Trump insists his Gaza plan doesn’t amount to ethnic cleansing, says population will be ‘very happy’ elsewhere

WASHINGTON — US President Donald Trump repeatedly dismisses claims that his plan to take over Gaza and relocate all of its residents amounts to ethnic cleansing, insisting that Palestinians want to leave.

“We’re moving them to a beautiful location where they’ll have new homes, where they can live safely, where they have doctors and medical and all of those things. It’s going to be great,” Trump tells reporters in the Oval Office alongside Jordan’s King Abdullah.

Pressed how he can simply relocate 2 million people, Trump responds, “It’s a very small number of people relative to other things that have taken place over the decades and centuries.”

Asked if he’ll force Palestinians out if they don’t want to leave Gaza, Trump responds, “They’re going to be very happy.”

“No place in the world is as dangerous as the Gaza Strip. They don’t want to be there. They have no alternative,” the US president says.

Despite claiming that the US will own the Strip, Trump asserts that he won’t have to pay for it. “We’re not going to buy anything. We’re going to have it. We’re going to keep it, and we’re going to make sure that there’s going to be peace, and there’s not going to be any problems, and nobody’s going to question it, and we’re going to run it very properly.”

Asked where he wants Palestinians to live, Trump responds, “It’s not about where I want them to live. It’s going to be where we ultimately choose as a group.”

Trump walks back yesterday’s threat to withhold aid from Egypt and Jordan if they don’t agree to take in Palestinians.

“I don’t want to [threaten] that because we’ve had such a good relationship and we’re doing so well just in the short time that we’ve been talking,” he says.

“The king just made a statement — I didn’t ask him to do that — about literally saving 2,000 young children from the Gaza Strip,” Trump notes. “We do contribute a lot of money to Jordan and to Egypt… But I don’t have to threaten that. We’re above that.”

Asked if he’d consider other countries for housing Gazans, Trump says he would, claiming that lots of countries “want to get involved.”