Why Donald Trump's plan for Gaza would be worse than the Highland Clearances

As the most fragile of ceasefires, the freedom of hostages held for 16 months and the lives of countless others hung in the balance, all diplomatic language and intentions seemed suddenly redundant.

Through the blizzard of executive orders and tariffs threats issued from the White House, there suddenly emerged a policy so offensive it unified politicians across the spectrum in condemnation.

I found myself on television angrily declaring that Gaza was not just a piece of real estate for Trump to turn into some sort of Middle-Eastern Mar a Lago and, in parliament, calling on the government to protect our communities here, already living in fear, and make the declaration on which so many of us wait: that the United Kingdom recognises the State of Palestine.

Gaza needs new Marshall Plan

What further evidence does the world need that if we are to have the two-state solution which so many of us believe is the only way both peoples can have peace and security, we are actually going to have to make it happen?

The people of Israel and Palestine deserve better than the constant threat of conflict they have all endured for more than 70 years. I wish more people would put themselves in their shoes.

There is no doubt that this most recent conflict has wrought a destruction of Gaza so complete that it could take a coordinated international effort on the scale of the post-Second World War Marshall Plan to revive it. And yes, it is possible that some of the population, who have already suffered so much and have been left with so little, may have to be found alternative homes until that can be achieved.

But the international community has to come together to ensure that their right to decide how and from whom they get that support is protected, and their right to return is iron-clad.

Heightened tensions at home and abroad

Of course, we are all aware that this may be another of Trump’s just ‘throwing it out there’ moments, designed to shake things up and drive the narrative towards his actual, and slightly different goal.

But the danger in his bizarre suggestion is that rather than unify the Arab world in an effort to protect and stabilise the region, it further heightens tensions and shatters fragile relationships.

At home too, there is a danger that communities already facing increased antisemitism and Islamophobia find the atmosphere further poisoned by rhetoric which shows no respect for the rights of those caught up in what has become an international horror show.

Over the past few days, I have searched my mind for a comparison for the Americanised future for Gaza which Trump suggested, seemed to retreat from, and then doubled down on again.

All of the options, the Highland Clearances, the Russian pogroms, the wars on the native American nations, seemed to pale into insignificance, as they are all from a time from which we thought we had moved on.

From a time when world leaders did not treat indigenous people with respect. Trump seems determined to prove that view wrong.

Christine Jardine is Scottish Liberal Democrat MP for Edinburgh West