Yesterday, aboard Air Force One, Trump dug deep into his extensive knowledge of foreign affairs and focused on the Middle East, specifically Gaza. "You’re talking about probably a million and a half people, and we just clean out that whole thing," said the Metternich of our times to reporters.
This is one of his many gifts: the ability to boil down global complexities, the trickiest of foreign policies and, what's more, offer solutions to age-old conundrums with rhetorical ease. He can do so only because of his extensive knowledge base, much like the genius and theoretical physicist Richard Feynman could reduce Einstein's special relativity to a level comprehensible to six-year-olds.
To his remark about simply cleaning out "that whole thing" — again Feynmanlike genius; three easily understandable words in place of nonAmerican-sounding "Gaza" for the benefit of his six-year-old-minded supporters — Trump added, "I don’t know. Something has to happen, but it’s literally a demolition site right now."
With that he went to the core of the issue, the core he wants to build on — and how nice the "whole thing" is already a demolition site. Plus, no secret diplomacy for jersey 47, no sir, and in a moment you'll see that for him a phone call is far more serviceable than having SecState Marco "Trump is a 'con artist'" Rubio shuttling around like Kissinger.
Mention of "demolition" predated the Air Force One confabulation with reporters. On coronation day Trump mused in the Oval Office, "I looked at a picture of Gaza" (pasted in The Big Book of Presidential Daily Briefings). "It's like a massive demolition site." From that he had an idea. "It's really … it's gotta be rebuilt in a different way. Gaza's interesting, it's a phenomenal location. On the sea, the best weather. Everything's good. Some beautiful things can be done with it. It's very interesting. Some fantastic things can be done with it."
One of the beautiful, fantastic things about Gazans, as Trump further observed, is that "Most of them are dead." Blessed are the visionary. "You certainly can't have the people that were there," he continued. Dang, only most are dead, but about that, his foresight soldiered on once he was back on Air Force One.
He said he had dialed up Jordan's King Abdullah II, saying "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." He said he would soon ring Egypt's president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, to express the same loving idea. By "take on more" he means the two countries should induct Gaza's population of roughly two million (earlier, he was off by a half-million).
Jordan's leader and next Egypt's appreciate the fantastic side of Trump's request, but beautiful? No. As The NY Times reports, "Egyptian fears that Palestinians moving en masse into Egypt could threaten the country’s security also make it unlikely that it will consent to any such arrangement," and "Jordan also opposes forced resettlement of Palestinians."
The Times adds that both countries, as of early Sunday afternoon, have remained mum on the matter. My guess is that Abdullah and Sisi are busy calculating how steep a tariff Trump will slap on them in toddler disgruntlement over their sensible noncooperation.
Still, 47 may not need them after all. The Times also reports that "cease-fires in Lebanon and Gaza appeared increasingly fragile on Sunday." The Israelis killed "at least 22 people in southern Lebanon," and in Gaza they "prevented Palestinians from moving back north, saying Hamas had violated the terms of the truce."
That's suspiciously convenient for Israel's right-wing extremist politicians who opposed the ceasefire to begin with. One, a national security minister, resigned this week and another, the finance minister, is threatening the same "if Netanyahu does not break the ceasefire once an initial 42-day phase is complete."
The national security minister issued a statement that reads, "I demanded – and received – a commitment from Prime Minister Netanyahu that Israel will return to the battlefield to eliminate Hamas and eradicate this threat once and for all." (Reported by CNN.) Today Netanyahu said "both President Trump and President Biden gave full backing to Israel’s right to return to fighting, if Israel comes to the conclusion that negotiations on Phase B are futile. I really appreciate it."
Given Gaza's original population estimate of two million, and given the 47,000 Palestinians massacred in Gaza so far, Trump and his far-right friends in Israel have already whittled down their dream of a no-Gazans Gaza to 1,953,000 rightful inhabitants. But in Donald and Bibi's Vladimir world, rightful means not a goddamn thing. And to all three, that's just beautiful.
“the Metternich of our times”
LOL’d so hard I’m dead. Bravo, PM, bravo!