#WTH Gaz-a-Lago?

Or not. But let's recognize the brilliance of Trump's idea

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In 1729, Jonathan Swift wrote an essay usually referred to in brief as “A Modest Proposal.” The full title gives away the “proposal” — A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People from Being a Burthen to Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Publick: Poor Irish Catholic families should sell their children to the rich to be eaten. “A young healthy child well nursed, is, at a year old, a most delicious nourishing and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee, or a ragout.”

We can spend an enjoyable time talking about whom Swift wants to fricassee, the true targets of his exercise, or the relative tastiness of Catholics vs. Protestants. But my main aim in reminding you of Swift’s Proposal is to talk about Donald Trump.

The establishment likes to think of Donald Trump, when it’s feeling charitable, as a buffoon; some sort of reality TV clown that the American people need to get out of their system before we return to the necessary stewardship of a Barack Obama or Gavin Newsom. This isn’t a political essay, so I’m not going to dive into the whys and wherefores of Trump’s popularity. Instead, I want to talk about Trump’s ideas for Gaza. (h/t David Galinsky for asking)

Yesterday, Trump met with Israeli PM Bibi Netanyahu and it’s worth reading the full context of what he said:

I also strongly believe that the Gaza Strip, which has been a symbol of death and destruction for so many decades and so bad for the people anywhere near it, and especially those who live there and frankly who's been really very unlucky. It's been very unlucky. It's been an unlucky place for a long time.

Being in its presence just has not been good and it should not go through a process of rebuilding and occupation by the same people that have really stood there and fought for it and lived there and died there and lived a miserable existence there. Instead, we should go to other countries of interest with humanitarian hearts, and there are many of them that want to do this and build various domains that will ultimately be occupied by the million Palestinians living in Gaza, ending the death and destruction and frankly bad luck.

This can be paid for by neighboring countries of great wealth. It could be one, two, three, four, five, seven, eight, twelve. It could be numerous sites, or it could be one large site. But the people will be able to live in comfort and peace and we'll get - we'll make sure something really spectacular is done.

They're going to have peace; they're not going to be shot at and killed and destroyed like this civilization of wonderful people has had to endure. The only reason the Palestinians want to go back to Gaza is they have no alternative. It's right now a demolition site. This is just a demolition site. Virtually every building is down.

They're living under fallen concrete that's very dangerous and very precarious. They instead can occupy all of a beautiful area with homes and safety and they can live out their lives in peace and harmony instead of having to go back and do it again. The US will take over the Gaza Strip and we will do a job with it too.

We'll 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, level it out. Create an economic development that will supply unlimited numbers of jobs and housing for the people of the area. Do a real job, do something different.

Trump set Washington alight with his “we’ll own it” line, and there was a rush to respond by, well, everyone. Now, I don’t want to own anything in Gaza, and I am not too thrilled about pouring any more tax dollars into a place that can best be described as hell on earth. But I love what Trump said. Here’s why.

Gaza is not contiguous with the West Bank. It’s contiguous with areas undisputedly (except by Iran and its proxies) Israeli. It’s also contiguous with Egypt, which occupied the former British Mandatory land after the 1948 war. Prior to Israel’s conquering of Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza in the Six Day War, there was no interest in making Gaza part of Egypt. A puppet “all-Palestine” government effectively controlled by Egypt was jettisoned by Gamal Abdel Nasser. Egypt didn’t even give Gazans citizenship, unlike Jordan, which extended citizenship to West Bank Palestinians. Rather, Nasser used Gazans as instruments of terrorism against Israel. A familiar story.

(As an aside, bet you didn’t know that the original Palestinian National Charter renounced any claim to the territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.)

