There was a significant foreign policy development Tuesday night when President Donald Trump announced U.S. plans for the Gaza Strip.
The U.S. will "take over the Gaza Strip," level it and rebuild the area, President Donald Trump said during a press conference Tuesday evening after meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House. "The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip, and we will do a job with it, too," Trump said Tuesday evening in a joint press conference with Netanyahu. "We'll own it and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous, unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site."
Trump said Gaza could become the Riviera of the Middle East.
Gee. Where to begin? When I first read about this here, it took awhile to process it. All of it. Any of it. Comments sections on news sites all over began using terms like, Make Gaza Great Again or Gaza LaGo. Some people even called the idea Las Vegas East. They also called it crazy, they called it insane, they called it bold, and they called it "outside of the box." They called it a lot of things.
At this point, all I have are questions because I want to sit back and watch the dust settle and see what comes of it in the next few days before taking some kind of position. And you can't really analyze anything unless you can start with questions first. So, here are some of mine.
- How does this benefit America?
- Why are we nation-building again?
- Why are we spending money we don't have?
- Why aren't we spending that money to help our own people first?
- Is Trump trolling the Democrats? Is he trolling the Palestinians? The world?
- Why are we thinking about putting U.S. troops in harm's way when the IDF is right there and already doing a fine job?
- We have our own deportation projects. Why are we taking on another deportation project over there?
- Are the lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan (tribalism) applicable to the Gaza Strip? (yeah)
- If you can't rebuild Gaza while the Gazans are still there, that is the core of the problem, isn't it?
- How are you going to deport two million Gazans who probably don't want to leave?
- No civilized country on the planet wants these people. Where are they going to go?
- Is Trump thinking Marshall Plan?
- Is Trump thinking that if he gives the Gazans a shining city on a hill, they will be less apt to destroy it?
- Wasn't Beirut once called the Paris of the Middle East? Why didn't that work out very well?
Obviously, this is a very complex matter, and it makes me wonder if he's serious about this at all or if he has an ulterior motive. "Art of the Deal" — ask for 100 percent to get 30 percent and call it a success? Don't know. At this stage all I can do is rely on what I do know.
I know that the Gazans are raised from birth to hate the Jews and are encouraged to kill them. I know that Gazans will kill their children to kill Jews. In my lifetime, beginning with the PLO and up until now, the Gazans have embraced victimhood as motivation for committing every crime against humanity that you can think of. And again, their violent radicalism has prevented all other Muslim governments from taking them in. (Maybe Iran would, though....I wonder.)
Cleaning Out Gaza? Trump Says Arab States Need to Accept More Palestinian Refugees
I'm of the mind that you can't do anything positive with the Strip until you remove/relocate the Gazans. I think that's a prerequisite for doing anything good over there so there isn't much point in exploring just yet possibilities that might evolve after. At least right now. And I don't know how Trump could accomplish that. I don't know how anybody could accomplish that short of destroying or removing Gazans completely. Still, if he's serious, I'm sure that the president has considered this and has something in mind already. Maybe he's thinking Marshall Plan? That worked, but it's not entirely apt here.
The Germans accepted it maybe because they were tired of war once it came to their doorsteps, and I've always gotten a sense that they collectively knew supporting Hitler was wrong. Not all of them were virulent Nazis. Japan? A lot different. Fanatically loyal to their emperor and deeply embedded in various degrees of cultural Bushido. Fight to the death, Kamikaze mindset, etc. But somehow, MacArthur's occupation managed to tame that. That might be worth a quick study to better understand what he did. How he overcame the sense of tribalism and managed to redirect it into the kind of nationalism that saw the re-emergence of Japan into a leading economic power that allied with the US might be a pathway to understanding what could be going on here.
Either way, Gazans are different because they hate the Jews more than they love their children. If that were to change through any form of "reeducation," it would take generations upon generations. As a country, we're still struggling with race relations today if Pew Research has accurate information, although I will say my own experience has shown me things had gotten much better throughout my lifetime until Obama came on to the scene and began making it an issue again.
So, right now, there are a lot more questions than answers and it will take time for this to settle out. But I certainly want to follow this and see where it goes.
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