Morning Wire - Rethinking Gaza: Trump's Bold Middle East Strategy | 2.9.25

Episode Date: February 9, 2025

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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 is a weekend edition of Morning Wire. Joining us now to discuss Trump's novel and controversial proposals about Gaza as former U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman Ambassador. First of all, thank you so much for coming on.

Sure. My pleasure. Now, 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, look, 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 to de-radicalize the Palestinian population. So now, that's That's a lot to say from body language, but 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? Well, look, I think he is looking at. 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 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 in 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. It's hard to do. Even though for my 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 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, okay, if they're leaving anyway, 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 will 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 in President Trump's persuasiveness.

But look, starting with Egypt and Jordan, these are countries that, 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 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, fast, fast space that can easily be, I would say, ring fenced. If you're worrying about, you know, terrorists coming out. I mean, there's a lot that can be done there. Sinai has basically been neglected by Egypt since Israel's 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 people 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 look, 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 in 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. I mean, it's under the most

repressive radical Islamic regime, Sharia law regime, that people want to get out. And there's a lot of educated people in Gaza, because, oddly enough, there's so little to do there. There's actually a lot of people reading books. And so it's not completely an uneducated place. And they want to get out and they want to move on with their lives. So I would have said easily north of 50% when Gaza was standing, when you had a place to live where you could cook yourself breakfast in the morning and, you know, walk on the streets. Today, post-October 7th, after both the devastation that's been resulting from the war and the, I think the hopelessness that the people have, that they'll ever have leadership that can bring than a better future. I think the number is well north of 90% in terms of the non-Hamas terrorist

sympathizers who would want to leave. I would say we're talking about probably a million and a half people at least who would gladly get on a boat and go someplace else. Now within the neighboring countries that would take them in, I assume there's a lot of concern about radicalization amongst the refugees. How legitimate and prominent a fear is that? Well, it's always a fear and it's a question of where they go and what their lives look like. They've learned, unfortunately, a very painful lesson, which is that radical Islamism leads to misery. They've experienced that firsthand. Maybe, you know, before October 7th, they thought there was a way to be both a radical terrorist and perhaps have a roof over your head and food on your table, but I think they understand these things

can't live side by side. They've learned that lesson. And it was a painful way to learn it, but there was no other way. You can't unring the bell of October 7th. You can't unsee what you've seen and what people have seen the whole world over is just how vicious and cruel these radical Islamists are and how they need to be eradicated. So look, I think they get it.

I really do. I think they get it. They may be angry at Israel for this. I assume many of them are. But at the same time, they understand that there is no future in terrorism. And I think, you know, the risk is always there, but I think it's manageable.

In terms of the U.S., quote, unquote, taking control of Gaza. What exactly would that mean? Would this be a permanent situation, or is this U.S. troops coming in to help clear it out, and then U.S. contractors that come in to rebuild infrastructure?

But then ultimately, this stays under the Israeli government's control. What would that actually look like? I don't know. I don't know. I mean, the actual, you know, who's holding title, I mean, if I were guessing, and this is just a guess, I would guess that the ownership

of the economics of the reality, built Gaza, meaning if the United States comes in with partners and builds hotels or condos or shopping malls, the things that prosperous societies have, I would think the economics of that will belong to whoever puts up the capital. I assume that's mostly going to be America, probably with some partners. In terms of, you know, which nation will have sovereignty over it, I would assume it'll be Israel, because I think Israel's the only one that can actually just, it's a country. It's an existing country with the kind of interest. structure and means by which to protect and defend that area, and frankly to engage in some of the

building. I'm sure Israel will probably want to invest some capital in this as well. But I think what the president said is this will be owned by America. And I assume what he's talking about is not the sovereign ownership necessarily, but I'm talking about more of the, you know, owning the projects and owning the economics. Well, as we've come to expect, certainly bold and hotly debated proposals from President Trump. We'll see how this all actually manifests over time. Ambassador, thank you so much for talking with us. My pleasure. It was good conversation. Thanks for doing it. That was David Friedman, former U.S. Ambassador to Israel. And this has been a weekend edition of Morning Wire.