Bolton: Trump Gaza proposal would be 'very dangerous'

Former National Security Advisor John Bolton criticized President Trump’s proposal to have the United States take over the Gaza Strip.

“There are really two issues here. The first is, what’s the U.S. role going to be postwar in Gaza? I don’t think it will look anything like what Trump suggested on Tuesday night,” Bolton said during a Thursday appearance on CNN’s “The Source with Kaitlan Collins.”

“I don’t think there’d be any support for it. It’d be very dangerous in the circumstances. He doesn’t want to put troops in, which wouldn’t be advisable anyway,” he added.

The president suggested the U.S. maintain long-term ownership of the Gaza Strip after cleaning up destruction for months of war and airstrikes during a Tuesday press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. 

“The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip, and we will do a job — whether we’ll own it and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site, level the site, and get rid of the destroyed buildings, level it out,” Trump said.

“Create an economic development that will supply unlimited numbers of jobs and housing for the people of the area, do a real job, do something different,” he added, proposing the land becomes the “Riviera of the Middle East” through investments from countries with a “humanitarian heart.”

Bolton suggested it was much too soon to seek private investments for the war-torn region.

“Remember the saying, 'capital is a coward.' You’re not going to get private investment in a highly politically risky, non-secure situation,” he told Collins. 

“You have to get security before you get the investment. That’s why this whole idea of the Eastern Mediterranean Riviera is just utterly unrealistic.”

Palestinians have also vehemently rejected the idea of leaving the land they’ve long hoped to have recognized as a nation state.

“The Middle East is already burdened by the largest displaced and refugee populations in the world. The majority of Palestinian people are amongst those classified as such. Furthermore, the fragility of the economic and social stability of the region is further exacerbated by ongoing conflicts,” the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates wrote in a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio this week.

“We must be vigilant not to increase the risk to regional stability by further displacement, even if temporarily as it increases the likelihood of radicalization and social unrest in the region as a whole. Reconstruction in Gaza should be through direct engagement with and participation of the people of Gaza.”