Trump’s fantasy plan for Gaza: The damage is already done

No doubt Bibists will be pleased with the U.S. President’s latest caprice that he can somehow simply wipe away the problems of Gaza and the nuisance of Israel’s needs with a mega real estate deal. The Bibi supporters, at least those who have any grasp of reality, must surely realize this Trump fantasy will never untie the Gordian knot of the Middle East. But they are happy to hear it because however hairbrained it is, it seems to give their favorite Prime Minister and his gang of extremists who make up his coalition time to avoid the consequences of their failures in preventing the catastrophe of October 7^th and their unwillingness or inability to think about the so-called “day after” the war.

While everyone debates the “strategy” behind this bombshell the proposal avoids the need to make decisions now, as we enter the second phase of the Hamas/Israeli deal and plays right into Netanyahu’s well-practiced routine of “playing for time and kicking the can down the road,” as Shifra Efron of the Israel Policy Forum put it. If Trump keeps on pushing what appears to be his poorly thought out idea, Bibi will be able to keep his coalition intact as he puts off extending the ceasefire and he will also avoid having to face a state inquiry as well as the corruption trial in which he is on the verge of being found guilty.

All this is sadly happening at a time when Israel and Hamas and the other Islamist extremists are supposedly negotiating the next phase of the ceasefire deal that is supposed to lead to the next phase of the exchange of Palestinian prisoners for Israeli hostages. But Trump, who could have pressured Bibi to end this war and allow his kidnapped citizens, living and dead, to go home to their loved ones, has instead created a condition in which for Hamas and the Islamists the hostages have no more value. Why bother to release them when at the end of the process they will neither have control of Gaza back nor any hope of a Palestinian sovereign state? Moreover, Trump’s desire to make Gaza an American territory will take the pressure off Hamas to sue for peace. Instead, they will now be able to transform themselves as representatives of those who stand for Palestinian statehood and refuse to turn the clock back in the region to a time when this region was controlled by colonial powers.

The grand bargain that was supposed to transform the Middle East in a good way, to provide some sort of state for the Palestinians, peace for Israel, and a treaty with the Saudis and the decline of Iran has turned into another missed opportunity. What’s worse is the hostages, whose release seemed so tantalizingly close, have been trapped by this idea that ignores the negotiations that need to be completed between Israel and Hamas. The hostages have once again been returned to the abyss where they are cruelly held by the impossible fantasies of these two power-hungry narcissists who lead the two nations that Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini once labeled and the Iranian government still calls “the Great Satan and the Little Satan.” Expect this epithet to make a comeback, just as the Iranians look to produce a crude nuclear device quickly.

Any moral high ground on which Israel and America might have stood by finally working to redeem their captives and move toward peace and reconciliation has been washed away by this deluge of delusions. To appreciate how wrong-headed this idea is one has only to look to the extremist former Israeli minister of security who has pushed the idea of the transfer of Palestinians to some other place. Hearing the Trump plan, Itamar Bin Gvir who left the coalition rather than endorse the ceasefire and bring home the Israeli hostages commented that “President Trump has offered some important ideas: encouraging the emigration of the Gazans…is the only solution to the problem of Gaza.” While Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich who’s never met a Palestinian he did not want to send away, and voted against the deal that renewed the freeing of Israeli hostages called the plan “the true answer to October 7^th.”

If these two advocates of ethnic cleansing like it, we can be sure Trump and Bibi have led the world a long way from any moral high ground. With this new fantasy now in play, don’t look for the Israeli right-wing extremists still in the government to continue to negotiate any more than for Hamas to do so. Each side will say that the hostages were victims of the other side. The Israeli rightists already see where Trump is heading and they are on board, while those who hold hostages have little to hope for by releasing them if Trump presses forward, cheered by Netanyahu, with his “Riviera of the Middle East.” We are sadly entering a very dark time, and even as Trump seems to be walking his poor plan back, the damage is already done.