Some Republican senators have begun expressing openness to Trump’s suggestion of relocating Palestinians from Gaza. [Getty]
Some Republicans in the US Senate are beginning to express openness to President Donald Trump’s shocking suggestion of displacing Palestinians from war-torn Gaza.
Just two days after Trump, standing beside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said that Gazans should be relocated from their homeland to Egypt and Jordan and that the US would take over the enclave, some senators were already showing interest in the suggestion, according to a report by Jewish Insider.
This follows initial shock and opposition to Trump’s suggestion of turning the Gaza Strip into beachfront resorts that would be taken over by the US. During the press conference with Netanyahu on Tuesday, Trump didn’t rule out US military involvement.
“He’s looking outside the box. He’s a real estate developer. He gets the value of it, and if he can tell other people that there’s a value in it, maybe they’ll think twice about trying to have Hamas as their spokesperson,” Senator Mike Rounds of South Dakota told reporters.
“I think he’s making everybody in the Middle East suddenly realize there could be a real valuable piece of property there, and that there is a future for that strip of land,” Rounds said, echoing Trump’s characterisation of Gaza as a decimated area that would benefit from real estate development.
“But they can’t do anything if they don’t have peace, and that means you’ve got to get back to a point of the other people in that region recognizing that there’s a value there as well if Hamas is eliminated,” he continued.
Similarly, Kevin Cramer of North Dakota described Trump as “visionary”, saying, “He sees beachfront property and has big ideas and floats those ideas.” He did, however, express scepticism of the US taking over another country and also wondered how serious Trump was about the idea.
However many senators rejected the idea, including Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, saying it was unacceptable as part of a two-state solution peace deal or for Americans to send troops to Gaza to implement Trump’s plan.
Despite initial opposition to Trump’s proposal and attempts by the administration to walk back his statements, the quick openness to the idea, could show how Trump’s most shocking policy proposals could find mainstream acceptance.
