I now ask that we all put our pitchforks away, because I think Trump’s Gaza plan has merit. And I’m here to sell you on it. Here I’ll make the business pitch regarding the U.S. occupation of the Gaza Strip, the (temporary) evacuation of Gaza’s residents, and the strip’s subsequent transformation into an economic development zone run by the U.S. that I will henceforth refer to as either MAGAza, or the MAGA Strip.

Trump’s Words

In case you haven’t heard the statement by now, Trump announced at a press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu on February 3 that the U.S. would take Gaza and stay “long term”. He said that, if necessary, troops would be deployed to provide security and that the 2 million Palestinians in Gaza would then be evacuated to Egypt, Jordan, and whomever else signs on. Then come the bulldozers, knocking down the ruins of Gaza, and what follow are the cranes to build Gaza into a place worth living, complete with beach resorts and presumably a Trump Tower. This process could take 5 or more years, but by the end, Trump’s hope seems to be to have another Dubai sitting right on the Mediterranean. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed that the Palestinians would be allowed to return after the construction, and that the evacuation is temporary, but Trump says they won’t be allowed to return. We’ll touch on that in a bit.

Regardless, as Trump announced that “The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip,” the press corps audibly gasped. Benjamin Netanyahu looked over at Trump with an expression not of “surprise” but more “how is this happening right now?”. But when the dust settled, the plan was announced. So why do I think this is worth consideration?

Why Can’t Gaza Govern Gaza?

Of course, I’ve made this point in my prior Israel articles. But before I advocate for any one policy, I need to first address the question that comes prior to all of this: why can’t Gaza govern Gaza? Now, over the past 16 months there has been a growing sentiment on the left (and to an extent, the far-right) that “Free Palestine” is a slogan worth chanting. It’s deceptively attractive, isn’t it? It appeals to our American inclination toward freedom and self-governance. But this time, the argument I will make is brief. It’s not a numbered list of reasons or a 4 paragraph manifesto. It’s 10 sentences, and 2 pictures. That, I think, will be enough.

Those are Shiri (34), Ariel (4), and Kfir (9 months) Bibas. They, as well as the family’s father, Yarden, were in Nir Oz at 6:30AM on Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas rockets began to fall around the Kibbutz. The family fled to their bomb shelter to wait the barrage out, but while rocket fire was normal, the gunshots getting closer and closer were not. Before long, Yarden had left the shelter and was kidnapped in a failed attempt to distract the terrorists, while Shiri, Ariel, and Kfir were discovered, forced into a car, and dragged into Gaza’s tunnel network.

Their fate was kept secret for over 450 days, but ultimately they had been murdered by Hamas in November 2023 with, according to an IDF spokesman, “bare hands”. Their bodies laid rotting in a tunnel somewhere as the entire Israeli nation held out for hope, hope that was crushed on Thursday, February 20, 2025. As their corpses were due to be handed to the Red Cross, their coffins were laid out on a stage for thousands of Palestinians to jeer at. While they displayed coffins containing the bodies of a dead 4-year-old and 9-month-old, Arab pop music played triumphantly in the background as children laughed and cheered the spectacle. And after all of that, Shiri Bibas’ coffin, upon Israeli examination, was found to contain the body of a random person. 

A society that teaches children to cheer as pop music blares over the dead bodies of murdered toddlers cannot rule itself. A society like that forfeits its right to self-determination and its right to complain when they lose autonomy. This exact incident is why Gaza cannot govern Gaza.

Why are we even involved?

So I’ve established that Gaza must be controlled by a foreign power. But why us? I still have to justify the U.S., of all nations, being in Gaza. After all, we are not an interventionist people. But here’s why this is a course of action worth considering.

1. Let’s get it over with – If there isn’t another Gaza War, we don’t have to worry about another Gaza War. The Israelis don’t have to drop billions’ worth of bombs & artillery shells and we don’t have to worry about the military or diplomatic hassle. A lasting victory against terrorism benefits Israel as well as ourselves.
2. If not us, then who? – The Palestinians would never accept Israel embarking on a project like this, and the moderate Arab states refuse to do anything like this. If we can’t find someone willing to deal with the problem, we’ll deal with it ourselves. If America is the guarantor of world peace (which is is), then we have an immense opportunity here.
3. Economic Opportunity – Gaza has some useful things about it. For one, they’ve got a midsize natural gas field off the coast. It’s not a ton, but it’s something Shell or Exxon may want to take a look at anyways. It could help fund the reconstruction, as well. The biggest asset Gaza has, however, is it’s coastline. It’s a solid 25 uninterrupted miles of beachfront property on the Mediterranean. That’s worth Marriot or Hilton’s time is it not?

