Amid the maelstrom of indignation around Donald Trump\u2019s proposal to \u201ctake over\u201d Gaza, French President Emmanuel Macron has called for \u201crespect\u201d for Palestinians and their Arab neighbors, batting away the US president\u2019s idea of a mass displacement of Gazans from their homeland. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe right answer is not a real estate operation, this is a political operation,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
While France has been forthright in its support for Israel\u2019s right to defend itself after Hamas\u2019 October 7, 2023, massacre, Macron has not shied from publicly decrying Israel\u2019s policies and conduct in its military operations in Gaza and Lebanon. <\/p>\n
France suspended arms exports to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in October 2024, calling on other nations to follow suit. <\/p>\n
\u201cI always reiterated my disagreement with (Israeli) Prime Minister Netanyahu,\u201d Macron said. \u201cI don\u2019t believe, once again, that such a massive operation targeting sometimes civilian people is the right answer.\u201d <\/p>\n
Macron said any \u201cefficient\u201d response to rebuilding Gaza \u201cdoesn\u2019t mean automatically that you should lack respect to people or countries,\u201d highlighting the wishes of Palestinians to remain on their homelands and the unwillingness of both Jordan and Egypt to accept large numbers of Gazan refugees. <\/p>\n
The provocative proposal lofted by Trump outlined a plan to remove Palestinians from Gaza to neighboring Egypt and Jordan, with the US taking \u201clong-term ownership\u201d of the enclave. <\/p>\n
Trump stirred up storms of criticism for bigging up Gaza\u2019s real estate potential, suggesting he could redevelop it into a \u201cMiddle Eastern Riviera.\u201d <\/p>\n
It\u2019s not the first time those in Trump\u2019s orbit floated that idea. Last year, his son-in-law Jared Kushner, who served as a senior adviser to Trump in his first term, suggested \u201ccleaning up\u201d Gaza by booting out civilians to unlock the \u201cvery valuable\u201d waterfront potential of the territory. <\/p>\n
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu backed Trump\u2019s \u201cremarkable idea\u201d during a visit to the US last week. In recent months Israel has seen a wave of far-right settler groups planning and advocating for the redevelopment of Gaza, calling for Arab people to leave and to re-establish Jewish settlements. <\/p>\n
Any such land grab from the Palestinians would be illegal under international law, and likely to spark further global condemnation. <\/p>\n
Already, like France, the international community has come out vocally against Trump\u2019s plans. <\/p>\n
The United Nations was robust, its secretary-general\u202fwarning Trump\u202fagainst \u201cethnic cleansing.\u201d\u202fSpain\u2019s foreign minister told radio station RNE that \u201cGazans\u2019 land is Gaza.\u201d In Western Europe, only Dutch far-right figurehead Geert Wilders broke ranks to endorse the plan. \u201cLet Palestinians move to Jordan. Gaza-problem solved!\u201d he wrote on X. <\/p>\n
German President Walter Steinmeier said the suggestion was \u201cunacceptable,\u201d and the country\u2019s foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, said it would \u201clead to new suffering and new hatred.\u201d <\/p>\n
But some allies have tried to play both sides, keeping Trump happy while trying to uphold longheld norms over Palestinian rights. \u201cOn the issue of Gaza, Donald Trump is right,\u201d UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy told reporters in Ukraine this week. \u201cLooking at those scenes, Palestinians who have been horrendously displaced over so many months of war, it is clear that Gaza is lying in rubble.\u201d <\/p>\n
Lammy went on to add: \u201cWe have always been clear in our view that we must see two states and we must see Palestinians able to live and prosper in their homelands in Gaza.\u201d His boss, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, also stressed that Palestinians must be allowed back to their homes in Gaza. <\/p>\n
France has been full-throated in shooting down plans to displace Palestinians, with the government\u2019s spokesperson describing such a move as a \u201cdestabilizing question in the Middle East.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Amid the maelstrom of indignation around Donald Trump\u2019s proposal to \u201ctake over\u201d Gaza, French President Emmanuel Macron has called for \u201crespect\u201d for Palestinians and their Arab neighbors, batting away the US president\u2019s idea of a mass displacement of Gazans from their homeland. \u201cThe right answer is not a real estate operation, this is a political <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13072,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-13071","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13071\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}