A backdoor way to implement Trump’s Gaza plan
A magic trick
Key insight: The best way to manage the Arab street is to do nothing big, visible, and formal that causes an obvious loss of honor. The actions taken should be small, slow, gradual, diffuse, and iterative.
An introductory caveat…
I’m neither a progressive nor a conservative nor a Trump populist. I’m a voluntaryist libertarian. So nothing below represents my ideal path. But as statist schemes go I like Trump’s Gaza plan quite a bit. I want it to work. That means overcoming obstacles like this…
Jordan and Egypt don’t want the Gazans
I don’t blame them.
The Palestinian Arabs are a destabilizing force wherever they go (see the relevant history from Jordan, Lebanon, and Kuwait).
But the problem is broader than that.
Arab public opinion is terrible
The so-called Arab street is hostile to anything that benefits Israel.
A 2022 survey found that 84% reject formal recognition and only 8% desire any diplomatic relations.
This was before Israel retaliated for the Hamas Massacre. The numbers have doubtless grown worse since then.
Recently, Egyptian citizens got in a tizzy when an Israeli ship passed through the Suez Canal.
Palestinian public opinion is especially horrific.
Because of this…
There are risks
The King of Jordan risks being overthrown if he cooperates with Trump’s Gaza plan.
President El-Sisi of Egypt risks assassination.
This is an old story. President Nasser of Egypt wanted to make peace with Israel in the 60s but feared assassination. Anwar Sadat did make peace with Israel and he was assassinated.
On the other hand…
The peace Sadat forged with Israel has lasted four decades!
Yes, Egypt is massing troops on Gaza’s border, but I don’t think that portends an invasion. Egypt knows Israel would maul them badly and might even retake Siani.
I think the Egyptians are simply saying, “Don’t think you’re going to slip the Gazans past us. We’re going to make sure they stay right where they are.” (Nice people those Egyptians).
But here’s a stunning fact that illustrates the key point I want to make…
Even the Muslim Brotherhood maintained the peace deal with Israel during the brief time they ruled Egypt!
Apparently, maintaining an existing agreement is less provocative to Arab public opinion than signing one in the first place.
This is a crucial insight. It fits with a point I’ve made repeatedly…
What Arab leaders do often differs from what they really want!
They will say and do things to mollify Arab public opinion while believing and wanting the exact opposite.
This reality suggests…
A back-door way for Trump to implement his Gaza plan
What we need is a process that moves the Gazans to better living conditions, and away from conflict with Israel, without big caravans or boatloads of highly visible refugees.
We need a strategy that doesn’t require public negotiations, signing ceremonies, press releases, and noisy public debates. What we need is…
A heaping helping of good old-fashioned bureaucracy and paperwork
No one should announce anything. No one should be able to witness large movements of people. It can all be done with a few documents and some money combined with the kind of normal travel people routinely do when they go on vacation.
I suggest the following process…
Part one:
Israel claims most Gazans already want to leave without compulsion. Let’s formalize and quantify that. Israel should create a registration process for Gazans who want to leave.
Israel also claims Egypt can solve the problem simply by opening its gates. But that would be a highly visible and provocative move, plus…
What is true of Egypt is also true of Israel!
Israel could solve the problem by opening its gates!
Does that sound crazy? Do I really want to let the population that elected Hamas into Israel? Keep reading! There’s a method to my madness!
They wouldn’t enter Israel en masse. They would come in a few at a time, just like they have done in the past to work in Israel, but this time they’d only be in the country long enough to reach an airport to fly somewhere else.
Their first destination wouldn’t be their final destination. It would be a way station, maybe somewhere in Europe or the United States. They would be there just long enough to take a brief vacation and recover from their ordeal, and then travel to their new homes.
And where, exactly, would their new homes be? That question brings us to…
Part two:
In keeping with Trump’s overall proposal, the U.S. should pay the voluntary Gazan immigrants for their land and give them a temporary encoded passport.
The documents and money will give the Gazans four important things…compensation for the property they’re losing, funding to reestablish themselves, the means to travel, and an incentive to do so. Any Gazan who doesn’t want to leave doesn’t get the money.
Part three:
The Trump administration should make deals with as many Arabic-speaking countries as possible. These deals might involve payments from the U.S. but they would be informal and back channel. They would never be publicly announced. They would be entirely bureaucratic and procedural.
The deals would require the participating countries to grant permanent residency to Gazans who have special U.S. passports.
This would mean that Gazans could go to not just Jordan and Egypt, but perhaps to as many as 21 different Arab-speaking countries.
Two million Gazans would not be dumped on one or two countries in one huge lump. They would instead filter out to multiple countries in dribs and drabs. No muss. No fuss. No long caravans on dusty roads. No boats bulging with refugees. It would be a slow, invisible, iterative process.
The Gazans would come with sufficient resources to establish themselves, and they would not all settle in one place. The receiving countries would also receive a pile of U.S. dollars to alleviate their psychic pain and their sense of risk.
Part four:
The plan will eventually leak. It might even leak before it happens. So what!
There will still be no arriving caravans and boats to provide a locus for protest. The process will be almost completely invisible.
Will unhappy Arabs stand in airports with signs that say “Gazans go home?” Of course not. How will they tell refugees from a family returning from vacation? The bureaucrats will know, but the protesters won’t.
Will some psycho jihadist lie in bed at night fuming because refugees might be landing at the local airport? Will he get up the next morning and go assassinate a politician because of it? I doubt it.
The citizens of the various receiving countries will simply accept it, the way the Egyptian people accept the peace treaty with Israel.
Key insight: The best way to manage the Arab street is to do nothing big, visible, and formal that causes an obvious loss of honor. The actions taken should be small, slow, gradual, diffuse, and iterative.
Final word
I’ll end with a fun fact. Do you know who first proposed moving the Gazans to Egypt in one big lump? Surprise, surprise, it was President Nasser of Egypt way back in 1953!
Do you like my idea for executing Trump’s plan? Do you know someone with connections in government? Or someone with small connections who knows people who have bigger connections? If so, send them this article. And please follow me for more.
Copyright © Perry Willis 2025
Perry Willis is the co-founder of Downsize DC and the Zero Aggression Project. He co-created, with Jim Babka, the Read the Bills Act, the One Subject at a Time Act, and the Write the Laws Act, all of which have been introduced in Congress. He is a past Executive Director of the national Libertarian Party and was the campaign manager for Harry Browne for President in 2000.
