Trump is right about Gaza

He's also off his rocker

It’s hard to take President Trump seriously when he says that he wants to MGGA (Make Gaza Great Again). If you do take him seriously, like David Thornton did this morning, then we end up in a quagmire, because Gaza is ungovernable except by the government they already have. Why Hamas can govern Gaza is because they are ruthless tyrants with a burning purpose that offers young Palestinians a cause to lift themselves up out of the abject despair and rot which makes up their daily reality. Trump would like to compete with that and make his own deal. So, is he serious?

The White House, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Yes, Trump is serious. And he’s absolutely right. There is no way forward for Gaza other than—to borrow from Elon Musk—the fork in the road. One path is to go all-in with Hamas once again, and to use every dollar (Hamas is wealthy) to rebuild the tunnel system, rearm the terrorists, and repair some infrastructure from which to continue the attack on Israel’s existence.

The other path is to embrace the unknown, and to break free of Hamas, perhaps to go after some stability and wealth. Israel has, again, and again, offered the option to do this to Gazans, and each time, Gazans have chosen Hamas. What makes anyone think they will do it differently this time? Trump’s statements are correct: the only way Palestinians in Gaza can choose anything except Hamas is to remove them from Gaza.

Trump spoke something that the rest of the world—those who know the issues—know already, but nobody would ever seriously say it. And finding “partners” to house a million-plus Gazan Palestinians is so silly to think about that it’s hard to take Trump seriously.

I’ve written about the problems inherent in any plan to “repatriate” Palestinians to other Arab (or Muslim) countries. Egypt can’t take them, because the Muslim Brotherhood is banned in Egypt, and Hamas is directly related to the Muslim Brotherhood. The reason the Muslim Brotherhood is banned in Egypt is that Egypt has primary responsibility for keeping the Sinai demilitarized, and the Brotherhood would love to fill it with terrorists. Egypt spent a decade cleaning up the Sinai, during which, because of its treaty with Israel, Israeli military was allowed to patrol areas on the border.

Neither Israel (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu knows this) nor Egypt can afford to go through the military cleansing of the Sinai again. And if Egypt lets the Brotherhood occupy that land, it’s in breach of its treaty with Israel. That would likely lead to the fall of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi; and in Egypt if you “fall” your head may not survive it connected to your body. Hello, new Arab Spring, except it’s going to be winter.

The best way to keep the Sinai clean is to keep Gazans in Gaza, which Egypt does well. The Egyptian military also profits greatly from smuggling and corrupt payoffs from Hamas. One of the benefits of being in the Egyptian military is partaking in this criminal underground economy. Without Gaza, Hamas, and the smuggling tunnels, things are harder for Egyptians in the military. This is one of the reasons (the main reason?) Egypt pushes so hard against Israel taking over the Rafah crossing—territorial sovereignty and all is just legal veneer.

So if the Gazan Palestinians are not going to Egypt, where would they go? They can’t go to Jordan. Jordan’s population is currently 50 percent Palestinian—three million live there. Add another million, who love Hamas more than they love King Abdullah II, and the Hashemite kingdom could find itself under new management. This means Abdullah’s own head would be at the same risk as el-Sisi’s should he take in a large number of people from Gaza.

The people Trump needs to persuade to be partners in his quest to fix Gaza are the very ones who tend to be super-protective of their own heads and necks. It’s unlikely they’d ever accede to Trump’s “deal” because what’s in it for them?

Trump’s partners are not going to be in this Palestinian “trail of tears” out of Gaza for their own health. So he’ll offer them money. Some of it will be American money (but not from USAID). Some of it will come from places like Qatar. The Qatari Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani is the brother of King Abdullah II. They spoke on the phone today. Here’s the summary, from the Gulf Times:

During the call, they reviewed the fraternal relations between the two countries, the latest developments in the Gaza Strip, the occupied Palestinian territories and Syria, and developments of common interest regionally and internationally.

There’s a lot of money in Doha, which is also where Ismail Haniyeh, late leader of Hamas who was eliminated by Israel while visiting Tehran, lived in luxury for years. Qatar has its tentacles in a lot of aquariums around the world. There are around 11,000 U.S. troops a few miles from Doha. And no, Qatar wants no part of taking Gaza’s refugees. But they’ll pay the moving bill to get them somewhere else.

Where? I don’t know. I do know that the Jordanians and the Qataris and Hamad bin Isa bin Salman Al Khalifa, the King of Bahrain, the Al Saud family in Saudi Arabia, the Al Said family in Oman, and their close relations, would love to to see the Palestinian problem in Gaza solved. It’s blindingly obvious that the solution they had long desired, that being the destruction of Israel, will not happen. Therefore, Hamas, while friendly in many ways with the Arab leaders, is a royal pain in their collective necks, and a threat to their rule.

These are the people of immense wealth and power, who see Donald Trump as he is—a dealmaker with the immense power of the U.S. presidency—and will do what they can to make a “deal.”

But the Palestinians in Gaza are not going to buy into this deal, to build Trump International Hotels on the beach in the Riviera of the Levant, because they’ve got other priorities. What Trump wants to do is the right answer, but it’s also ethnic cleansing. It’s forced resettlement of people who would give up their own self-determination at the hands of neighboring countries who will them to be gone.

The gulf states are not going to put their own troops on the line to take care of this problem. The Saudi military, despite ten years and U.S. support, could not defeat the Houthis in Yemen. The Houthis still run Yemen, and unless the U.S. does a full scale invasion, they are not going to be dislodged. Hamas still runs Gaza, and despite a full-scale invasion by the IDF, will not be dislodged.

So instead of removing Hamas by military force, does Trump think they can be bought off with promises of paradise, moving most of them to Indonesia or Bangladesh? Does Trump really think he can entice Gazans into a prosperous future by mere money? Does he really think he can replace the burning cause of vengeance and death to Israel with hotels, casinos and valet parking? It’s silly.

The only way Gaza would be emptied is for whoever is emptying it to be as brutal, or more brutal, than the people running it now. Trump would need to be—or find—a butcher. That’s not silly at all, and it’s a story the leaders in the Middle East understand very well.

If you take Trump seriously, it’s going to be the butcher option. But you do see why it’s hard to take him seriously. He’s right about Gaza, but he’s off his rocker if he thinks that is going to happen without a river of blood and treasure.