Victoria Derbyshire clashed with a former adviser to Donald Trump last night when she asked just how the US would remove Palestinians from Gaza.
The US president shocked the world last week when he announced his plan to “clean out” Gaza and turn the territory into the “Riviera of the Middle East”.
There are two million inhabitants in Gaza, but Trump wants them to relocate to nearby countries in the Middle East, like Jordan and Egypt.
On BBC Newsnight on Tuesday, the presenter got into a spat with Victoria Coates, who was Trump’s deputy national security adviser between 2019 and 2020, over just how this plan would work.
Derbyshire asked: “How would President Trump go about forcing some of those millions of Palestinians into Egypt and Jordan?”
“He hasn’t said anything about forcing anyone to go anywhere,” Coates said.
“If people don’t want to leave, and he wants them to leave, then obviously they would be forced,” Derbyshire replied.
“I don’t think he said anything like that!” Coates insisted. “I think the offer on the table is to build something new for them and if they don’t want it they can reject it, like they rejected peace and prosperity.”
“Sorry, but because President Trump made it clear they would need to go because he wants US take over of Gaza so he can somehow rebuild it. How would he somehow get those two million Palestinians out of Gaza?”
She said the Israelis had identified two routes for Palestinians to leave their homes, but Derbyshire pushed: “But how? How would they be pushed onto a bus, is that what we are talking about, forcibly putting people on buses, is that what we’re talking about?”
“You’re just going down a rabbit hole here!” Coates said.
“No it’s a really legitimate question,” the presenter hit back.
“If you don’t like my answer, I apologise, but you can’t put words in my mouth,” Coates said. “This is something you are making up and imposing on the situation because you don’t like what the president has proposed.”
But Derbyshire just asked her question again, but Coates replied by saying: “How would you get them out of [the] Gaza strip?”
Derbyshire simply sighed and asked her question again, reminding Coates that she has an influence over Trump’s foreign policy.
The ex-adviser said: “That is a question for him to answer and the people who are actually working for him now, I don’t think this fear-mongering and trying to create a crisis – well there is obviously a crisis – just because somebody has proposed an outside-of-the-box solution which does not repeat the failures of the last 50 years.”
Trump’s alarming suggestion comes after the US president helped to secure a ceasefire between Hamas militants and Israel, following more than a year of war in the Gaza strip.