Norman Finkelstein on Gaza as ‘prime real estate’ for Trump and his invite to Netanyahu

American academic, political scientist and author Norman Finkelstein, a vocal critic of what he calls apartheid policies by Israel and its treatment of Palestinians, argues that the Trump family wants to treat Gaza, battered to dust by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), as valuable real estate.

The newly elected US President said recently, “Gaza is interesting. It’s a phenomenal location, on the sea…. It’s like, some beautiful things could be done with it, but it’s very interesting.” By doing so, he was echoing the earlier comments of his son-in-law Jared Kushner, who had described Gaza’s waterfront property as “very valuable”.

“I’m sure it is always at the back of his (and Jared Kushner’s) mind,” Finkelstein, whose parents were Holocaust survivors, told Open.

Trump said on January 26 that he would like Jordan and Egypt to house the survivors remaining in Gaza, which many scholars term an ‘open-air jail’ and which is now reduced to rubble due to 15 months of relentless Israeli bombardments and aerial attacks. “You’re talking about a million and a half people, and we just clean out that whole thing,” Trump said.

According to multiple reports, the United Nations estimates that some 800,000 tonnes of the bombed-out debris across Gaza could be contaminated with asbestos and other toxic substances.

Responding to Trump’s seemingly cavalier and insensitive comment on Gaza, where more than 47,000 people, the majority of them women and children, were killed in Israeli strikes since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, Francesca Albanese, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, had poked fun at the American president leading the following post on X (formerly Twitter): “Welcome to the Real Estates of America.”

Some independent estimates suggest that 80% of those killed in Gaza are civilians, including doctors and journalists while a study by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said 70% of Palestinians killed were women and children.

Late last November, the International Criminal Court (ICJ) issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, and Hamas officials for war crimes and crimes against humanity over the attacks in Gaza and the October 2023 strike on Israel.

Finkelstein, a Princeton University alumnus, recently spoke to reporters about the reasons behind Trump’s invite to Benjamin Netanyahu to be the first foreign leader to visit the White House in the US president’s second term. He told Al Arabiya TV, funded by the Saudi government, a US ally, that the reasons are three-fold. Firstly, it is to appease Donald Trump’s base, a large part of which is enthusiastic about Israel. “It is (also) to placate billionaire Jewish supremacists like Bill Ackman who supported Donald Trump (after defecting from the Democratic Party) because of his expectations that Trump would give the Israelis a free hand.” Thirdly, Finkelstein said, Trump “wants to transmit the message that international law will have no part in his administration even though a search warrant has been issued by the ICJ against Prime Minister Netanyahu…”

As of now, Israel and Hamas have agreed to what many observers say is a fragile six-week ceasefire, which has put a pause to months of war in Gaza and will see the freeing of more Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners.

Benjamin NetanyahuDonald TrumpGaza StripIDFIsrael-Palestine conflictreal estateWeb Exclusive