Breaking News: Trump’s Gaza plan may sound death knell to two-state solution, push West Asia closer to disaster…. Check In

US President Donald Trump’s plan for the Gaza Strip is an illegal land grab that risks setting the region on fire that can burn down not just decades of efforts for peace but entire kingdoms.

For US President Donald Trump, the Gaza Strip is prime sea-side real estate spoiled by two squabbling neighbours — Israelis and Palestinians. He outlined a deal to resolve the issue earlier this month.

At a press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump shocked the world by announcing the United States would acquire Gaza, expel all Palestinians and settle them elsewhere in West Asia, preferably in Egypt or Jordan, and develop Gaza into the “Riviera of the Middle East”.

In one breath, Trump trashed decades of US policy committed to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict under the framework of the two-state solution that sought to establish two states in the region — Israel for Jews and Palestine for Arabs.

Trump’s plan for Gaza goes against international law, decades of US policy that Democrats and even Republicans adhered to, and the most widely accepted solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, says Mushtaq Hussain, a scholar of international law and West Asian affairs at the BITS Law School, Mumbai.

Trump’s plan involves committing a string of violations of international law: forced deportation, a violation of humanitarian law, war crime, and crime against humanity; denial of the right to return as Trump has said Palestinians’ expulsion will be permanent; and seizure of property, the most fundamental international legal principle.

Hussain tells Firstpost that the United States, or any other country, has no right to take over Gaza and displace its people.

“It’s not just against the hitherto stated US policy, but it’s also illegal. International law clearly prohibits forcing a demographic change in an area which a country doesn’t have sovereignty over. The United States has no sovereignty in Gaza. There is no legal basis for the plan. You cannot ‘buy’ Gaza. It’s not Israel’s or anyone else’s to ‘sell’,” says Hussain.

Palestinian state is off the table, Greater Israel is on
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is rooted in land, but not the way Trump believes it.

Both Jews and Arabs have roots in the same land. Jerusalem is sacred to both. The dispute has been over who gets to control how much land for their state.

Trump has said that Palestinians live in Gaza because they have nowhere else to be and they would love to be resettled abroad. That flies in the face of Palestinian self-determination movement. Palestinians are not just seeking a state. They are seeking a state at a particular location that they believe to be their historic homeland — just like Jews sought to establish Israel at a location that is their historic homeland.

The two-state solution had been unrealistic for a long time even before October 2023, when Hamas led the attack on Israel, but now it is not just unrealistic but essentially dead, says Muddassir Quamar, a scholar of West Asia at the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), Delhi.

The last time we had realistic hope for Palestinian statehood, it was in the 1990s when the Oslo Accords were worked out. It was still complicated as there were still two disconnected Palestinian territories. Since then, Israeli settlements have consistently increased in the West Bank and land for a Palestinian state has squeezed consistently. That was also the last time there was any real Palestinian leader. Today, there is no real Palestinian leader like Yasser Arafat, the land is fragmented, and there is no will in the United States for Palestinian statehood,” says Quamar.