Not satisfied with making enemies of our neighbors to the north and south, not to mention Europe, Trump stunned even his own staff* with a proposal he’s been thinking about for a month or two that has now alienated him from even his Saudi pals. He proposed that the Palestinians be relocated to Egypt and Jordan while the United States seized control of Gaza.

Mr. Trump’s announcement that he intends to seize control of Gaza, displace the Palestinian population and turn the coastal enclave into “the Riviera of the Middle East” was the kind of thing he might have said to get a rise on “The Howard Stern Show” a decade or two ago. Provocative, intriguing, outlandish, outrageous — and not at all presidential.

But now in his sequel term in the White House, Mr. Trump is advancing ever-more brazen ideas about redrawing the map of the world in the tradition of 19th-century imperialism. First there was buying Greenland, then annexing Canada, reclaiming the Panama Canal and renaming the Gulf of Mexico. And now he envisions taking over a devastated war zone in the Middle East that no other American president would want.

What to do with Gaza is, without a doubt, a monumental problem. Maybe even insurmountable, given the destruction wreaked by Israel since October 7th, the obvious unworkability of a two-state solution and Hamas’ return to control over what’s left. For Trump, this seemed like an opportunity to think “outside the box,” assuming he understood what the box was.

Never mind that he could name no legal authority that would permit the United States to unilaterally assert control over someone else’s territory or that the forcible removal of an entire population would be a violation of international law. Never mind that resettling 2 million Palestinians would be a gargantuan logistical and financial challenge, not to mention politically explosive. Never mind that it would surely require many thousands of U.S. troops and possibly trigger more violent conflict.

That’s a lot of “never minds” to overcome even if the plan had the support of Palestinians, Gaza’s neighbors and the powerhouse of the Middle East, Saudi Arabia. It does not.

• Trump’s comments also shocked Saudi Arabia — a country which the president described Tuesday as a key partner in implementing his plans in the region, a U.S. source close to the Saudis told Axios.
• The Saudis were also upset about Trump’s claim at the top of his meeting with Netanyahu that the kingdom won’t condition normalization of relations with Israel on Palestinian statehood.
• Although it was around 4 a.m. in Riyadh, the Saudi Foreign Ministry issued a strongly worded statement rejecting that claim and opposing Trump’s plan for displacing Palestinians.

It’s not as if there were no hints that something like this might come, given talk about how valuable Gazan waterfront real estate might be for luxury resorts. Now that the place was largely reduced to rubble and would need to be rebuilt anyway, why not make it profitable for Trump?

And unsurprisingly, Netanyahu and the Israeli right is kvelling over the idea. After all, it would end Hamas’ control over Gaza and eliminate the near-certainty of future terrorism and war. Why wouldn’t Israel prefer the Riviera of the Middle East over a terrorist controlled wasteland bent on destroying Israel and Jews?

The Palestinians, of course, aren’t quite as sanguine.

Reality check: There are massive obstacles to Trump’s vision.

• The human toll would be staggering: 2 million Palestinians call Gaza home and haven’t consented to being forced out of their territory, despite the colossal destruction from 16 months of war.
• The leaders of Egypt and Jordan have vehemently rejected Trump’s plan to resettle those Palestinians on their territory. Not to mention the broader regional consensus, including in Saudi Arabia, that Gaza should be part of a Palestinian state — not an American one.

And then there’s the problem of how the United States, unliterally, seizes Gaza when nobody other than Israel thinks Trump’s idea is all that great?

“The notion that the United States is going to take over Gaza, including with the deployment of U.S. troops, isn’t just extreme, it’s completely detached from reality,” said Halie Soifer, chief executive of the Jewish Democratic Council of America. “In what world is this happening?”

“Is he talking in geopolitical terms, or does he simply see Gaza as a massive beachfront development project?” Mr. Elgindy asked. “And for whose benefit? Certainly not Palestinians, who are to be ‘relocated’ en masse. Will the U.S. be the new occupier in Gaza, replacing the Israelis? What U.S. interest could this possibly serve?”

The irony here is that as bizarre and unacceptable as Trump’s scheme might be, no other plan for Gaza has as yet emerged. Who will rebuild? What will be done with the Gazans for the years it will take to rebuild? Who will govern Gaza going forward, since there will be no investment in Gaza if Hamas remains in control, and the likelihood is very high that the scenario will repeat itself when Hamas commits its next act of terrorism. But do these problems remaining unaddressed make the alternative, the Gaza Riviera, any less nuts?

What that meant exactly, he did not say. Nor did he say how this would be accomplished. Even he seemed to grasp how wild the whole thing sounded. “I don’t mean to be cute, I don’t mean to be a wise guy,” he said at one point. “But the Riviera of the Middle East!”

Would there be a Trump Gaza Resort where the temporary aid bridge briefly stood?

*According to Axios:

“He’s moving the goalposts of crazy,” a longtime adviser told us. “This time around, he’s not intimidated by headlines or pundits: He’s gonna throw out there whatever he feels like throwing out there.”