Quotes
The president has not committed to that just yet."
Asked if the deployment of US troops into Gaza was being ruled out, Leavitt said
It's a demolition site right now. It's not a livable place for any human being,
she saidMany people still support Hamas. We saw that after the ceasefire. The idea of ‘resistance’ is older than Hamas, and Hamas is simply a more recent manifestation of it as Palestinians try to stop Israel’s relentless push to oust them from their homes,
he said
It’s a pretext on the part of the Israelis to be sure. They’ve always insisted loudly on this sort of ‘divine claim’ to Gaza. That goes back way before October 2023,
the political consultant Hamdi said
[Trump’s announcement] is going to bring the entire region to come up with their own solutions,
Waltz said[We ... We’ll] make it into an international, unbelievable place. I think the potential for the Gaza Strip is unbelievable,
he saidSaudi Arabia was so intent on broadcasting the same message that it released a statement at 4:30am their time. They didn’t wait until business hours to say it’s a non-starter,
el-Gamal saidIt’s not unique to Trump,
she told Al JazeeraThis idea is so nonsensical, but it is what the Israelis have been pushing for quite some time,
said Diana Buttu, a former adviser with the Palestinian Liberation Organisation and expert on Israel-PalestineIt’s hard to imagine him believing [the US] can go in, push out people, and as Trump said, invite the ‘world’s people’ to live there. It’s absolutely fantasy … It’s important in the meantime to continue to not normalise these kinds of ideas, but to take stock of actual reality on the ground of Arab positions.”
She continuedThe US ‘taking over’ Gaza would not only further hinder chances of US interests in the region being fulfilled, but it would also fly up against the very heart of America First principles,
Kenney-Shawa saidAnd I think the entire world, representatives from all over the world, will be there and they’ll live there,
he addedIt may well be instead that Trump pushes for a compromise whereby regional powers that are warm to Israel form a regional ‘peacekeeping’ force to contain Gaza,
he told Al JazeeraTrying to psychoanalyse Donald Trump is an exercise in futility,
Jasmine el-Gamal, a Middle East policy analyst, told Al JazeeraWho are you to decide that we want a Middle East Riviera which totally discounts our history?”
she argued
I thought we voted for America First. We have no business contemplating yet another occupation to doom our treasure and spill our soldiers blood”.
Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, a strident US isolationist who is popular among Trump’s base, made that point in a social media post on Wednesday, sayingThis is an out-of-the-box idea. That’s who President Trump is. That’s why the American people elected him and his goal is lasting peace in the Middle East for all people in the region,
Leavitt told reporters in a press briefing at the White House on Wednesday
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He spoke with the king of Bahrain. He spoke with the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, and he has made it very clear, he’s been very vocal, that he expects our partners in the region, particularly Egypt and Jordan, to expect Palestinian refugees temporarily so that we can rebuild their home,
Leavitt saidIf we're going to pass a law, we need to know that the law is followed,
he addedI think building the Middle East is in America’s interest, and I’ve always said we can’t be the world’s policeman, but where it’s in our self-interest, in our national interest, where we have the capability of providing stability, we ought to explore those possibilities, and that’s all we’re looking at right now,
he added