STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
A Wall Street Journal headline captures one of the ironies of this moment. The headline says, quote, "Trump Campaigned On Ending Foreign Entanglements. Now He Wants To Own Gaza," so says The Wall Street Journal. The president did, in fact, talk of taking over the Palestinian territory, adding it to other proposed acquisitions such as Greenland, Canada and the Panama Canal.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I don't want to be cute. I don't want to be a wise guy, but the Riviera of the Middle East, this could be something that could be so - this could be so magnificent.
INSKEEP: Removing 2 million Palestinians, more or less, and turning the area into seaside real estate development. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not exactly say no. He said it could change history. Trump's proposal would end hope of a Palestinian state. And Saudi Arabia - an important country here - has issued a statement saying that a two-state solution is nonnegotiable. The countries that Trump would like to take in, Palestinians say they won't do it.
Palestinian reaction has been mostly hostile, although our colleague Aya Batrawy says some Palestinians might welcome the chance to leave. Let's get one more point of view about this from Yousef Munayyer, who's a senior fellow at the Arab Center in Washington, D.C. He leads the Palestine-Israel program and has commented on events in the region for decades. Good morning, sir.
YOUSEF MUNAYYER: Good morning. Good to be with you.
INSKEEP: What did you think when you heard of this proposal?
MUNAYYER: Well, look, first thing you have to keep in mind is that prior to Trump's comments, I understood this as the meeting between a convicted felon in the White House and an indicted war criminal in Benjamin Netanyahu. So the expectation was there was going to be a conspiracy to commit further crimes once these two gentlemen got together. And, of course, I wasn't surprised when I heard Trump's latest outrageous idea to not just ethnically cleanse the Gaza Strip but to actually have the United States engage in the imperialist endeavor of annexing it and taking it over.
So, you know, this is the newest outrage from Donald Trump and not something that was completely surprising given who he was meeting with, what their respect for the law and rights actually is given their track record, and his history of saying outrageous things.
INSKEEP: I want to understand if you take the Israeli position seriously here. Trump has been talking for a number of days about cleaning out Gaza - his phrase. And we asked Danny Danon, the Israeli ambassador of the United Nations about this just on Monday. And he said Israel's policy is we don't want to take over Gaza. And the Palestinians will remain there, and we've got to find some way to govern. He wasn't talking about removing Palestinians at that time. This was a right-wing position, removing the Palestinians. Do you think that Benjamin Netanyahu is serious about pursuing this?
MUNAYYER: I think Benjamin Netanyahu is mostly interested in remaining in power in Israel. He heads a very precarious coalition that could collapse at any time. Remember, he presided over the single most disastrous, you know, security failure in Israeli history, and he's yet to really be held accountable for that by the Israeli public. What he is seeking to do is to really keep this war going on for as long as he possibly can so he doesn't end up facing the music. And if he can drag out the situation in Gaza for five years, 10 years, create a new set of challenges and problems that keep the - you know, the accountability towards him at a distance, he'd be happy to pursue that, whether it's, you know, through this crazy Trump idea or the next one.
INSKEEP: I'd like to know what you think about one statement Trump made that a lot of people who might be skeptical of his proposal might sign onto. He argues that the current situation in the Middle East is not working. That it's untenable. That it's been a failure for 50 years, and so he'd like to shake it up by doing this. Would you agree that the current situation is unsustainable and that Gaza is, in fact, a disaster at this point?
MUNAYYER: Look, I think everybody in the region understands that, has understood that for a long time. But they also understand that the reason that is the case is because almost eight decades ago, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were ethnically cleansed from their homes during the creation of the Israeli state into surrounding countries. This has been the foundation of destabilization and conflict in the region for the better part of a century now. And the last thing that anyone in the region wants to sign up for or thinks as a path to stability is more ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. So Trump has obviously identified a problem here, but is, you know, really more like an arsonist than a firefighter.
INSKEEP: Yousef Munayyer is a senior fellow at the Arab Center in Washington, where he leads the Palestine-Israel program. Thanks for your opinions this morning. Really appreciate it.
MUNAYYER: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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