Hamas spokesman Hazen Qassem on Wednesday welcomed President Donald Trump’s response to a reporter’s question in the White House that “Nobody is expelling any Palestinians” from Gaza. Qassem said, “If US President Trump’s statements represent a retreat from any idea of displacing the people of the Gaza Strip, they are welcomed.”
He then added, “We call for this position to be reinforced by obligating the Israeli occupation to implement all the terms of the ceasefire agreements.”
The Hamas spokesman, like Haaretz, Times of Israel, and a slew of mainstream media outlets in the West, assumed that Trump’s off-the-cuff statement meant he was pulling back from his proposal, announced in a joint media briefing with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to permanently displace some two million Arabs from Gaza.
REPORTER: What about the president’s plan to expel Palestinians out of Gaza?
TRUMP: Nobody is expelling any Palestinians. Who are you with?
REPORTER: I’m with Voice of America, sir.
TRUMP: Oh, no wonder. pic.twitter.com/SfosOKDnv6
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 12, 2025
However, a simple reading of the exchange would suggest that Trump was not walking away from his plan to turn Gaza into a Riviera – in reality, he objected to the use of the term “to expel” in the reporter’s question. Here’s the text:
Reporter: What about the president’s plan to expel Palestinians out of Gaza?
Trump: Nobody is expelling any Palestinians. Who are you with?
Reporter: I’m with Voice of America, sir.
Trump: Oh, no wonder.
Trump objected to the term “expel,” because his plan, from the start, has been based on voluntary immigration. As I have noted several times in this space, most Gazans are eager to leave the Strip, and those who could afford to pay between $5,000 and $10,000 per capita to Hamas to be allowed through the Rafah crossing before October 7, 2023. Recent surveys are showing that more than 50% of respondents in Gaza would love to take advantage of Trump’s offer to relocate – and they were the ones who dared to speak their minds while Hamas agents could be eavesdropping.
As to the “no wonder” comment: Trump, like many of us on the right, is tired of being accused of perpetrating a “war crime” by offering Gazans an opportunity for a better life, with running water, electricity, medical care, and good jobs, in a different country. It’s what the UN High Commissioner for Refugees has been doing in war zones around the globe. It’s only regarding the offspring of Arabs who fled from Israel that the UN has been exercising a no-exit policy, through the regime of UNRWA – a corrupt agency that collaborates with Hamas.
VOA AND HAMAS TERRORISTS
As to the reporter working for the Voice of America (VOA), a US government-funded international broadcasting network and the country’s largest and longest-running global broadcaster – It’s possible that Trump associated their question with his staunch enemies, the liberal media. It’s true that VOA was conceived as a propaganda arm for the US government abroad, but lots of water has flowed in the Potomac since. Listen to this story:
Following the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, VOA staff received an email from the associate editor for news standards providing guidance on language use, advising that terms like “terrorist acts” or “acts of terror” be used carefully and that individual Hamas members be referred to as “terrorists” only in direct quotes.
In response, six Republican members of Congress, led by Senator Bill Hagerty, sent a letter strongly opposing the guidance. The United States Agency for Global Media chief executive Amanda Bennett clarified to the senators that the email was only guidance and that there was no policy prohibiting the use of terms like “terror,” “terrorism,” or “terrorist” at VOA. She emphasized that USAGM-affiliated news organizations encourage careful use of such terms but do not impose restrictions. The controversy led to a congressional decision to reduce the budget of VOA’s parent organization, USAGM.
WHERE IS TRUMP’S PLAN TODAY?
President Trump’s exchange with a VOA reporter followed a meeting between US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff and Arab foreign ministers in Qatar on Wednesday, where they discussed Gaza’s reconstruction, according to Al Jazeera.
Qatar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that the meeting included foreign ministers from Qatar, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Jordan, and the secretary-general of the PLO. The ministers agreed with the US envoy to coordinate on plans and consultations for rebuilding Gaza.
Meanwhile, the 57-member Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) formally adopted a reconstruction plan for Gaza during an emergency meeting in Saudi Arabia, put forth by the Arab League. Spearheaded by Egypt, the initiative proposed transferring Gaza’s administration to the Palestinian Authority as an alternative to Trump’s suggestion of taking over Gaza and displacing its residents.
Last month, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich predicted: “The sadistic human animals who are now cruel to our captives and enjoy abusing our families and all of us with evil manipulations will meet a painful revenge that will leave no remnant or refugee behind.
“I tell you responsibly, the IDF is preparing for this – under the command of the new Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir, under an unequivocal directive that we are leading and with the political backing of President Trump and the new US administration, which is finally speaking out with a clear moral voice about the vital need to destroy the evil of Hamas from the face of the earth.”
Nuff said.
