Exclusive: Ali Shaath, chairman of Trump’s new Gaza government – Israel is “colonial implant” of US and Europe
In April 2025, long before the Palestinian civil engineer Ali Shaath imagined that he would be asked to chair the future administration of Gaza, he spoke on a podcast. Not yet hindered by the need to present himself as a moderate, he let his views about Israel and terror be known. And his ideology is taken directly from the Palestinian Authority's playbook of hate and terror promotion.
First and most important, Shaath declared the existence of Israel to be an American and European colonial implant. Shaath, the so-called apolitical leader to build Gaza, sees Israelis as foreigners and denies Israel's right to exist:
Civil engineer Ali Shaath: "This colonialist [Israel] who was planted by America and Western Europe – they planted it in Palestine since the Balfour Promise (i.e., Declaration)."
[Ahmad Biqawi, YouTube channel, April 24, 2025]
This fundamental hate message of the Palestinian Authority is the PA's justification for promoting Palestinian terror and is behind the PA's ideology that Israel's destruction would be historical justice. Shaath's worldview that Israel is a colony in the service of America should immediately invalidate him from any role in Gaza.
Accordingly, during the interview, he uses the PA term for Israel—"the occupation"—instead of calling Israel by name. In the PA lexicon, all of Israel is an "occupation," and all Israeli cities are "settlements."
Shaath also bragged about his role as a terror organizer in his youth.
Civil engineer Ali Shaath: "Like every Palestinian I did an activity with young people at school, demonstrations against the Israeli occupation, and we would stand in areas where there are checkpoints of the occupation (i.e., Israel) and their positions and throw rocks at them… We set this day ablaze, and I actually was the organizer of this activity or this national act in the city of Khan Yunis [in the Gaza Strip]. I succeeded in awakening all the opinions and feelings of the people and they set out to the occupation's positions."
[Ahmad Biqawi, YouTube channel, April 24, 2025]
If the United States wants this experiment for Gaza's future to have any chance of success, it must immediately remove Shaath from his position and appoint a replacement who is honest enough to recognize Israel's history and its right to exist and brave enough to say it publicly.