John Swinney has condemned as “completely unacceptable” suggestions from Donald Trump that the US could take ownership of the Gaza Strip.
The president said the “US will take over the Gaza Strip”, claiming the land could be turned into the “Riviera of the Middle East”.
With Mr Trump also saying he does not “think people should be going back” to Gaza, the Scottish First Minister claimed his remarks “essentially amount to ethnic cleansing”.
Both Mr Swinney and his predecessor Humza Yousaf took to social media earlier on Wednesday to condemn Mr Trump’s comments, which he made overnight.
Speaking to journalists on a visit to Harland & Wolff in Methil, Fife, later in the day, Mr Swinney made clear: “I can’t any way, shape or form agree with what President Trump said last night.
“The solution to the Middle East problem is a two-state solution which involves recognising a sovereign, independent Palestinian state, including Gaza.
“That is what should happen, and the people of Gaza have suffered extraordinarily and we now need to help them and work with them to rebuild their lives and their communities and their society within Gaza.”
His comments came after Mr Trump told a White House news conference: “The US will take over the Gaza Strip and we will do a job with it too.
“We will own it and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous, unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site, level the site and get rid of the destroyed buildings.”
Adding this could “create an economic development that will supply unlimited numbers of jobs and housing for the people of the area”, Mr Trump argued such a move could bring “great stability to that part of the Middle East”.
Speaking alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Mr Trump continued: “Everybody I have 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.”
Mr Netanyahu said it is “worth paying attention to this”.
Telling reporters his government wants to “make sure Gaza never poses a threat to Israel again”, he added: “President Trump is taking it to a much higher level.
“He sees a different future for that piece of land that has been the focus of so much terrorism, so many attacks against us, so many trials and so many tribulations.
“He has a different idea and I think it is worth paying attention to this.”
But Mr Yousaf, whose parents-in-law were trapped in Gaza for a number of weeks in 2023 as the recent conflict flared, was strongly critical of the US president’s remarks.
He said: “What Trump calls ‘permanent resettlement’ is what the rest of the world should call ethnic cleansing.
“Gaza belongs to the people of Gaza. Period.”
Labour former UK government minister Jim Murphy said Mr Trump had made the “wrong call”, but questioned whether the US president would follow through on his comments.
Mr Murphy, who served as Labour’s shadow secretary for international development at Westminster as well as being in Gordon Brown’s cabinet, said: “When you have the hard right within the Israeli cabinet cheering, I think it is the wrong call.”
Speaking on BBC Radio Scotland’s Good Morning Scotland programme, he added: “You can always judge whether a policy is right or wrong, or an idea is right or wrong, by the people that are cheering. Judging this morning it is entirely all the wrong people that are happy.
“You can’t design a policy to make Hamas happy, because ultimately they are a terrorist organisation.
“But there is a whole mainstream of Palestinian and Arab opinion, and democratic world opinion, that this is completely outside of.”
However while he said people “should always take the president of the United States very seriously indeed”, Mr Murphy added: “We should rarely take him literally in what he says because he often has no intention of doing it.”
Scottish Greens co-leader Lorna Slater said: “Donald Trump’s proposals are horrific and would amount to the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.
“We should never cosy up to or support a man like Donald Trump, who has shown a total contempt for human rights and the lives of Palestinians.
“There is a responsibility on all governments to condemn these awful plans, stand up to them and do all we can to halt them and to help in building a long-term and sustainable peace.”
