Dennis Ross, a former special assistant to President Barack Obama, is the counselor and William Davidson Distinguished Fellow at The Washington Institute.
Brig. Gen. Assaf Orion (Res.) is The Washington Institute’s Rueven International Fellow, a senior research fellow at the INSS, and former head of the IDF Strategic Planning Division.
Articles & Testimony
A “four-zone” reconstruction plan could win Arab, Israeli, and U.S. support while avoiding mass relocations out of Gaza.
President Trump transformed the general thinking about Gaza with his call for Palestinians to be relocated. He was seemingly thinking in commonsense terms: it is only possible to rebuild Gaza, a completely devastated area in which two million people are living, if you can remove the population. Straightforward, yes, but it is a call that runs counter to the prevailing narrative among Palestinians and Arabs who fear that temporary relocation will lead to inducing Palestinians to leave their homeland permanently. This is precisely what Israeli Ministers Ben-Gvir and Smotrich are calling for, which lends credence to these fears. Meanwhile, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that those who don’t like what the president is proposing should come up with a practical alternative. We believe the approach for most Gazans should not be about forced relocation outside of Gaza but movement to zones in Gaza where real needs would be addressed...
