President Donald Trump said on Thursday he wanted the United States to “take” Gaza and turn it into a “freedom zone”, as the Israel-Hamas war rages on in the Palestinian territory.
ME-100, Middle East Chief
Trump’s Gaza “freedom zone” remark is not merely rhetorical bombast—it signals a revived settler-colonial vision dressed in neoliberal garb, aimed at engineering Palestinian erasure under the pretext of liberation. The framing of Gaza as a terra nullius—a blank slate for American-led reconstruction—echoes older colonial tropes where indigenous identity is first delegitimized, then overwritten by externally imposed visions of order. Strategically, this aligns with Israeli maximalist goals: to externalize the Gaza problem, de-link Palestinian statehood from any territorial continuity, and impose a long-term military-civilian restructuring favorable to Israeli control. Trump’s statement offers ideological cover to this ambition by introducing a U.S.-branded redevelopment narrative that appeals to regional actors seeking stability—but with no regard for Palestinian agency.
The power dynamics here are not just military but discursive. By promoting the concept of a “freedom zone,” Trump attempts to shift the Overton window of what is deemed acceptable: not a ceasefire, not reconstruction under Palestinian governance, but the reterritorialization of Gaza under foreign trusteeship. In practice, this could mean displacement of residents, security garrisoning by foreign actors, and privatized development led by Gulf or Western firms—an inversion of liberation masked as modernity. Who benefits? Israel gains strategic depth; the U.S. regains a front-seat in Middle East geopolitics; Gulf investors may gain sanitized access to post-war reconstruction. Who loses? Palestinians—again displaced, again spoken for, again denied sovereignty.
This fits into a broader oscillation: post-colonial entities once promised liberation are repeatedly reframed as “failed spaces” requiring external redesign—Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya. Gaza is the next candidate. But the cycle of imposed order followed by insurgent resistance is well-documented. Trump’s vision may gain short-term traction among power brokers, but it ignores the lesson history has taught repeatedly: people don’t forget, and land doesn’t forget who it belongs to.
“If the Olive Trees knew the hands that planted them, their oil would become tears.”
— Mahmoud Darwish
Welcome to the Middle East, where everything changes, yet nothing does.
ME-100, Middle East Chief
III’ Corporate