Gaza – Misreading the Art of the Deal

On February 5, in a press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Trump said the US would take ownership of the Gaza Strip, resettle all Gazans elsewhere, and rebuild the area as a world-class resort. On February 13, a full-page ad in the New York Times condemned this. The ad was signed by 350 rabbis, Reform and Conservative, and many celebrities. The ad read “Trump has called for the removal of all Palestinians from Gaza. Jewish people say NO to ethnic cleansing!”

I never believed, for even a second, that President Trump really intended for the US to take ownership of Gaza, relocate its residents, and commit American resources, let alone American personnel, to the project. Moreover, I don’t think that Prime Minister Netanyahu, who worked as a high-level corporate consultant in the US before returning to Israel and entering politics, believed it either. I recognized, immediately, that this was just one more example of President Trump’s hard-nosed New York negotiating style.

I have not read President Trump’s book The Art of the Deal (New York, Random House, 1987), but I worked in the business world for 35 years before entering rabbinical school in 2007. I dealt with senior executives at many major, publicly traded corporations. I observed that often an outrageous demand could advance a frozen negotiation. I even did it myself a few times. I’m convinced that President Trump just wanted to get people in the Middle East to think seriously about “day after” approaches to the Gaza problem.

We’ve seen ample evidence of President Trump’s negotiating style. In his first term and now, he threatened Mexico with 25% tariffs on imports of its goods into the US. The previous and current presidents of Mexico immediately agreed to send Mexican soldiers to its borders to block the flow of migrants into our country. After Columbia refused to accept some of its criminal migrants who were deported from the US, President Trump threatened tariffs and sanctions. Columbia’s president said he would send his own plane to get them.

So, what were the signers of the New York Times ad thinking? According to a JTA story on February 13, the list of signers “includes both a who’s who of Jewish left-wing activism and the names of prominent liberal pulpit rabbis across the country.” Do all of them have so little knowledge of business that they failed to appreciate what President Trump was doing? Is it not more likely that they wanted to “virtue signal” their support for “Palestinian-led efforts to build safety, dignity, and self-determination in Palestine?”

Fast-forward to today. According to a February 12 article on Fox News.com, Egyptian sources told Qatari Al Araby TV that it is proposing to rebuild the Gaza strip “within three to five years” without American or Israeli participation. Fox said that Egypt’s proposal “will reportedly be carried out in cooperation among Arab countries, the European Union and the United Nations.” Fox said EU sources were aware that an Egyptian plan would be released later this month at a summit of Arab nations in Saudi Arabia.

Richard Goldberg, senior advisor at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a US National Security Council official during the first Trump administration, told Fox that President Trump’s comments got Egypt and Jordan moving. He said that both governments were scrambling to respond. Jordan’s King Abdullah has already agreed to take in up to 2,000 children from Gaza who have cancer or need other medical treatment. Neither Jordan nor Egypt had previously agreed to accept any Gazans.

I believe President Trump wanted to blow up conventional thinking and end the cycle of cease-fires during which Hamas rearmed. It’s too soon to predict the outcome, but it’s clear to me that he changed the conversation. It’s believed, incorrectly, that Albert Einstein said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.” Israel had been doing the same thing in Gaza every few years, always with the same result. Maybe now, due to Israel’s more thorough military campaign and President Trump’s disregard for diplomatic niceties, we have a chance to see a different result.