Whither Trump’s Gaza resettlement plan?

 

By James M. Dorsey

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As he embarked on a Middle East tour, Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto this week offered to accept an estimated 1,000 wounded Gazan Palestinians and “traumatised, orphaned children.”

Mr. Prabowo, the leader of the Muslim world’s most populous country and democracy, was careful to limit those that would qualify to Palestinians in medical or psychological need and to insist that Indonesia would host the evacuees until they have fully recovered from their injuries and the situation in Gaza was safe for their return.

He said the evacuations would be coordinated with the West Bank-based, internationally recognised Palestine Authority.

Save the Children estimates that 17,000 Gazan children have been separated from their parents or have disappeared, not including the dead beneath the rubble of destroyed buildings.

"Indonesia's commitment to supporting the safety of Palestinians and their independence has pushed our government to act more actively," Mr. Prabowo said.

Mr. Prabowo announced his offer a day after US President Donald J. Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said in a joint White House press conference that they had identified several unnamed countries that might permanently resettle Gazan Palestinians as part of the president’s post-war plan for the Strip.

Mr. Netanyahu has embraced the Trump plan, which calls for the resettlement of Gaza’s 2.3 million Palestinians so that the United States can take control of the Strip and turn it into a high-end beachfront real estate development.

Mr. Prabowo did not distance his offer from the Trump plan, even though it’s unlikely that he would want anything to do with it given the Indonesian public’s support for Palestinian statehood.

Meanwhile, Hamas sources suggested that the United States was not pushing Mr. Trump’s proposal in Gaza ceasefire negotiations.

“That’s not predominant in what we’re hearing from the Egyptian and Qatari mediators,” one source said without elaborating on what US officials said about Gaza’s post-war future.

With Mr. Prabowo’s offer, Indonesia joined several countries, including Romania and Italy, that  have taken in limited numbers of Gazan children with medical conditions before Israel last month halted the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza and the exit from the Strip of Palestinians in need of proper medical treatment.

The resettlement issue is likely to be discussed when Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni visits Washington next week for talks focussed on the tariffs that Mr. Trump slapped on European Union imports.

At this point, Mr. Prabowo’s offer is symbolic, given Israel’s humanitarian blockade of Gaza.

Moreover, the Palestine Authority has no control over the Strip, and if Mr. Netanyahu gets his way, it will not once the guns fall silent.

In addition, any post-war evacuation would have to be coordinated with Israel and/or Egypt, the two countries with which Gaza shares borders.

Israel, with whom Indonesia has no diplomatic relations, insists that it will retain responsibility for security in post-war Gaza, which likely would include the Strip’s borders as it has since 2007 when Hamas ousted the Palestine Authority and took control of the Strip.

In February, Indonesia’s foreign ministry rejected Mr. Trump’s plan.

The overwhelming majority of the international community has rejected Mr. Trump’s proposal.

Last month, pro-Israeli media reported that  a first group of Palestinians would soon move to Indonesia to work in construction as part of a pilot program to encourage the ‘voluntary’ migration of Palestinians from the Strip.

The reports, denied by Indonesia, appeared to be an Israeli attempt to create the impression that Muslim-majority states may endorse Gazan resettlement plans.

Meanwhile, a just-published Pew Research Center poll showed that 62 per cent of Americans oppose a US takeover of Gaza, including 49 per cent who strongly oppose it. Fifteen per cent of those surveyed said they favoured the idea, while 22 per cent said they weren’t sure.

Critics of Mr. Trump's Gaza policy may take heart from the fact that Mr. Netanyahu, on his second visit to the White House in as many months, this week, left empty-handed after his talks with the president.

The prime minister didn’t get his hoped-for Israeli exemption from Mr. Trump’s import tariffs, reassurances that the United States would stick to its hard line towards Iran, a continued unlimited green light to continue the Gaza war, and support for his imaginary battle with an alleged Israeli ‘deep state.’

Adding insult to injury, Mr. Trump heaped praise on Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, one of Israel’s harshest critics, as Israel and Turkey potentially face off in Syria.

Mr. Trump suggested that he could solve any problem Israel may have with Turkey as long as Mr. Netanyahu was “reasonable.”

Israeli journalist Amos Harel noted that Mr. Netanyahu “didn't suffer the humiliation that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky did several weeks ago. But what the Israeli prime minister experienced wasn't far removed in essence, from the treatment his Ukrainian counterpart received from US President Donald Trump. Let's call it a half Zelenskyy,” Mr. Harel said.

Mr. Harel was referring to last month’s public White House blow-up during talks between Messrs. Trump and Zelensky.

All of which makes the timing of Mr. Prabowo’s offer and the fact that he did not explicitly distance it from Mr. Trump’s proposal more noteworthy.

In recent weeks, media reports suggested that the United States had asked several African countries to accept resettled Palestinians, including the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, Somalia, and the breakaway republic of Somaliland.

Somaliland, the United Arab Emirates-backed breakaway Somali republic, last month denied assertions that the United States asked it to resettle Gazan Palestinians.

Even so, some US and Israeli officials believe Somaliland could be persuaded in exchange for financial aid and recognition of its independence.

The officials note that the UAE, Israel’s closest Arab partner, last month broke ranks with the Arab world by advocating for engagement with Mr. Trump’s resettlement plan.

Critics charge that there is little free will involved in Gazans potentially leaving the Strip after Israel made it uninhabitable in 18 months of war and in recent weeks has forced the population to crowd into only 35 per cent of the territory, one of the most densely populated areas of the world, by declaring no-go zones or identifying areas Palestinians needed to evacuate.

“If they want to displace us voluntarily, then let them allow us to return to our lands in occupied Palestine, from which they expelled us! Why should we leave our country?” 77-year-old Mohammed al-Nabahin told Al Jazeera.

Displaced by Israeli forces, Mr. Al-Nabahin spoke in front of his tent in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza.

“All of my children agree with me. They are all against leaving Gaza, no matter what happens,” Mr. Al-Nabahin added.

Dr. James M. Dorsey is an Adjunct Senior Fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, and the author of the syndicated column and podcast, The Turbulent World with James M. Dorsey.