House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) on Wednesday flatly rejected President Trump’s proposal for the United States to take over the Gaza Strip, suggesting it would undermine ongoing efforts to free Israeli hostages and bring peace to the volatile region.

The Democratic leader instead promoted more aid for Palestinians in Gaza and amplified his previous calls for a two-state peace deal — two facets of the multipronged strategy advanced by former President Biden throughout Israel’s war with Hamas. 

“I strongly support the Biden peace plan, and we need to make sure that it is fully implemented with respect to surging humanitarian assistance to Palestinian civilians in Gaza; making sure every single hostage is brought back home; and a foundation is laid to create a just and lasting peace,” Jeffries said. 

“I support a two-state solution,” he added, “which is a safe and secure Israel as a Jewish and democratic state existing side-by-side in peace and prosperity with a demilitarized Palestinian state that meets their aspirations for self-determination.”

Jeffries’s preferred strategy clashes diametrically with the bombshell proposal offered by Trump a day earlier, when the president met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington and suggested the millions of Palestinians living in Gaza should leave their homes. In their wake, he said, the United States would assume ownership of the war-torn territory and rebuild it with a massive “economic development” project. 

“I do see a long-term ownership position, and I see it bringing great stability to that part of the Middle East — and maybe the entire Middle East,” Trump said during a press conference at the White House. 

“This was not a decision made lightly,” he continued. “Everybody I’ve spoken to loves the idea of the United States owning that piece of land, developing and creating thousands of jobs with something that will be magnificent.”

Trump’s proposal marked a stunning reversal in U.S. policy toward the Middle East stretching back across decades of administrations of both parties. And it triggered an international debate about whether Trump was advancing a serious foreign policy objective or merely floating a bombastic threat as a negotiating tactic aimed at winning more concessions from the region’s Arab states. 

Amid the debate, many Democrats on Capitol Hill dismissed the idea as irrational, as best. 

“I don’t take it seriously at all,” said Rep. Gregory Meeks (N.Y.), senior Democrat on the Foreign Affairs Committee. “This guy just talks off the top of his head.”

Meeks pointed out that a major theme of Trump’s campaign was to end foreign entanglements and overseas spending for the sake of concentrating taxpayer resources on domestic priorities. The president’s proposal to seize Gaza, he noted, would do just the opposite. 

“They’re all talking about, ‘We’ve got to stop nation-building and all of those kinds of things.’ And then he comes out of the room talking about what would cost billions — trillions — of dollars of the taxpayers’ money,” Meeks said. “It just doesn’t make any rational and common sense.”

Republicans on Capitol Hill have different ideas, and many rushed to Trump’s support on Wednesday, including Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.).

“That area is so dangerous, and he’s taking bold, decisive action to try to ensure the peace of that region,” Johnson said. 

Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.), the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, pointed to one impediment to Trump’s plan: It would violate international laws that prohibit the forced removal of the legal residents of occupied territories, of which Gaza is one. 

“If this country can’t learn what happens when we put a major presence, unwelcomed, in the Middle East — or in Afghanistan or in Iraq — we can’t learn anything,” Himes said. “So I don’t really know whether to take his proposal seriously, because obviously moving Palestinians against their will is a violation of the Geneva Conventions.”