”Trump is preparing to accepo the ‘no’ of the Arab countries but on the other hand I think that accepting the no will mean that they will have to deliver something else,” says Kobi Michael from the INSS.

The plan of U.S. President Trump to relocate the Palestinians from Gaza to Arab countries ‘’temporarily’’ and make the Gaza Strip the ‘’Riviera of Middle East’’ is ‘’probably not realistic’’, thinks Kobi Michael, Israeli expert of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) in Tel Aviv.

But with his ‘’out-of-the box’’ plan, Trump wants to change the Middle East paradigms.

‘’There are two main obstacles for his plan, I think the Palestinians themselves reject the idea and will not cooperate. I think we might see some movcment of migration from Gaza but not in the scale that President Trump was talking about… But I think that the consequences of this plan are much wider and more significant.,’’ said Kobi Michael in an online briefing for European and U.S. journalists organized by Europe Israel Press Association (EIPA) and its American branch AMEPA.

He continued: ‘’When the Arab countries say no to Trump that mean No. But on the other hand I think that things were well coordinated between the American administration and Arab leaders. Trump is preparing to accepo the ‘no’ but on the other hand I think that accepting the no will mean that they will have to deliver something else.’’

‘’This is the organizing rationale behind the plan. The most coordinated channel is between President Trum pand Mohammed Bin Salman of Saudi Arabia. I am not too impressed by the immediate reaction of the Saudis. This is part of the game. All the President’s plan aims to reach a normalisation process beteen Israel and the Saudis and draw the new regional architecture that reflects his regional vision,’’ says Michael, who had served as Deputy Director General at the Ministry for Strategic Affairs.

‘’The plan has to be understood in a broder context. It is not only related to the Gaza Strip or not only to the Palestinian arena. It is related to the regional and global arena. Everything is connected. What Trump did is not less than an earthquake. This is a tectonic move not less than that. In fact President Trump actually threw out from the table the old chess play that was on the table and put instead of that the monopoly game.’’

‘’He didn’t onkly change the rules of the game but he changed the entire game. There is a new game in town. He crashed the old paradigm. His regional vision is anchored in the new regional architecture based on the normalisation process between Israel and Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia in his vision will become a sophisticated and advanced American proxy which will keep American interests in the region without American boots on the ground. After this new architecture he will move on to the other arena, Ukraine, in order to close that corner and I believe he will be able to close it with president Putin.’’

For Kobi Michael, the plan has been prepared for a long time. ‘’It is not spontaneous. Trump started prepare this plan before his inauguration. His envoys have met the Arab leaders, including in Jordan,’’ he says..
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According to him, ‘’a majority of Gazans would accept to leave Gaza if they have the guarantee to be able to return. ‘’But we must understand that the process of reconstruction of the Gaz Strip would take 15 years. So there are also many obstacles that will dissuade them to leave.’’

But for Kobi Michaerl, nothing will happen in the Gaza Strip as long as Hamas remains in power. ‘’If we want to have a future for the region we have to dismantle Hamas,’’ he inists.

Would the Trump plan endangers the ongoing hostage deal ?

‘’This is a probability. We have to take into consideration that Hamas is in such bad condition that it can stop everything and pressure Israel to take it to the edge. However I believe that the high probabibility is that the deal will continue.’’

‘’Hamas wants to earn time. It needs time first to establish its control and presence in and over the Gaza Strip.Because the control of the Gaza Strip is the most strategic asset of Hamas. The end goal of Hamas is to replace Fata hand to gain control of the entire Palestinian system which means the Palestinian Authority and the PLO. They don’t see themselves as partners of Fatah. The reconciliation attempts are only a facade. They understand that they will not be able to do this if they do not have the control of this strategic asset, the control of the Gaza Strip. So they need time in order to stabilize their presence in Gaza and as long as there negotiatioons, as long as the ceasefire continues, they have the time to do it.’’

He added: ‘’They also need time in order to tighten the understandings with Turkey, Iran, Qatar and Egypt and assure that these countries will not go along with Trump and will offer them more opportunities.’’
‘’They also need time because they still believe that they will be able to make another October 7. They believe that the resistance axis led by Iran with the Iranian proxies t is resilient and will be able to reconstruct itself. And that they will be able to make another October 7.’’

‘’The fourth reason is the West Bank. They want to ignite the West Bank, escalate the situation there and they are working very hard on doing so. NizarJabouri, head of Hamas in the West Bank but who lives in Lebanon, is making all efforts with Iran to smuggle weapons and money through the Jordan valley to the northern part of the West Bank in order to build the terror infrasture and escalate the situation. They want to keep the West Bank as a burning front against Israel because they this would weakened Israel and providesmore opportunies to rebuild a capacity to make another attack. So they believe it is in their intersted to keep the negotiations and release the hostages. I do belive that will even prefer to extend the forst phase not to reach the secoind phase by agreeing to continue the negotiations but also by demaning a higher price for each hostage released.’’

In the meantime, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Thursday that he had instructed the Israel Defense Forces to prepare a plan to facilitate the voluntary departure of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip.

“The plan will include exit options at land crossings as well as special arrangements for exit by sea and air,” said Katz. “I welcome U.S. President Donald Trump’s bold plan. The residents of Gaza should be allowed to enjoy the freedom of exit and migration as is customary everywhere in the world.”

Hamas, Katz added, is “now holding them hostage, extorting money from them using humanitarian aid, and preventing their exit from Gaza.”