Okay, so I know that this is the latest outrage and will drive the news cycle into tomorrow morning. I am not going to overreact to it, but I think it is worth nothing because it echoes previous things he has said about clearing out Gaza. These are not responsible things for any world leader to be saying, and especially not for the President of the United States.
Do I think that the US is going to send troops to Gaza and and that we will take an “ownership” stake in the place? No. But I will also state that Trump sending troops to the area in some capacity would not surprise me, despite his campaign rhetoric to the contrary.
So, the following is a combination of simple stupidity coupled with irresponsibility and an utter lack of any appreciation for American power and prestige, and certainly no compassion or interest in the real plight of Gazans.
Side note for those who want to make America great again and all, Trump’s interaction with the rest of the world does not comport with any president of my lifetime, or indeed of the last century, at least. So if you think all of this is good, you don’t want some version of “again” you want something that utterly breaks with the past. Just be clear about what you want and are cheering for.
Here are the basics via the NYT: Trump Proposes the U.S. Take Over Gaza.
President Trump declared on Tuesday that he would seek to permanently displace the entire Palestinian population of Gaza and take over the devastated seaside enclave as a U.S. territory, one of the most audacious ideas that any American leader has advanced in years.
Hosting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel at the White House, Mr. Trump said that all 2 million Palestinians from Gaza should be moved to countries like Egypt and Jordan because of the devastation wrought by Israel’s war with Hamas after the terrorist attack of Oct. 7, 2023.
“The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip and we will do a job with it too,” Mr. Trump said at an evening news conference. “We’ll own it and be responsible” for disposing of unexploded munitions and rebuilding Gaza into a mecca for jobs and tourism. Sounding like the real estate developer he once was, he vowed to turn it into “the Riviera of the Middle East.”
While the president framed the matter as a humanitarian imperative and an economic development opportunity, he effectively reopened a geopolitical Pandora’s box with far-reaching implications for the Middle East. Control over Gaza has been one of the major flash points of the Arab-Israeli conflict going back decades, and the idea of relocating its Palestinian residents recalls an era when Western great powers redrew the maps of the region and moved around populations without regard to local autonomy.
This is, among other things, an imperialistic call for ethnic cleansing. If someone has a better description, please feel free to share.
And please note that the NYT‘s write-up treats it like an “audacious idea.” I know the pro-MAGA types see the mainstream press as some sort of enemy, but stuff like the bolded clause above (my emphasis) just truly underscores how hard they try to treat him as normal.
This is not just some “idea.” As noted, it is ethnic cleansing and territorial theft in a weird combo of 19th-century imperialism, some version of extremist ideology, and 20th-century real estate development. If any reader cannot see why this is horrible, please inform us as to what the moral justification would be to displace over two million people would be.
In terms of diplomacy and the tenuous cease-fire process, this is not helpful. This is a great way to inflame, not calm, the situation.
Here is some of the video:
