The ceasefire in Gaza is now over. Where to go from here to bring peace is again an open question. One idea that needs to die for good, however, is President Donald Trump’s proposal to takeover Gaza and move all Palestinians out. The administration has recently sent mixed signals on this, with Trump saying the Palestinians will stay and other leading U.S. officials saying the idea is still on the table. Taking over Gaza would be a disaster for U.S. national security. The longer this idea lingers, the more the current peace process loses legitimacy, thus increasing the chances a U.S. takeover actually happens. That would likely bog the United States down in a war, like Iraq and Afghanistan, just at a time when both the Middle East is of less strategic value to U.S. interests and Washington desperately needs a pivot to Asia.
A Gaza takeover is bad for U.S. national security for many reasons. For starters, the cost of occupying Gaza will be astronomical. Reconstruction aside, the biggest costs will come from the insurgency the U.S. and Israel will need to repress to pull this off. Unlike the way Trump is thinking about this, moving Palestinians elsewhere is not like a bunch of people retiring to nice homes in Florida. The issue for Palestinians isn’t the quality of housing. Instead, it’s about their identity. Like most nations and people groups across history, Palestinian (and Hamas) identity is deeply tied to the land in Gaza (and the West Bank). A takeover robs them of their land and, more importantly, threatens their identity.
That reality means there will be potent resistance to a U.S. takeover, which will come from (among other places) the 15,000 Hamas fighters still in Gaza. Israel has decimated Hamas’s leadership, but for every rank-and-file Hamas fighter killed since 10/7, another has been recruited. Those fighters will, as scholars argue, turn into a potent insurgency if Israel or the U.S. tries to take over Gaza. Hamas will not be easy to root out of Gaza and, even if some fighters leave, they (and other radicals) will return. Sealing off the Gaza strip entirely is impossible – just look at how Iran has been able to funnel weapons to Hamas for decades.
Trump says U.S. troops won’t be necessary in a Gaza takeover. That’s wrong. Instead, U.S. troops will end up fighting and dying in Gaza. “For what?,” Americans will ask. The answer: nothing that is critical to U.S. national security. What happens in Gaza doesn’t impact the security of the U.S. homeland or its vital interests abroad. However, wrong steps in Gaza – notably a U.S. takeover – carries real potential to harm U.S. security in serious ways. Washington would find itself mired, once again, in a nation-building war in the Middle East that drains away precious resources. China would love nothing more.
Regional problems caused by a Gaza takeover will also bring big problems for the United States. Moving Palestinians to Jordan (one of the proposed destinations for resettlement alongside Egypt) will create serious domestic instability there, perhaps leading to the collapse of the Hashemite Kingdom, a longtime U.S. ally. Jordan would become yet another failed or failing state (alongside Syria and Lebanon) on Israel’s borders. That wouldn’t be good for Israel, and it wouldn’t be good for the U.S. either. Jordan could become a new breeding ground for Hamas, and Washington will be stuck with added security costs, like the more than $22 billion spent since the 10/7 Hamas attack, to protect Israel. Egypt would likely cut ties with Israel if Palestinians are displaced from Gaza, thus damaging Arab-Israeli relations and the Abraham Accords, Trump’s diplomatic pride and joy in the Middle East.
Finally, the longer the idea of a Gaza takeover lingers, the more it emboldens Israel in ways that aren’t good for U.S. interests. Before he came to office, Trump created the impression that he may not be there to back Israel full tilt. This strategic ambiguity got Israel to do what Trump wanted and agree to the latest ceasefire.
Today’s extreme bearhug of Israel with this takeover idea has apparently reversed all that leverage. More certain than ever that the U.S. has its back, Israel has been less prone to make concessions in recent talks and is trying to alter the entire structure of the negotiations. Trump’s tight embrace also seems to have encouraged and enabled Israel’s resumption of the war in recent days. Rock-solid U.S. support for Israel might also embolden Israel to attack Iran soon, just at a time when Trump rightly wants negotiations with Tehran. Trump won’t like that. Neither will the U.S. public if it leads to a full-scale war that drags in the U.S. Again, China would love nothing more.
Overall, peace in Gaza is laudable, but not at the expense of U.S. national security. The Gaza takeover idea needs to die – the sooner the better.
C. William “Will” Walldorf, Jr. is Associate Professor and Shivley Family Faculty Fellow at Wake Forest University as well as a Non-Resident Fellow at Defense Priorities. He is the author most recently of To Shape Our World For Good: Master Narratives and Regime Change in U.S. Foreign Policy, 1900-2011. Will is currently writing a book titled America’s Forever Wars: Why So Long, Why End Now, What Comes Next that among other things develops a comprehensive model for over-the-horizon counterterrorism for the current era.
