A US-born advisor to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was tasked with “relocating” Palestinians from Gaza after President Trump announced plans last year for a “Gaza Riviera” that would involve the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian population, according to a report from the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.
An Israeli source told the paper that Caroline Glick, an American-Israeli far-right columnist and author who serves as Netanyahu’s international affairs advisor, approached Somaliland and the Democratic Republic of Congo about transferring Palestinians to their territory, but was unsuccessful.
The Haaretz report also cited an Israeli diplomatic cable written early last year that said through “connections at various levels in both Israel and the US,” Glick tried to “translate the Trump plan to a concrete action plan, assuming that Trump had outlined the vision and direction, and now it was up to the Israelis to develop detailed plans and begin implementing them.”
Glick is the sister of Bonnie Glick, a former US Foreign Service Officer who served as the deputy administrator of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) during the first Trump administration. Today, Bonnie Glick is a fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD), one of the most hawkish think tanks in the US.
While Caroline Glick’s efforts last year failed, and Trump opted for a Gaza “peace plan” that would have kept Palestinians in the territory, Israel has constantly violated the ceasefire, and IDF troops continue to occupy more than half of Gaza, an area that has been cleared of all Palestinian civilians besides a handful living under Israeli-backed militias and gangs.
Israeli officials have also been explicit in their desire to take over the entire Palestinian territory and establish Jewish settlements. “I call on the prime minister to order the IDF to prepare immediately for the full conquest of the Gaza Strip, to establish Israeli control over all the territory of the Strip, and to establish Israeli settlement in it. Without settlement, there will be no security,” Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said earlier this month.
