Gaza – The Site of the Future American Riviera in the Middle East?

 

Gaza – The Site of the Future American Riviera in the Middle East?

The Worst Idea of the Century?

It would require that the entire population of Gaza be removed – I believe we call the ethnic cleansing – to welcoming, loving nations (mostly in neighboring Arab nations) where the US and other rich nations would build magnificent residential communities, new structures with schools, jobs and hospitals, where the suffering Gazans would live in sumptuous harmony. Huh? Believing in Santa Claus and his flying, deer-powered sled has more credibility.

The late edition of the February 4th New York Times summarized Trump’s presentation at a joint White House press conference on Tuesday with visiting Israeli PM, Benjamin Netanyahu: “‘The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip and we will do a job with it too,’ Mr. Trump said at an evening news conference. ‘We’ll own it and be responsible’ for disposing of unexploded munitions and rebuilding Gaza into a mecca for jobs and tourism. Sounding like the real estate developer he once was, he vowed to turn it into ‘the Riviera of the Middle East.’

“While the president framed the matter as a humanitarian imperative and an economic development opportunity, he effectively reopened a geopolitical Pandora’s box with far-reaching implications for the Middle East. Control over Gaza has been one of the major flash points of the Arab-Israeli conflict going back decades, and the idea of relocating its Palestinian residents recalls an era when Western great powers redrew the maps of the region and moved around populations without regard to local autonomy.” I noticed a touch of “oh yeah” Netanyahu’s eyes as diplomacy seemed a whole more like a real estate salesman, oblivious to the reality of the region.

As the stepson of US diplomat assigned to Beirut during the 1960s, I witnessed some realities that have only moved so much farther into the extreme today: Even back then, there wasn’t a single regional Arab country that wanted Palestinians settling in numbers in their country. The Palestinian refugee camps of that era were built with guards and barbed wire, with a message: do not try to move from your camps; you are here only temporarily! Palestinians were usually viewed as angry troublemakers, constantly stirring the pot, and the sequential losses of Arab armies against Israel convinced the Arab world that war with Israel was a losing proposition.

Those sentiments have since only moved farther away from allowing large Palestinian communities to move to regional Arab countries. As the February 1st CBS News/AP noted: “Powerful Arab nations rejected President Trump's suggestion to relocate Palestinians from Gaza to neighboring Egypt and Jordan… Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, the Palestinian Authority and the Arab League released a joint statement rejecting any plans to move Palestinians out of their territories in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

“Mr. Trump told reporters last month that he would urge the leaders of Jordan and Egypt to take in Gaza's now largely homeless population and that moving some 1.5 million people away from Gaza might mean that ‘we just clean out that whole thing.’

“Mr. Trump relayed what he told Jordan's King Abdullah when the two held a call [recently]. ‘I said to him, 'I'd love for you to take on more because I'm looking at the whole Gaza Strip right now, and it's a mess.'… ‘It's literally a demolition site right now,’ Trump said, referring to the vast destruction caused by Israel's 15-month war with Hamas, now paused by a fragile ceasefire.”

Was this a gift to Iranians, disappointed at the loss of Russian aid and the collapse of Syria? With absolute certainty, Trump just handed Iran the issue it needed. No longer remotely entertaining the two-state solution, but instead a break-up and scattering of the Palestinian population that neither the Gaza nor the West Bank Palestinians wanted, Iran must be delighted. Nobody asked the Palestinian, perhaps because they knew what the answer would be. What Trump’s absurd vision for Gaza did do however, was to solidify anti-American sentiments, just when the region was regaining a maybe sense of stability. And Iran’s “I told you so; never trust the Americans!” mantra began to ring true. Oh, it might not matter, but all the late 19th and early 20th century maps called that area “Palestine.”

Trump’s vision also put a target on the back of every American soldier in the region, and instead of following through on his notion that his presidency was one focused on extracting the US from volatile areas where war was happening or likely, Trump’s inner real estate developer could not resist the opportunity. Nobel Peace Prize? LOL! It’s not our sphere of influence or a war we need to provoke, Mr President. Would Congress even back such an absurd notion? A deficit buster? What kind of bully tactics will Trump deploy to convince Arab nations to reverse course? Good luck with that, Donny, Sr. It ain’t never gonna happen!

I’m Peter Dekom, and lots of Americans only thought Joe Biden’s mind was at issue!