Trump’s bold Gaza plan—once a vision to rebuild a terror hub into the “Riviera of the Middle East”—has morphed into a UN-backed gamble that risks repeating history’s failures.
On February 4, 2025, President Donald Trump surprised the world as he announced his solution for the war-wrecked Gaza Strip, which for decades has served as a launchpad for terrorism against Israel. “You have to learn from history—you can’t keep making the same mistakes over and over again. Gaza is a hellhole,” stated Trump. “The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip… the U.S. would ‘own’ the Gaza Strip, level it, and help relocate its militant population and ‘develop it ‘as ‘the Riviera of the Middle East.’ This could be so magnificent,” he said.
The reactions to the President’s sober and truthful view “shocked, shocked” the biased, anti-American, anti-Trump, and anti-Israel international community. Unfortunately, the pressure to abandon his original plan prevailed. Trump changed his plan to an unviable, ill-conceived plan, for which he’s now seeking a UN Security Council Resolution that would allow the creation of an International Stabilization Force (ISF) in Gaza. This is despite the UN’s constant record of costly and devastating failures in “peacekeeping.
What led the Trump administration to suddenly trust the utterly corrupt, pro-Hamas organization? More importantly, who led the president, who regularly condemned Hamas and the corrupt Palestinian Authority, to abandon this original plan?
On September 29, 2025, during a state dinner with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump announced a new plan, which he described as an “extremely fair proposal,” which would turn Gaza into “a deradicalized terror-free zone that does not pose a threat to its neighbors.” Moreover, according to his revised plan, Gaza will be redeveloped for its current inhabitants, “who have suffered more than enough,” thus investing billions of dollars in rebuilding Gaza for the Hamas-supporting population that has helped attack Israel for the past two decades.
While Trump repeated that “if Hamas rejects the deal…Bibi, you have our full backing to do what you would,” how long before he changes his mind again?
Instead of advancing this ill-conceived plan, President Trump could advance his original, innovative plan, which could result in real change, bring peace to the Middle East, and better serve his America First agenda.
Taking ownership of the Gaza Strip would surely raise criticism. However, leveling and clearing it, building an airbase, and constructing a deep-water harbor would give the US a strategic advantage in the region. Besides, the Gaza enclave is big enough to facilitate Trump’s original vision of turning it into the “magnificent” Middle East Riviera.
*This was first published on November 11, 2025, at American Greatness.
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- Rachel Ehrenfeld, PhD, is director of the American Center for Democracy, and author of “The Soros Agenda” and “Funding Evil: How Terrorism is Financed and How to Stop It“, and ”Narco-Terrorism.”