Ralph Peters is a former US Army analyst who became famous in the mid-2000s for his article “Blood Borders: How A Better Middle East Would Look”, which proposed redrawing the region’s borders according to local identities. He justified this on the basis that “Ethnic cleansing works.” Even though Peters wrote that Israel should return to its pre-1967 borders, the overall gist of his piece might have inspired Trump’s latest proposal to “just clean out” Gaza by sending its people to Egypt and Jordan.
He isn’t influenced by moral or humanitarian arguments when formulating his country’s policies, only practical ones, which in this case are driven by his interest in decisively ending the conflict and then restoring regional business opportunities in its wake. All references to moral and humanitarian arguments, such as him telling the Davos elite that he wants to end the Ukrainian Conflict just for the sake of stopping the killing, are just attempts to make his envisaged proposals more publicly acceptable.
That’s why he has no qualms about suggesting something that essentially amounts to ethnically cleansing the Palestinians from their homeland, but there are several problems in his latest proposal. For starters, there’s no way to coerce them into exile without risking another conflict. The nascent ceasefire calls for allowing the Palestinians to return to their homes and permitting hundreds of aid trucks into the strip each day. Hamas is expected to resume hostilities if Israel reneges on these crucial parts of the deal.
Bibi might feel emboldened to do this though due to how unpopular the ceasefire is at home, after Trump’s de facto ethnic cleansing proposal, and upon receiving the 2000-pound bombs from the US whose Biden-era hold was just lifted over the weekend. In that event, Israel could cut off aid to the strip and remain on its side of the border wall to bait Hamas out into the open while waiting until civilians become desperate enough to flee to Egypt, but that requires Cairo’s complicity in this possible plot.
It refused to open its borders to refugees during the latest war citing security threats, which Alt-Media dishonestly spun as principled opposition to ethnic cleansing, but Trump could leverage the US’ foreign aid to Egypt to coerce it into agreeing. After all, Egypt was just exempted from the US’ 90-suspension of foreign aid alongside Israel, while Jordan (which used to control the West Bank and also receives over $1 billion in US foreign aid a year) has yet to receive a notice of aid suspension at the time of writing.
Accordingly, he could either threaten to curtail existing aid to them if they don’t go along with this and/or offer to increase some of their aid to help pay for it, the latter of which could be bolstered by those three’s shared Saudi ally contributing to these resettlement efforts. Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS) might also invite some of the Palestinians to live in his Kingdom, not only out of ethno-religious solidarity, but more importantly to cushion the criticism connected to his potential recognition of Israel.
He’s expected to make serious concessions on his country’s officially strict position of only recognizing Israel once Palestine receives independence since this move is required for unlocking the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC). That megaproject was announced at the G20 Summit in Delhi less than a month before Hamas’ sneak attack abruptly suspended work on it. MBS is eager get IMEC back in action since his country’s (likely delayed) “Vision 2030” development plans are dependent on it.
To that end, it’s imperative for him to assist with a swift resolution of the conflict even if it involves the de facto ethnic cleansing of Gaza, which is why he’s expected to play a direct (resettlement) and/or indirect (financing) role in this if Trump coerces all players to do so. While he’ll certainly be lambasted by Western activists and the Iranian-led “Resistance Axis’” media surrogates for this, he might wager that most Arabs will breathe a sigh of relief that this dimension of the conflict has finally been resolved.
As for the much larger one regarding the West Bank’s final status, he might settle for vague promises of future autonomy from Israel, or he might go along with another Gaza-like plot to push those Palestinians into Jordan. In any case, what he’s not expected to do is oppose the joint American-Israeli imposition of “Blood Borders” onto Palestine, whether Gaza and/or the West Bank. He didn’t do anything but mildly complain during the latest war so precedent suggests that he won’t do more if another one breaks out.
It can’t be ruled out that hostilities won’t resume either considering the ease with which Israel could violate the ceasefire after the return of the remaining living hostages (or possibly after all the remaining bodies of the dead hostages too if it wants to wait longer). This could take the form of cutting off aid to the strip in order to coerce civilians into fleeing to Egypt, from where some could then be resettled to Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and/or elsewhere within the “Ummah” (international Muslim community).
Trump might have convinced himself that this is the only way to decisively end the conflict, ensure Israel’s long-term security, and restore regional business opportunities like IMEC. It doesn’t mean that he’ll succeed, but just that there’s a probable chance that he’ll attempt it, which could bring about a new war. If Egypt is coerced by the US’ foreign aid leverage into opening its borders to refugees, then the de facto ethnic cleansing of Gaza could proceed, after which the US might approve of Israel annexing it.
While the last-mentioned would be easier said than done considering how difficult the latest war with Hamas was for Israel, the large-scale exodus of civilians that the US might engineer per a deal with Egypt could change the next conflict’s dynamics. Trump might give Bibi the greenlight to go all out in bombing Hamas after a certain time has passed on the pretext that all civilians had the chance to evacuate to Egypt by then so all that remains are supposedly only armed Hamas members.
Israel was accused of targeting civilians during the last war but it could have absolutely gone much further if it felt that it had full American support, which it didn’t receive from the Bibi Administration, whose members remained somewhat sensitive to global opinion and also wanted to overthrow Bibi. Trump doesn’t care about global opinion and, despite his personal problems with Bibi, doesn’t want to carry out regime change in Israel by placing a Democrat-backed liberal-globalist in power there.
For these reasons, it’s very possible that Trump might make good on his proposal to have Israel “just clean out” Gaza by coercing the Palestinians there into fleeing to Egypt and thenceforth to other “Ummah” countries, which is why observers should take his “Blood Borders”-inspired plan seriously. Any moves that he and Israel might take towards implementing it won’t be stopped by public condemnation, but only possibly by Hamas, though it might be too weak by now to prevent ethnic cleansing there.
