AG
A bit of a contrarian take: There is 0 chance that what Trump suggested actually happens. There are a million reasons why it's almost impossible and also a terrible idea. Palestinians aren't going anywhere. I'm also someone who mostly rejects the Trump is playing 8-D chess spin on stuff, as I made clear with tariffs this week. With that said, I do think Trump's comments today actually can make a path forward more likely. What people don't realize is that until 5 min ago, Hamas and their allies were convinced that the result of the war they started on 10/7 would be Israel being abandoned and a Palestinian State. They thought they would be rewarded for starting and pursuing this war, despite the enormous cost to people in Gaza. They had every reason to believe that because the history of the conflict suggested that's where we would end up. By Trump loudly proclaiming that not only would they not be rewarded for starting this war with a state, but they might also lose Gaza (& maybe even the West Bank) for doing so, it completely changes the incentive structure Hamas has in pursuing the conflict. It undermines the motivation key terror sponsor and allies have in encouraging the conflict. it upends decades of strategy focused on trying to bribe Palestinian leaders into giving up on their pursuit of conflict. It hasn't worked. Trump is throwing the stick out there and taking the carrot of the table. The purpose is to try to get them to beg him to put the carrot back on the table. I'm not saying it will be effective, but the policy of simply rewarding terrorism has also clearly failed. Any future resolution to Gaza has to be views as changing the direction there, not simply rewarding terrorism and setting it up for a future war.
AG
Hamas spent decades turning the entire Gaza Strip into a military base by building a military infrastructure around and under the civilian one. In doing so, they ensured that the area would need to be turned upside down to dismantle them. Cleaning it out to make it livable is a good goal and Trump can throw out all the proposals he wants, but Jordan will never accept a bunch of terrorists coming into their country and trying to destabilize them. They already kicked out Palestinian leadership once for that very reason. Israel also doesn't want Hamas destabilizing Jordan. The same is true of Egypt. That's why this is the only conflict in recent history where most civilians could not leave the war zone. Syria, Ukraine, Afghanistan, and every other major conflict has had millions of civilians flee to neighboring countries. But no one is willing to open their doors to a mix of Palestinian militants and civilians. So the only way you can get anyone to accept Palestinian refugees in any substantial number is to separate the civilian population from militants. Thus far, no one has figured out how to do that.