Israel ruled Gaza for a time and allowed settlers to build outposts throughout the Gaza Strip. But by the time Israel decided to withdraw both its military and its citizens in the wake of one of the many ill-designed “peace” agreements with the newly founded Palestinian Authority, Gaza was considered a lost cause. (Yes, I’m eliding over a lot of history.) Allowing the Palestinian Authority and Hamas exclusive domain over the Strip was a historic mistake, the only question being what would have turned out better…

No one wants Gaza. Egypt doesn’t. In truth, neither does the PA in Ramallah. Jordan certainly doesn’t. And not a single Arab nation — NOT ONE — is game to take in Palestinians expelled from Gaza. Small wonder, given the festering terror mire that Hamas and its United Nations allies have created there.

Consider all of that, and then go back to Trump’s compassionate read on the people of Gaza. He doesn’t call them terrorists, or baby killers, or jihadists, or Iranian puppets, all of which too many are, demonstrably. Instead, he bemoans what “this civilization of wonderful people has had to endure.”

I do not believe that the forced cleansing of Gaza — a repetition of what every Arab country did to the hundreds of thousands of Arab Jews in 1948 — is a “solution.” I don’t think Donald Trump views that as a permanent solution either (read his statement), though I could be wrong. My take is that he believes Gaza must be rebuilt under new management, with only those who wish to live there resettling the land.

The time has long since come for us to recognize that the establishment doesn’t have the faintest clue what to do about Gaza. Egypt doesn’t want it. Jordan doesn’t want it. Iran wants it, but only as cannon fodder. The UN wants it, but only to further its antisemitic agenda and continue milking cash from the West. Jordanians, Lebanese, and Syrians blame Palestinians for destroying their countries.

Negotiations with Hamas have not worked. Efforts to subsume Gaza under the PA have not worked. Rebuilding has not worked. Destruction will not work. A “two-state solution” has not arrived, and will not work. Israeli occupation will not work. Building territorial corridors to the West Bank will not and has not worked. Concessions to Hamas have not worked. Brutal sanctions against Hamas have not worked. Building a wall didn’t work. And killing most of Hamas’s fighting force will not work. Gaza is a failed territory.

My friends who see things more purely from the Palestinian perspective will insist to me that we have never given Gaza a chance. And while I disagree, even if you believe that we haven’t given Gaza a chance, there is little reason to believe that replaying the last five-plus decades will yield a different outcome. When you impoverish people, teach them hatred for decades, give them the tools of destruction, and radicalize them, they are beyond reach. Whether it’s the Muslim Brotherhood or the ayatollahs who rule, Gaza is destined to be a terrorist beachhead.

So what’s to be done? If you live in Washington, New York, London, Paris, or Berlin, your view is that the same answers should definitely be tried again, but this time we mean it. This time will be different. This time, Hamas won’t win. This time, they won’t try to kill Jews. This time, they’ll focus on a decent future for the people of Gaza. What could possibly make you believe this other than ideological laziness? Is there any person who will save Gaza? Any single human insider in Gaza who can dominate the forces now at work? The honest answer is no.

So, yes, let’s pave it over and build a resort. Let’s send the residents temporarily to Greenland. Let’s build a golf course and call it Mar-a-Lago Khan Younes. Let’s build a Club Med. Let’s deport the entire faculty lounge of the Ivy League there to start from scratch. (OK, that’s a bad idea.) Anyway, you take my point: Donald Trump may not actually be saying “We’ll own it,” but rather, is underscoring that we need fresh ideas. Or maybe he is saying let’s own it, but just wants the Arabs to step up and do something real for the Palestinians, for once. Or maybe he’s just riffing.

We don’t know what Donald Trump is thinking, and neither does anyone else who’s writing about his Gaza musings today. But we do know that Donald Trump in his first term upended the region, and forged the first meaningful peace between Jews and Arabs in decades. And he did it by ignoring the conventional wisdom, and the experts, and the think tanks, and the diplomats, and the peace processors. So, I’m inclined to give him a lot of credit for fresh ideas and fresh vision. Maybe this was not a “modest proposal;” maybe it was real. No matter what, it should shine a light on the bankruptcy of what has passed for a Gaza policy until now. Mazal tov.