   

The Pitch

4D Chess

The primary point I’ll make here is that Trump doesn’t actually intend to act on this plan. I think this is a scheme to force the Arabs in Jordan and Egypt to present a plan Trump likes, instead of standing around and shouting at Israel for not coming up with a solution to a war they didn’t start. If Trump can terrify those two with the prospect of not letting Palestinians back into the MAGA Strip, they’ll finally get up off the couch and make a plan. The statements of permanent relocation may give Palestinians a collective anxiety attack, but it could go a long way toward ending the conflict. 

Maybe he wants a coalition of Arab nations to move in and deal with the problem with military force. He likely still wants the opportunity to build the Trump World Resort in Khan Yunis. But regardless of his intentions, the plan is having the effect of terrifying Egypt and Jordan. Egypt will present a plan sometime in the next month regarding the reconstruction of Gaza with its residents still in the strip, so it’ll be interesting to see how Trump reacts to that plan.

If He’s Serious

Now, let’s start this section off with a caveat. I do not support the ethnic cleansing or permanent relocation of the Palestinians from Gaza. If Trump is not bluffing, if he is not trolling the Arabs, if he is deadly serious about it, then I do not support that proposition. But what I will support is the temporary relocation of the strip’s residents while construction is underway. So, working on the assumption that Trump is trolling as a negotiating tactic and will let the Palestinians back into a rebuilt MAGA Strip, here’s why I support this plan.

It Just Might Work

Gaza is a basket case. And whenever the U.S. embarks on a nation-building campaign, it tends to go badly. So why do I think this is going to work? The reason this nation-building attempt is very much viable is that all the business interests just line up perfectly. There are several to consider.

Let’s start with the U.S.. Jared Kushner isn’t the only one who wants access to that coastline. Like I said previously, Hilton and Marriot would kill for that real estate. Every major real estate developer from Honolulu to New York would build a resort on that land. Shell and Exxon, as mentioned, have natural gas opportunities off the coast, and every miscellaneous American business will have reason to want 2 million extra potential consumers. The Palestinians already have Pizza Hut, Dominos, and KFC in the West Bank; I see no reason other, less awful restaurants can’t get in on this development. Let us show them the glories of rampant and all-encompassing American consumerism.

Next are the Gulf Monarchies. Saudi, Kuwaiti, Bahraini, Qatari, and Emirati businessmen would all kill for the chance to develop the Gaza Strip. They would build their casinos and airports and hotels, and they’d build great quantities of housing for their workforce. The aforementioned Jared Kushner has millions of dollars in Saudi money entrusted to him, just waiting to be spent on Gaza’s redevelopment. You end up with housing, jobs, and a Palestinian populous that finds the Strip better than they left it.

The job situation would be good in Gaza for the first time in its history. Someone has to build the Trump World Resort in Al Mawasi. Someone has to build the Jabalia Chocktaw Casino. And once they’re built, someone has to manage the hotels and clean the rooms and serve the food and deal the cards and all the rest. Palestinians fill that role in the MAGA Strip.

And by taking direct control of the Palestinian education system, the U.S. could deradicalize the population while providing economic opportunity, which is how you beat terrorism in the long run. A man who’s employed and has been taught to avoid radicalization has little time for terrorism. We can run the Gazan education system much easier than in Afghanistan, for example, where the children were all homeschooled. Gaza already has a centralized education system. We just have use it for good, not for teaching 2nd-grade addition with suicide bombers.

Addressing the Objections

The primary criticism of this plan is the lack of faith people have in the Palestinians actually being allowed to return. Now, that’s a reasonable concern. You can’t just permanently move 2 million people willy-nilly. That likely constitutes ethnic cleansing. But Trump has said things of this nature in pursuit of other goals before. It’s sometimes interpreted that, when he nearly allowed Israel to annex Area C of the West Bank in 2020, Trump did it to force the Arab signatories of what would become the Abraham Accords to sign on the dotted line with urgency, softening their demands for an immediate Palestinian state in order to prevent Israel from dealing a death blow to the Palestinian Authority’s demand for the entire West Bank. Lo and behold, just months later Bahrain, the UAE, Morocco, and Sudan agreed to recognize Israel’s existence without demanding a Palestinian State. So perhaps The Donald does have a plan.

Conclusion

To end off, I think the MAGAza Strip is a wild plan that just might work (contingent on the Palestinians’ absence being temporary). Trump might not even intend for this vision of Gaza to be realized, and if he does, the plan could see success by virtue of money overriding most grudges. If we can denazify the Palestinians, as we once did for the Germans and the Japanese, the gears of business will start to turn on their own, and we will have dealt a blow to poverty, terrorism, and Islamism all at once.