alternative.”

Danny Danon, Israel’s U.N. ambassador, told CNN, “I think we all agree that it should require the consent — consent of people to move out from where they live, and the consent for other countries to receive them.” True.

But Trump’s proposal for U.S. ownership is essential. In 2005, Israel withdrew from a functioning Gaza only to see Hamas take charge in 2007.

Is Trump’s “Riviera of the Middle East” scheme likely to happen? Probably not. The Washington Post’s Aaron Blake offered four possible explanations for Trump’s Gaza gambit: It provides a distraction, it’s a negotiating ploy, Trump sees value in adversaries believing he is volatile, and/or “His sudden imperialist streak is very real.”

I see a president who seized the opportunity to send a message to Palestinians — that they deserve better — and who chose to point a harsh spotlight on the misery that pervades corners in Gaza. The worst part is, that misery is a choice, a bad choice, but not a choice that needs repeating.

Contact Review-Journal Washington columnist Debra J. Saunders at dsaunders@reviewjournal.com. Follow @debrajsaunders on X.