On Tuesday, Feb. 4, barely two weeks into his second term, President Donald Trump hosted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. On the occasion of his first official meeting in Washington with a foreign leader since returning to the White House, the president took several decisive actions that should have surprised nobody: He withdrew the United States from the UN Human Rights Council; he ended funding for UNRWA; and he reinstated the maximum pressure campaign of Iranian sanctions that, in his first term, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo led.

Then, at a press conference with Netanyahu, Trump delivered prepared remarks that astonished onlookers around the world, including American supporters and senior administration officials. The president stated that Gaza, much of which lies in ruins, should be rebuilt, but not by or with the assistance of the approximately 2 million Palestinians living there. Without naming names, the president said that humanitarian considerations will compel other countries to provide accommodations for Gazans and “neighboring countries of great wealth” would pay for their relocation. “The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip,” Trump said. And not for a short while. “I do see a long-term ownership position, and I see it bringing great stability to that part of the Middle East, and maybe the entire Middle East.” The United States will remove the wreckage, “create an economic development that will supply unlimited numbers of jobs and housing for the people of the area,” and turn Gaza into “the Riviera of the Middle East.”

Perhaps the president’s far-fetched scheme will serve as an opening bid to address the humanitarian crisis unfolding in Gaza while ensuring Israel’s security. The best case is that it creates room for diplomatic maneuvering, causing out-of-the box ideas to come into focus as reasonable and obtainable.

Trump presented a preliminary version of his implausible proposal in a Jan. 25 call to King Abdullah II of Jordan, suggesting that Jordan and Egypt take in approximately 2 million Gazans.

A mordant old Israeli joke captures the deep-seated Egyptian – and not only Egyptian – antipathy to Gaza that contributes to rendering the president’s idea unworkable.

The joke stems from the period following the 1979 U.S.-brokered Israel-Egypt peace agreement – in exchange for full diplomatic relations with Egypt, Israel returned the Sinai Peninsula, which it captured in the 1967 Six Day War. The joke goes like this: Not long after the deal was signed, Israeli Prime Minister........

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