Demonstrators march in support of Gaza, against normalisation. [Brooke Anderson/TNA]
In a recent US demonstration in support of Palestinians in Gaza, protesters held up banners declaring, “Gaza is not for sale” and “Reject normalisation”.
This was in response to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to the White House earlier this month during which US President Donald Trump said in a joint press conference that the US should take over Gaza and redevelop it for international resorts while Palestinians would be relocated to Egypt and Jordan.
“The US will take over the Gaza Strip, and we will do a job with it too,” Trump told reporters as he stood beside Netanyahu. “We’ll own it and be responsible for dismantling all the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site.”
“We’re going to develop it, create thousands and thousands of jobs, and it’ll be something that the entire Middle East can be very proud of,” he added.
Trump’s Gaza plan: shocking but not new
The idea of ‘redeveloping’ Gaza is not new. Trump repeatedly suggested it during his presidential campaign, around a year before that his son-in-law Jared Kushner mentioned it as a waterfront real estate opportunity, and Joseph Pelzman, a Washington-based economics professor, had reportedly sent Trump his plans for Gaza redevelopment as early as July last year.
Also, over the years, various US administrations, including the previous one under Joe Biden, have suggested relocating Palestinians, though not with the bravado of a swift mass-scale displacement followed by a US takeover. It was perhaps the brashness of Trump’s announcement that sent shockwaves around the world.
“For the first time in history, Israel has the explicit green light from the US to engage in ethnic cleansing,” Josh Ruebner, policy director at the Institute for Middle East Understanding, told The New Arab. He noted that even when then-president Harry Truman supported Israel’s establishment in 1948, he also Palestinians’ right to return.
For many close observers, it’s the explicitness of Trump‘s proposal that was shocking. Otherwise, it is it was part of a decades-long normalisation of the expansion of Israeli territory.
“I think we have to view Trump’s threat of ethnically cleansing Palestinians from the Gaza Strip as part of the 75-plus-year Nakba that Israel has inflicted on the Palestinian people. Israel’s primary goal has been to take possession of as much of Palestine as possible with as few Palestinians on the land as possible,” said Ruebner.
Though it might have seemed shocking at the moment, within days of the US-Israeli press conference, there were already reports of several Republican US Congress members warming up to the idea of displacing Palestinians from Gaza. In addition, multiple opinion pieces in mainstream media encouraged people to consider the idea. These are initial examples of normalising Trump’s plan for Gaza.
What is ‘normalisation’, and how does it work?
Normalisation is generally defined as a gradual process by which ideas become mainstreamed through repetition and acceptance until they’re taken for granted.
Though it might seem to have a negative implication, the term has long been used openly in politics, including with the Abraham Accords, a 2020 deal led by Kushner to normalise relations between Israel and Arab Gulf states without input from the Palestinians.
The next aim for Israel in the process is a normalisation deal with Saudi Arabia, something the Saudis have said they would only agree to if there is viable path to Palestinian state, though it remains unclear what this would mean, given Israel’s growing takeover of the occupied West Bank and now its plans to displace Palestinians from Gaza.
“I think this is the greatest threat to the Palestinians since the Nakba. Normalisation is closure,” Jeff Halper, jeff Halper, an American-Israeli who heads the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, told TNA.
“The Palestinians will say: What about our national rights? They’ll be told: we’ve dealt with this already. We’ve moved on to other things. This eliminates the political space for Palestinians,” he said.
“Normalisation disappears things. There’s no fanfare, no negotiations. One day, a deal is signed and that’s it,” he added. “That’s really the danger for the Palestinians.”
Like many other close observers, Halper doesn’t expect a full-scale displacement of Palestinians from Gaza. Instead, he sees the plan as leverage to normalise ongoing Israeli attacks on the occupied West Bank.
“If we don’t agree to evacuating people from Gaza, you’ll agree to this and this. It goes from being a crazy idea to leverage,” he said.
Normalisation of Israel’s West Bank annexation
Indeed, Israel’s ongoing assault on the occupied West Bank is causing a mass displacement of Palestinians on a scale not seen since the 1967 war, while the world’s eyes are on Gaza.
Many fear the continuous Israeli takeover of “Area C” will mean the elimination of any contiguity of Palestinian territory and the potential for a viable state, and thus further normalisation of Israeli control of the occupied West Bank. There is also speculation that Trump’s Gaza proposal was meant as a diversion or leverage for Netanyahu to not go through all the stages of the ceasefire.
What is clear is that Israel is engaging in a large-scale and fast-paced land grab led by a far-right coalition of leaders, some of whom have openly voiced support for the annexation of the occupied West Bank and the Palestinian evacuation of Gaza. And it is being supported by a taboo-breaking US administration eagerly facilitating these new norms.
“They’re going to take as much as they can as fast as they can,” Lara Haddadin, a Chicago-based member of the US Palestinian Community Network, told TNA. “Us Arabs need to keep an eye on everything going on in Palestine.”
“‘No to normalisation’ has been a baseline for Palestinians and Arabs organising across the country for years,” she added.
‘Normalise support for Palestinians’
For organisers like Haddadin, one area of encouragement is a growing global support of Palestinian human rights. Multiple polls have shown that the international community does not support Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.
“The majority of Americans oppose Trump’s plan, and there’s clear opposition from European leaders. The UN has said in clear terms this goes against international law. The plan would cause further destabilisation,” Anyssa Dhadouadi, a Washington, DC-based member of the Palestinian Youth Movement, told TNA.
Recent demonstrations have focused on urging Egypt and Jordan to not accept Trump’s Gaza displacement plan, while also highlighting the high cost of US aid to Israel as the US administration cuts social welfare.
As more Americans see their own domestic concerns tied to their country’s costly support of Israel, the coalition of Trump critics and Palestinian supporters continues to grow, increasingly going beyond the traditional leftist alliances.
“We’re going to have to think about all policies—immigrant communities, reproductive justice, labour rights. We need to reach as many people as possible and build a broad coalition. That’s what we’re currently doing in Chicago,” said Haddadin. “We need to normalise support for Palestinians.”
