Pax Americana: Gaza and the Dawn of a New Age of Empire

The Fall of Gaza, the Rise of Empire

On October 7, 2023, Hamas shattered the morning calm with an attack that would trigger fifteen months of unprecedented devastation. The immediate toll was horrific: 1,195 Israelis and foreign nationals dead, 815 of them civilians, and 251 taken hostage. But what followed would reshape the Middle East forever.

Israel’s response was total. After the initial bombing campaign, ground forces invaded on October 27, launching a series of brutal offensives that would reduce Gaza to ruins. The Rafah assault, three battles for Khan Yunis, the siege of North Gaza—each operation more devastating than the last. When the dust settled in early 2025, the numbers told a story of annihilation: 47,000 Palestinians dead (The Lancet estimates over 70,000 from traumatic injuries alone), more than 100,000 wounded, and nearly 2.3 million people forcibly displaced. Where there was once a society, Israel’s blockade left only famine, disease, and rubble—a land rendered uninhabitable by design.

And then, on January 20, 2025, Donald Trump was inaugurated as the 47th President of the United States. The next day, the world awoke to a new order.

The American Empire

January 20, 2025, may well mark the beginning of a new colonial era—not through traditional military conquest, but through the machinery of “humanitarian reconstruction.” The tragedy isn’t just the destruction of Gaza, but the world’s apparent acceptance of this new form of territorial acquisition.

In his first major foreign policy declaration, President Trump announced what can only be described as the most audacious real estate grab in modern history.

“The United States will take over the Gaza Strip,” Trump declared, standing beside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “We’ll own it. We’ll rebuild it. And we’ll resettle the people elsewhere.”

A press corps frozen in disbelief awaited details. On what legal basis could America claim ownership of Gaza? Where exactly would millions of displaced Palestinians be sent? Would Israel relinquish its control? The answers never came. Instead, Trump spoke in the sweeping rhetoric of a property mogul surveying a new acquisition.

The Humanitarian Smokescreen…

“You can’t live in Gaza right now. It’s all death. It’s been death for decades. If we can relocate these people somewhere nice, with real homes, where they won’t get killed, that’s a good thing. Right?”

Egypt and Jordan immediately rejected Trump’s calls to absorb Palestinian refugees. The UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the Arab League—all stood in firm opposition. But Trump remained confident.

“We give Egypt and Jordan a lot of money. I think they’ll come around.”

Meanwhile, his administration floated a “three-to-five-year reconstruction plan” for Gaza—only to dismiss it days later as unrealistic.

“I don’t think people should be going back to Gaza,” Trump said. “I think that Gaza has been very unlucky for them. They’ve lived like hell.”

Asked for clarification on whether the Palestinians would have a right to return to Gaza after its reconstruction, Trump said the plan is to build them housing in other countries that’s so nice they won’t want to return.

“It would be my hope that we could do something really nice, really good, where they wouldn’t want to return,” Trump said, adding, “I hope that we could do something where they wouldn’t want to go back. Who would want to go back? They’ve experienced nothing but death and destruction.”

Asked how many people he was talking about removing, Trump replied, “All of them.”

This isn’t just about Gaza. Trump’s proposal for US “ownership” of the territory, announced alongside a beaming Netanyahu, signals a broader shift in global power dynamics. While Arab nations unanimously reject Palestinian relocation, Trump believes US aid leverage over Egypt and Jordan will force compliance.

Netanyahu’s Gamble & America’s New Mandate

For Netanyahu, the Washington visit was more than diplomacy—it was survival. With his popularity collapsing at home and an active ICC arrest warrant hanging over him, standing beside Trump offered a political lifeline.

Israel’s right-wing coalition demanded an end to the ceasefire, a full dismantling of Hamas, and the permanent removal of Palestinians from Gaza. But Netanyahu had another priority—Iran. His government was pressing Trump for direct action against Tehran’s nuclear program, emboldened by recent Israeli strikes on Hezbollah and Hamas.

And Trump? He delivered. With a fresh executive order tightening sanctions on Iran, the message was clear: America is back in the empire business.

Gaza’s Gas: The Prize No One Mentions

Beneath the rhetoric of security and reconstruction lies an uncomfortable truth: Gaza’s vast untapped wealth. While world leaders debate the territory’s future, the Mediterranean’s richest energy reserves remain conspicuously absent from public discourse.

The Numbers Tell the Story…

The UN’s assessment is stark: Gaza’s offshore gas fields could generate over $47 billion in revenue—potential wealth that could have transformed Palestinian lives. Meanwhile, Israel’s adjacent Leviathan field, valued at $524 billion, demonstrates the region’s extraordinary energy potential.

The scale becomes clearer in the broader Levant Basin context:

Palestinians denied an estimated $47 billion in lost revenue

122 trillion cubic feet of natural gas

1.7 billion barrels of recoverable oil

While billions in natural gas remain untapped beneath the Mediterranean, Gaza’s civilians pay the ultimate price. Their displacement isn’t just a humanitarian crisis—it’s the removal of the last obstacle to unfettered resource exploitation.

To the victor go the spoils, indeed. But at what cost to our collective humanity?

The End of Palestine?

The cruel irony of Trump’s vision for American “ownership” of Gaza is that it comes wrapped in the language of benevolence – promises to clear unexploded ordinance and rebuild destroyed buildings. Yet not once in this grand plan do we hear about the right of Palestinians to self-determination, their connection to their homeland, or their legal rights under international law. Their future is being decided for them, not by them.

This isn’t just about Trump. The very fact that such a proposal can be publicly floated without immediate international outcry speaks volumes about how normalized the displacement of Palestinians has become. When Egypt, Jordan, and other Arab nations reject these relocation schemes, they’re painted as uncooperative rather than as defenders of basic human rights and international law.

History teaches us that forced population transfers – euphemistically called “resettlement” – invariably lead to generational trauma and conflict. The notion that 2.3 million people can simply be relocated to “make people happy” displays either staggering naivety or calculated cynicism.

The Colonial Template

The plan follows a familiar colonial pattern:

1. Declare territory uninhabitable
2. Remove Indigenous population
3. Claim resources for “development”
4. Install new administrative control

What we’re witnessing is nothing less than an attempt to rewrite the rules of international order, where might makes right and the powerful can simply declare ownership over territory and resources while disposing of inconvenient populations. This isn’t peace-building – it’s peace through erasure.

The Palestinians face the prospect of joining history’s long list of displaced peoples, their connection to their homeland severed not just physically but historically. As the West Bank watches Gaza’s fate, the message is clear: in this new world order, justice bows to power, and international law is whatever the strongest nation says it is.

As the dust settles, a harsh truth emerges. Gaza no longer belongs to the Palestinians. The West Bank will soon follow. And its people? Scattered, exiled, lost—like a forgotten tribe of history.

Pax Americana arrives not with peace, but with conquest.

Paul Knaggs