Trump's Gaza transfer plan, formulated by an economics professor and passed on to his campaign staff during the election, is turning from a radical idea into a policy promoted by an American president.
ZMAN ISRAEL -- The details of Professor Peltzman's controversial plan were revealed by Dr. Kobby Barda, a historian of American politics and geostrategy, during a conversation on the "America Baby" podcast back in August 2024.
The plan's originator claims that Gaza should be completely destroyed and turned into a city-state without an army. In the Western world, the plan is received with astonishment and disdain, but in Washington it turns out that they have been working on it for some time.
US President Donald Trump's proposal for a Gaza evacuation-reconstruction plan has shocked the Western world. The idea of a population transfer – in general terms, a transfer – seems illogical and difficult to implement.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was sitting next to Trump at the time of the statement, seemed pleased with the immediate implications of the plan: keeping Bezalel Smotrich in the government, returning Itamar Ben-Gvir to the coalition, his political survival, and the evacuation of the Gaza Strip from its residents.
The proposal, which until now was perceived as an extreme idea belonging to the fringes of the right, suddenly became a policy promoted by an American president. Trump even claimed that the residents of the Gaza Strip would never ask to return there, and noted that he sees the future of the Strip as a place reminiscent of the French and Italian Rivieras.
While the plan was met with astonishment, criticism, and disdain in most capitals around the world, it turns out that Washington had been working on it for much longer than previously known.
It also emerged that a professor of economics at George Washington University was familiar with the details of the plan, as he was the one who drafted it and passed it on to Trump's people as early as July 2024.
Professor Joe Peltzman, an expert in economics and international relations who heads the CEESMENA research institute, was the one who formulated the transfer plan. According to various reports, Trump even discussed the idea with Netanyahu at the end of that month, but the details remained confidential.
Dr. Kobby Barda's tweet about the plan was widely ridiculed on social media in real time, but when you compare the document Peltzman wrote in English with Trump's words on February 4, the lines connect.
In an interview with Dr. Barda, Peltzman said that he had passed the plan on to Trump's people during the election campaign. "I put together the outline from an economist's perspective, about what the 'day after' in Gaza would look like," Peltzman said. "I passed the document on to Trump's campaign people, and they showed great interest in it.
Source: ZMAN ISRAEL
Dr. Kobby Barda is a Contributor on NEWSRAEL