Donald Trump's plan to transform the Gaza Strip into a "Middle Eastern Riviera" is one of the most radical ideas proposed by the White House in recent years. To understand the origins of this plan, it's valuable to revisit some comments made at a forum at a top American university last February.
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02-11, 2025At that time, Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, participated in a discussion about international affairs with students and faculty at Harvard University's Kennedy School in Massachusetts. In fact, he proposed the very idea that Trump has recently promoted as his new Gaza policy. Kushner and Trump were both real estate developers, which perhaps explains the real estate element inherent in this foreign policy shift.
While Trump's plan has shocked the world, the arguments he's built for it are strikingly similar to those Kushner presented at Harvard that day. Kushner began by claiming that Gaza had been essentially destroyed—though Gaza is now far more devastated than it was then, with the war only four months old at that point.
The point Kushner made in February (and Trump last week) was that Palestinians have no particular reason to remain in Gaza. "I'm not sure there's much left of Gaza at this point," Kushner said. He then introduced the real estate development angle: "Gaza's waterfront property could be very valuable," Kushner said. Immediately following that, he introduced the "cleaning up" angle—from the Israeli perspective, he said, "I would do my best to move the people out and then clean it up."
That October, a month before Trump would have been re-elected president, Kushner again raised the real estate development idea, this time with a catchy slogan worthy of a real estate brochure: "Gaza could be 'better than Monaco' if it's rebuilt in the right way," he said. Monaco? Riviera? They both imply extremely upscale real estate, better suited to wealthy American or Israeli clients seeking something special to appreciate Mediterranean sunsets than the average Gazan Palestinian living in the reality of being unsafe anywhere in that blockaded enclave.
It's worth noting that in the same month as Kushner's conversation with Harvard, the Gaza Health Ministry reported that Israeli forces had opened fire on people waiting for food, resulting in 112 deaths and hundreds of injuries in Gaza. Also, four children died from malnutrition and dehydration, and six children died due to poor conditions in hospitals. (Regarding the report of 112 deaths, CNN reported that the Israeli military said they had fired warning shots to disperse crowds that had gathered around aid trucks, and that many people were then trampled to death.) In that same month, UNICEF said it estimated that at least 17,000 children in Gaza were unaccompanied or separated from their parents.
Last week, in announcing the Gaza plan, Trump's language was strikingly similar to Kushner's. Gaza is now "a wreck"—who would want to live there? he said, better to "clean the whole place up." Instead of mentioning Monaco as Kushner did, Trump promoted it as "a Riviera." While a different resort destination for the rich and famous, the theme remained international money and finance.
The press conference announcing the Trump-Kushner Gaza plan was one of the most extraordinary in years. Because of its importance, historians will likely study it, and if they do, they should also consider something very important: there were two ghosts in the room. Kushner was Trump's ghost, and Netanyahu's ghost was Bezalel Smotrich, the leader of Israel's Religious Zionist party and Israel's Finance Minister. Smotrich and his support group keep Netanyahu in power, and Smotrich controls the national budget, able to ensure that Jewish settlements in the West Bank, widely considered illegal under international law, are well-funded.
Without Smotrich, Netanyahu would not have enough votes to continue as Prime Minister. This would mean not only a loss of power, but would expose him to the full legal pain awaiting him on criminal charges of bribery, fraud, and breach of trust. Smotrich doesn't even believe Palestinians exist, saying the word is "an invention of the last century." To truly understand what the kingmaker of Israeli politics wants, he made it clear to Arab members of the Israeli Parliament (Knesset) in October 2021: "You are a mistake that's why you are here, Ben-Gurion didn't finish the job, didn't throw you out in 1948, that's a mistake." This was a reference to David Ben-Gurion, the founder of Israel. It is estimated that about 700,000 Palestinians were forced to leave or fled in fear when Israel was created in 1948.
If Trump hoped his plan would begin a serious policy discussion in Israel, it was unwise to announce it with Netanyahu—especially with Netanyahu's barely concealed delight at what he was hearing. It is Israeli planes, often dropping American bombs, that have made the real estate Trump is now talking about seizing and developing uninhabitable.
On the political front, Trump confidently mentioned that while Egypt and Jordan initially opposed the idea, they would eventually agree to take in some of the newly created Palestinian refugees. The positions of Egypt and Jordan reflect the view throughout the Arab world—that this is an attempted ethnic cleansing, but with a twist. This time, the United States would be the economic beneficiary, presumably as various American real estate developers build upscale housing in Gaza to sell. But Trump is sure they will be ready to change their views. Of course, what Trump knows is that the U.S. can make or break the regimes in both places—both countries' rulers are dependent on massive amounts of American aid.
Even within the first three weeks of Trump's new term, a modus operandi is clear—use the leverage of American money, or the threat of American tariffs, to force countries to do his bidding. He threatened Canada and Mexico with tariffs if they didn't do what he wanted—soon both countries agreed to strengthen their borders in exchange for a reprieve from the tariffs.
But even if Trump is able to force Egypt and Jordan to take in Gaza's 2.3 million residents, clearing the way for new development, he seems to have met an obstacle in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is a powerhouse in the Middle East—and has been growing more powerful. In the past, its power came from its oil wealth and its spiritual leadership of the Sunni Muslim world. After all, it was Saudi Arabia that gave the world Wahhabism—the strain of Islam whose most famous adherent was Osama bin Laden, whose attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, caused so much death and destruction.
But its power now comes from possessing something both Israel and the U.S. want—normalization of relations with Israel. During Trump's first term, Washington helped broker the "Abraham Accords"—normalization agreements between Israel and three Arab nations, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, and Morocco. While Israel was pleased with these agreements, the bigger prize it sought was normalization with Saudi Arabia. In fact, many in Israel believe Hamas launched its attacks primarily because it wanted to derail what it believed was an impending normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia—a point former Israeli Prime Minister and one of the country's most decorated soldiers, Ehud Barak, made to me last year.
There are two things Hamas does not want: a Palestinian state at peace with Israel, and a normalization agreement with Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia has the power to make both of those things happen.
