‘Kill two birds with one stone’: Iran trolls Trump, suggests sending Israelis to Greenland!
JERUSALEM – Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has joined a cacophony of voices in the Middle East criticizing U.S. President Donald Trump’s suggestion of repatriating – at least temporarily – hundreds of thousands, perhaps even a million plus people from Gaza while its reconstruction is undertaken – by countering with a proposal that Israelis should be resettled in Greenland.
“My suggestion is different. Instead of Palestinians, expel Israelis and send them to Greenland so they can kill two birds with one stone,” Araghchi said in an exclusive interview with Sky News.
The suggestion is a kind of Frankenstein’s monster of two of Trump’s recent pronouncements, the first being the desire to purchase Greenland from its current owner Denmark – a hangover from his first term – and the other idea concerning where Palestinians in Gaza should live following the widespread destruction caused during the paused Hamas-Israel war.
Sky News platforms #Iran‘s regime’s foreign minister in yet another interview with a Western media outlet. Araghchi indicates openness to a deal but then seems to hesitate–first demanding confidence building. Good luck with that with the Trump administration. They are not… pic.twitter.com/FSjzu0UAgy
— Jason Brodsky (@JasonMBrodsky) January 28, 2025
Although Trump’s words are music to the ears of Israel’s right-wing, many of whom have never forgiven former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon’s decision to unilaterally pull out of Gaza in the fractious 2005 Disengagement, there are others who are skeptical it is a workable plan.
On Saturday, Trump said he had spoken with Jordanian King Abdullah II about the idea of getting some 1 million Palestinians out of Gaza to neighboring nations. He was set to speak to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi a day later about the same issue. Both countries gave the president’s suggestion short shrift.
Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority, whose very legitimacy is seemingly coming under increasing threat as Hamas and other militant Islamist groups – with significant Iranian backing – stir trouble in Judea and Samaria, immediately rejected the idea saying it would “violate red lines.”
“You’re talking about a million and a half people, and we just clean out that whole thing,” the president also told reporters over the weekend.
Araghchi was also asked about whether there might be negotiations with the U.S. over Iran’s nuclear program. He said while Tehran was willing to hear President Trump out, it would be more difficult to reach an agreement than in 2018, when the-then commander-in-chief pulled out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action nuclear deal thrashed out under President Obama in 2015.
Earlier this week, Trump refused to be drawn on whether he would back an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, which it insists is for peaceful civilian use, although this was drawn into question when in its widespread October strike following Iran’s second ballistic missile attack, Israeli warplanes badly damaged an undeclared top-secret Iranian nuclear site. The president went on record saying, “It would be really nice if that could be worked out without having to go that further step.”
Iran’s foreign minister was more strident in his response. “We have made it clear that any attack on our nuclear facilities would be faced with an immediate and decisive response,” Araghchi said in English. “But I don’t think they will do that crazy thing.”
“This is really crazy. And this would turn the whole region into a very bad disaster,” he added. But he insisted that Israeli saber-rattling “was not a real threat.”