Trump’s plan to colonise Gaza is rooted in an old white fantasy

The statement made by US President Donald Trump that he intended to turn the Gaza Strip into an American-controlled “Riviera of the Middle East” has rightfully slammed international condemnation, including ironically, Western nations that supported Israel’s genocidal bombardment that devastated the region. Many people point out that ethnic cleansing is against international law, and that, for whatever reason, the Geneva Conventions specifically forbid forced displacement of civilian populations.

This is all true but as an African, I was drawn to a slightly different aspect of Trump’s declaration: his imagined entitlement to other people’s land. He should not be disassociated from his assertions regarding the right to take Gaza from those made on Greenland and Panamanian territory. They all have the same root, which has been nurtured by European colonialism for the past 50 years.

White fantasies about claiming land rights to other peoples’ lands date as far back as the 1479 Treaty of Alcacovas, which established the principle that an area outside of Europe could be claimed by a European nation. These same Treaties followed in 50 years with the Treaties of Tordesillas and Saragossa, claiming to divide the world between themselves. 400 years later, the infamous Berlin West Africa Conference, attended by the US and all other major European powers, established the legal claim of Europeans that anyone could take control of the continent.

The definition of “effective occupation” was put forth at Berlin, which essentially calls for occupying powers to demonstrate that they could uphold their rule and defend free trade in order to support their claims. Trump’s claim that he will rebuild and internationalize Gaza, creating jobs and prosperity for “everyone” refutes the precedent set by using capitalism’s protection and development to justify colonial occupation. In essence, Trump is attempting to rely on the premise that he has the right to impose American rule, as opposed to the native people, and that he will encourage trade to flourish.

To be fair, Trump is only going to expand on ideas that have been circulating for months, largely from Israel, that claim to justify continuing to be occupied by the pretext of making Gaza a Dubai or Singapore. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office purportedly unveiled&nbsp, a plan that would allow it to remain under Israeli control of the territory and justify it through the implementation of a “Marshall Plan” that would make it “a significant industrial port on the Mediterranean” and a part of “a massive free trade zone.”

The natives’ often experience positive outcomes from ideas that sacrifice local sovereignty and rights at the altar of international free trade regimes, as Africans can attest. The Congo Free State, a veritable hell that in 23 years claimed the lives of up to 13 million Congolese, was the creation of the structures meant for free trade that the Berlin Conference laid out 140 years ago. The conference also sparked the brutal wars of conquest, disease, and extermination campaigns that later became known as the “Scrabble for Africa.” More than a century later, Africans are still living with the impact.

Despite this, the devastation and impact of the Berlin Conference have faded in the world. In 2017, addressing the Humanitarian Congress Berlin, then ICRC Operations Coordinator, Mamadou Sow, began his remarks by noting “I am from Africa. And it’s very interesting to be in Berlin for a Congress”. The joke fell flat. Later, he would claim on X that he had “realized that the majority of educated Europeans only knew a little about their colonial history.” People today are liable to blame Africans themselves for its consequences, just as Palestinians are frequently held responsible for the effects of the Israeli occupation and blockade. How frequently do we hear the false claim that Hamas created a base for terror while Israel left the Gaza Strip in 2005 in an effort to become the newly independent nation of the Middle East?

But the lesson is clear. The recolonisation of Gaza, whether by Israel, the US or any coalition of states, is neither viable nor moral. There is no alternative to local Palestinian sovereignty. African nations must draw from Berlin’s history and declare Never Again! with one voice.