By James M. Dorsey

US President Donald J. Trump’s shock-and-awe Gaza therapy appears to be working.

Infuriated by Mr. Trump’s assertion that the United States will take ownership of the Strip, resettle its 2.3 million inhabitants in Egypt, Jordan, and elsewhere, and turn it into a high-end beachfront real estate development has forced Arab leaders to come up with an alternative plan.

Mr. Trump has acknowledged as much.

Speaking to Fox News radio hours after the leaders of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Egypt, and Jordan discussed an alternative plan at an informal summit in Riyadh, Mr. Trump defended his plan as a recommendation he would not impose.

The leaders in Riyadh expect an Arab summit scheduled for March 4 in Cairo to endorse their plan.

“I’ll tell you the way to do, it is my plan. I think that’s the plan that really works. But I’m not forcing it. I’m just going to sit back and recommend it… Another way of doing it, but I don’t think it would work, would be to do it with people there… The question is, can you wipe (Hamas) out? They are so interspersed among people,” Mr. Trump said.

Taking its cue from Mr. Trump’s original insistence on implementing his plan, Israel this week reportedly dropped Arabic language leaflets over Gaza threatening to “impose forced displacement upon you whether you accept it or not…. The map of the world will not change if all the people of Gaza disappear from existence, and no one will ask about you,” the leaflet read.

Meanwhile, Steve Witkoff, Mr. Trump’s Middle East envoy, appeared on stage at a Saudi investment conference in Miami with the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, the father of the notion of turning Gaza into a high-end real estate development.

“We talk about convening people together from all parts of the world, master planners and developers and architects, talking about ideas and so forth,” Mr. Witkoff said.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Mr. Witkoff was exploring a possible White House gathering of real-estate developers and other business leaders to kick off a Gaza reconstruction effort.

“You have to see the devastation that exists there today in Gaza. There are 30,000 unexploded shells all over there. The conditions are horrendous. I don’t know why anyone would want to live there today. It’s illogical to me,” Mr. Witkoff said.

Mr. Witkoff visited Gaza earlier this month. He was the first senior US........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)