Analysis: Trump’s Gaza relocation plan signals shift in Jewish political influence
Establishment Jewish groups seemed stunned into silence, while fringe far-right Zionists exulted in the mainstreaming of their ideas
President Donald Trump on Feb. 4. Photo by Shawn Thew/EPA/Bloomberg via Getty Images
By Jacob Kornbluh February 5, 2025
Reaction to President Donald Trump’s radical proposal to have the United States take control of the Gaza Strip and relocate its 2 million Palestinian residents hinted at a realignment of Jewish political influence in which fringe Zionist activists and their ideas are replacing the establishment groups that have long held sway in Washington.
Mainstream pro-Israel groups were, perhaps, stunned into silence: the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and the Federation movement had not issued press releases or posted on social media by Wednesday afternoon.
AIPAC, the premier pro-Israel lobbying group, did not directly respond to the Gaza proposal. “We appreciate President Trump’s commitment to preventing Iran from ever getting a nuclear weapon, the steps he has already taken to reimpose dramatic economic pressure on Iran, and his efforts to find a path forward for a post-Hamas Gaza,” an AIPAC spokesperson said in an emailed statement Wednesday afternoon.
Meanwhile, far-right politicians in Israel and American Zionist groups previously seen as gadflies exulted over headlines worldwide that seemed to be taking their approach seriously for the first time.
“Hashem exists — there is a God,” was the initial reaction of Mort Klein, the longtime head of the Zionist Organization of America, who has sparked controversies — and lawsuits — at his own organization and the Conference of Presidents for years. “This is too miraculous.”
Moshe Phillips, chair of the little-known group Americans for a Safe Israel, meanwhile issued a news release laced with incendiary language — saying Trump’s takeover must include “deNazification” of what he called “Palestinian Arab society.”
“If the Allies had merely rebuilt Germany after World War II, without completely changing German society, it would have been only a matter of time before the Nazis would rise up and again threaten the Free World,” he said. “That’s exactly what President Trump needs to do in Gaza: change the schools, ban the terrorists, eradicate the symbols of terror.”
Sarah Stern, president of EMET, a conservative think tank that focuses on the Middle East, said: “After years of having to live with the abysmally failed ‘land for peace’ paradigm, particularly regarding Gaza, it is about time our foreign policy establishment broke out of the mold.”
Unsurprisingly, the Jewish Democratic Council of America and the left-leaning group J Street were quick to roundly condemn the plan Trump unveiled at a Tuesday evening news conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
But the American Jewish Committee was the first and one of the only nonpartisan traditional groups to react publicly, in a lengthy statement that struggled to thread the needle between thanking Trump for his support of Israel and critiquing his Gaza takeover plan.
“President Trump sent a powerful signal of American support for its one democratic ally in a region vital to U.S. national interests,” the group said. “At the same time, the president’s surprising, concerning, and confusing comments on an American plan to ‘take control’ and ‘own’ Gaza and the relocation of its population raise a wealth of questions – first among them the impact of the president’s announcement on the ongoing hostage-release agreement.”
It is unclear whether any of these Zionist groups or their leaders had any advance notice of Trump’s plan, never mind influence in shaping it. For generations, the Conference of Presidents and its constituent members enjoyed access to high-ranking officials in both Democratic and Republican administrations, and generally had either input to major policy shifts regarding Israel or at least a heads up before they were announced.
Tara Palmeri of Puck News reported late Tuesday that the Gaza takeover idea was “first conceived” by Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and a special envoy for Middle East peace during his first administration.
Kushner, who has no official role in Trump 2.0 but remains influential behind the scenes, indeed broached the topic last March in remarks at the Harvard Kennedy School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He suggested that Israel should temporarily settle displaced Palestinians from Gaza in Israel’s Negev desert to minimize casualties and rebuild the enclave (Trump has suggested Egypt and Jordan instead).
“Gaza’s waterfront property could be very valuable” to address the humanitarian crisis, Kushner said then. “I think from Israel’s perspective it’s just something that should be strongly considered.”
Two people familiar with internal discussions – speaking on the condition of anonymity – said Israeli government officials raised the idea of a mass relocation plan in discussions with Trump’s national security team at Mar-a-Lago in November.
Danielle Pletka, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, said nobody knows how seriously to take Trump’s suggestion, but that it was nonetheless “reflecting the bankruptcy of the conventional wisdom.”
“It is not crazy to underscore to the world that we need fresh thinking about Gaza,” Pletka noted.
Other Trump allies agreed that the announcement was less about presenting a viable plan and more about reframing responsibility for Gaza’s future.
Dov Hikind, a former Democratic Assemblyman from New York who is close with some of Trump’s inner circle, said that deploying American troops would be a non-starter, but that the president “has presented something that we can all debate and discuss and argue about“ and “something good will come out of it.
David Friedman, who served as U.S. ambassador to Israel in Trump’s first term, called the Gaza takeover plan “brilliant, historic and the only idea I have heard in 50 years that has a chance of bringing security, peace and prosperity to this troubled region.” His words were at the top of a list of cheerleaders the White House distributed Tuesday night.
While columnists and policy analysts scoffed at the plan’s infeasibility, Israel’s right-wing politicians and hard-core American Zionists celebrated, viewing Trump as having legitimized their long-held belief that Jews should reclaim Gaza, citing biblical justifications.
Klein, for example, said that he had last year drafted an op-ed advocating for the resettlement of Gaza’s residents and citing the Jewish historical connection to the enclave, but that the ZOA’s board rejected it over concerns about ethnic cleansing. “But when a president offers it, it mainstreams and legitimizes the issue,” Klien said. He added that Trump is “moving toward becoming the Winston Churchill of our era.”
Another hardline Zionist group, the Israel Heritage Foundation, which launched in 2022, sent a letter to Trump following the meeting with Netanyahu that thanked him for his “unshakeable commitment to truthfulness, honesty, and leadership” that has “sent shockwaves of hope and inspiration globally, touching the lives of millions.”
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