Cogito Ergo Non Serviam
Trump Wants US Ownership of Gaza
Donald Trump made headlines yesterday with a proposal that could be the worst decision in US foreign policy history. He said that the US would take ownership of Gaza, that the 2 million Palestinians in Gaza needed to leave for Egypt and Jordan and Gaza is going to become a new Atlantic City. After he spent years opining that America needed to bring its troops home from Middle Eastern misadventures, he has decided that he can have the biggest and most impressive misadventure of all. The move would be weapons-grade idiocy. No one in the region wants it, and the US has no interest in owning Gaza.
In a joint press conference with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, the American president said, "The U.S. 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."
That is not about to happen. The US would need to send troops, and the 2 million Palestinians have not yet left Gaza. That is a recipe for disaster. One only needs to look at how well the US occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq went. Afghanistan is not rebuilt. Iraq is not pro-West. But billions of dollars were spent and thousands of lives lost.
Mr. Trump appears to have forgotten his opposition to those occupations. He is taking the view that he can do what Bush the Lesser did but even better. Mr. Bush accomplished almost nothing with his wars. Al Qaeda still exists, and Iraq is still a mess. The removal of Saddam Hussein was a good thing, but one must wonder if it was worth the cost of doing it the way the Busheviks did it.
What those occupations demonstrated was how easy anti-American forces have it when thousands of US troops (targets) are within rifle range. More Americans died in the occupation of Iraq than died in the actual fighting against the Saddamites. Even if all the Gazan population left, a concentration of US troops in the area is a gift to Hezbollah and the Houthi. One recalls the car bombing at the US Marine barracks in Lebanon in the 1980s. Mr. Reagan cut and ran because it was the only plausible move.
Key to such a move would be the support of Egypt and Jordan, nations to which Mr. Trump wants the Gazans moved. Neither nation had a good thing to say about the proposal. Indeed, they both understand that having Gazans relocate means Hamas will relocated as well. President Sisi and King Abdullah have enough trouble on the home front without importing Hamas hotheads.
Radio Free Europe reported:
Mark Dubowitz, CEO of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said Trump may have floated this idea to raise the stakes after Arab countries refused his request to take in Palestinians.
"Now, he's cranking up the pressure: If you won't take them, we'll remove them ourselves and take control of Gaza," Dubowitz said on X. "Classic Trump: Go to the extreme, making what once seemed outrageous suddenly look like the reasonable middle ground."
That is giving Mr. Trump too much credit. The Arab states want nothing to do with any of it, and they know they have little influence to prevent anything from happening. Rather than a clever ploy, the move makes the US a genuine imperialist power, and the Muslim world is hardly going to be happy about it. Hamas just recruited another 1,000 fighters. That is not going to make Gaza better. Indeed, the proposal makes it harder for powers in the region come to any sort of agreement.
Sending US troops to die from terrorist attacks in Gaza is an odd way to put America First.
© Copyright 2025 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Ubuntu Linux.
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