Former U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman discusses President Trump's bold proposal for U.S. control of Gaza, challenging long-established Middle East strategies. Get the facts first on Morning Wire.
Chapter 1: What is Trump's proposal for Gaza?
President Trump made a bold and surprising proposal this week that the U.S. take over Gaza during an official state visit from Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The statement drew immediate criticism from Democrats and sparked heated debate on Capitol Hill. For insight on the meeting between Trump and Netanyahu and what increased U.S.
involvement in the Middle East would look like, we speak to former U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman. I'm Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief John Bickley with Georgia Howe. It's Sunday, February 9th, and this is a weekend edition of Morning Wire. Joining us now to discuss Trump's novel and controversial proposals about Gaza is former U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman.
Ambassador, first of all, thank you so much for coming on.
Sure.
Chapter 2: What were the key takeaways from the Trump-Netanyahu meeting?
My pleasure. Benjamin Netanyahu is the first world leader to visit the White House in Trump's second term, which is significant in and of itself. And there was a lot of news that came out of Tuesday's meeting. From your perspective, what was the biggest issue that came out of this press conference?
Well, the first thing is, you know, because I know them well and I've been in the room many times when they've spoken, I have a pretty good feel for the body language. And so as I'm watching, and I wasn't part of this particular gathering, but as I'm watching, I'm seeing between both of them, you can tell there's like fundamental agreement. This is not just for public consumption. It's real.
There's fundamental agreement. I think on a few things. Number one, I think both Netanyahu and Trump agree that Hamas has to go. There's just nothing left to talk about regarding the future of that region with Hamas remaining in power. I think there's also fundamental recognition that Iran can't get a nuclear weapon.
And then I think there's a desire to move forward with normalization with Saudi Arabia or Indonesia or others. But understanding that you got to sort of quiet this area down and have a strategy that to de-radicalize the Palestinian population. So, you know, that's a lot to say from body language, but, you know, again, I've been in the room a lot.
And that's sort of what I took from watching it and, of course, obviously hearing the comments of both leaders.
Yeah. So let's talk specifically about the control of Gaza, how to handle the aftermath of the war in Gaza and what to do with the people currently there. Trump really sent some shockwaves throughout the world on this with talk of the U.S. taking over and leading the rebuild. How did you interpret his proposals for Gaza?
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Chapter 3: Why does Trump believe the U.S. should control Gaza?
Well, look, I think he is looking at a 50 plus year problem that only seems to get worse.
and he's overlaying on that the amount of money wasted in gaza and the enormous economic potential of gaza which you know frankly only a guy who's in business who understands what it means to have 25 miles of sunset facing beachfront in this tiny area right so he's looking at both he's looking at the incredible violence and waste and human misery then he's looking at what this could be and i think he's just saying you know what
These kind of small steps, they're just not working. And I'll tell you, look, when I was working on this, you know, we always had one gating issue when it came to Gaza, which is how are we going to get Hamas out? Like, who's going to rule Gaza who won't threaten not just the people of Gaza, but Israel as well? I mean, who's out there? Hamas didn't just take over Gaza.
They were elected, you know, and they have a lot of support there. And they're just a brutal, cruel, ruthless, Nazi-like regime. And we just couldn't envision what it would look like in a sort of ground-up, organic restructuring, if you will. Now, what's different now, because in those days, you know, not easy to talk about moving two million people out of their territories.
That's hard to do, even though, from my perspective, direct conversations with lots of people who come from Gaza. Many people would love to leave. I mean, there are people who will get on the media and say, you know, we're going to fight to stay here, but there aren't a lot of people who really feel that way.
But notwithstanding that, you know, moving people against their will is much more challenging than today, when today they can't stay. Whatever the legal issues may be, whatever the moral issues may be, they can't stay. There's no place for them to stay. There's not a building there which wouldn't be condemned by any zoning board in the United States. They're all going to fall down.
And they can't stay there. And so they all want to leave. I mean, much more so than before, even. And so I just think that once you reach the conclusion that the people who are living there now have to leave for their own safety, for their own health, they have to leave. Then it opens up a much wider focus on what could be. And so Trump says, OK, if they're leaving anyway.
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Chapter 4: How realistic is the relocation of Palestinians from Gaza?
Okay, why not now take this extraordinarily valuable property in the hands of decent people, make it what it could be, maybe use the newly created American sovereign wealth fund to finance some of it. There'll be plenty of money that would come in to do that. And then let's create a permanent monument to the failure of radical Islamism, because that's what this will become.
Now, that would, of course, logistically mean a massive relocation, having to move these refugees, the Palestinians, into neighboring countries. How realistic is that prospect?
Well, I think that's a function of American leverage and President Trump's persuasiveness. But look, starting with Egypt and Jordan, these are countries whose very existence is very much dependent upon America, and to some extent, Israel. Like in Jordan's case, a huge amount of Financial aid comes from America. A huge amount of intelligence cooperation comes from America and Israel.
The Israeli-Jordanian border is the largest of Israel's borders. And Israel works closely with the Jordanians behind the scenes to make sure that that border remains relatively quiet. So there's a lot of leverage there. And I think the difference with Jordan is that there may not be as much space but there's certainly leverage there.
Now, in the case of Egypt, the same is also true about financial aid and intelligence cooperation. And there's also Sinai. I mean, the Sinai Peninsula, which Israel returned to Egypt in 1979, is a vast, vast, vast space that can easily be, I would say, ring-fenced if you're worrying about terrorists coming out. I mean, there's a lot that can be done there.
Sinai has basically been neglected by Egypt since Israel handed it back. So, I think there's opportunities there. And then again, you know, there's 20 Muslim countries, you know, 25 Muslim countries. I mean, there's a lot of countries that can take 20,000, 30,000. And, you know, so I do think it's doable. It'll take some time. There's easy access out of Gaza.
You know, it's not like it's landlocked. So you don't need to bring in these, you know, C-130s To fly people out, you know, in terms of Northern Africa, you got the whole Mediterranean Sea and it's right on the Mediterranean. You can send people right off a dock on a ship, which carries a lot more people than an airplane. So I think it's logistically possible.
The big question then, of course, is how many would want to leave? You suggested that there's a large percentage of Palestinians that do, in fact, want to out of Gaza. I know there can't be an exact number here, but what would you put it at with your best estimate, the percentage of Palestinians who want to relocate?
So before we were ever talking about October 7th, you know, when I was the U.S. ambassador to Israel and I had as part of my marching orders to deal with the Palestinian populations as well in the West Bank and Gaza, I got a pretty good sense from people living in Gaza how desperate they were to get out. It's a terrible place to live.
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