Removing the people from Gaza, that I was expecting. That's the obvious solution to ending what the President called "the death, the destruction, and frankly bad luck" arising from the combination of history, distrust, and the poisonous Revolutionary Marxist political culture that was trained into Palestine for generations. Getting the world to agree to it, especially the host country for these new citizens, that's very hard -- but it is the obvious way to proceed, and frankly almost certainly to the benefit of the Palestinians of Gaza in the long run. It's ugly and the sort of ethnic cleansing that international diplomats claim to oppose (but that they don't seem too opposed to in Xinjiang). It's what happened in Syria, though, without the same level of protest from the diplomats of the world.
Turning it into a resort community, that I was expecting. It's beachfront property on the Mediterranean Sea. Once you had cleared it out (and removed all the mines and bombs and other explosives), a resort community was the obvious usage.
The US taking it over and turning it into a new International Zone of hotels and resorts, that's the part I never saw coming. Probably I should have, given who the President is and where his mind goes. And there is precedent for it -- Jerusalem's Old City is itself divided into quarters, two of which (the Christian and the Armenian Quarter) are led and governed by international organizations including the Catholic and Orthodox churches, as well as the Armenian Christian churches. They're fairly pleasant places to visit, by the way. The Armenian Mass is beautiful even though I don't understand the language at all; and the Franciscans who run the Catholic Mass do it in Latin, which is quite an experience sitting in Jerusalem. There are some fine hotels and restaurants that have grown up there to serve the wealthier pilgrims, and in spite of the nearby Muslim Quarter there is very little terrorism.
Now if it were me, the last thing on earth I might do is insert the US and especially the US military into the middle of this nightmare. I'm not in charge, though. I would tend to advise staying a long way from Gaza as a general thing if anyone is interested in my opinion on the subject. Get private funding for this project, from the hotels or resorts or whatever; have them hire private security forces, deputized by Israel or something. It's not a wholly implausible idea. I just wouldn't want any part of it.
4 comments:
This might just be a negotiating tactic by President Trump to secure the release of the rest of the hostages. What can't happen is for Israel or the US to allow Hamas to reconstitute themselves.
It's true that Trump often plays with tools for negotiation purposes that wouldn't be great ideas if actualized. Those 25% tariffs would have caused some disruption (not as much as most people seem to think, but some; especially fruits and vegetables from Mexico would have gone up in price). But it turns out he got what he wanted without having to deploy them.
Trump has floated the idea of turning the Gaza Strip into a big resort area before--long enough ago that I don't remember if it was during his first administration, or before that.
In today's White House presser, several of the news writers present kept trying to get Leavvitt to commit or to say Trump was committed to using US military to secure the Strip for the purpose--or to say he was committed to not do so.
It's bad form to tell an enemy what we will do, and what we will not do, as the news writers know full well. Leavitt had the intelligence to not take their bait.
Eric Hines
I wonder if it is a distraction, as his use of Twitter seemed to be back in 2016-2021. Everyone will be so twitterpated (pun intended) over the idea that they ignore more realistic discussions and negotiations.
LittleRed1
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