“It is not the duty of US troops to solve ancient conflicts in faraway lands that many people have never even heard of,” said Donald Trump. “We are not the policemen of the world.”
Trump made those remarks in 2020 at a West Point graduation ceremony. Politico dragged the line back up on Wednesday morning, mere hours after the President surprised even his own senior advisers with the sudden announcement that he intends for the US to “take over the Gaza Strip.” MAGA is now at an ideological crossroads.
Trump’s line at West Point is just one expression of a sentiment that twice won him the White House. Much of the President’s political appeal is built on a staunch opposition to forever wars and nation building. The question for MAGA is whether taking over Gaza counts.
“MAGA world is of two minds,” one source in the White House told UnHerd. “There is the ideologically-driven crowd versus the people who solely exist to advance the Trump agenda. At times, they overlap. If you’re upset about the President not adhering to your niche ideology you should reconsider your line of work”. “The mandate voters gave us was for Trump and his vision,” said the source, “not for junior staff to mouth off.”
As insiders told UnHerd’s newsletter Area 47, the next test for Trumpism will be how the President handles the ongoing ceasefire plan. On the bigger picture question, Trump’s congressional allies carefully pushed back on the announcement. Lindsey Graham, one of the most hawkish Republicans in the Senate, said: “The idea of Americans going in on the ground in Gaza is a non-starter for every senator.”
Meanwhile Sen. Josh Hawley, from MAGA’s intellectual wing, told The New York Times, “I don’t think it’s the best use of United States resources to spend a bunch of money in Gaza. I’d prefer that to be spent in the United States first”. Jack Posobiec of Human Events sounded a similar note, posting on X, “I want to develop EAST Palestine.”
Conservative attorney Will Chamberlain, on the other hand, argued: “You guys aren’t thinking big enough about what Trump is saying about Gaza. The Gaza Strip will be OURS. American property. American sovereignty. An overseas territory. Not someone else’s territory where we are guests. OUR property where we can enforce OUR immigration rules.”
Trump’s plan is both hyper-pragmatic, rejecting the decades-long cycle of violence, while at the same time lacking achievability. This led some on the Right to assume the shock announcement was a negotiating tactic. “I have no interest in the United States owning or developing Gaza. Much less do I want American lives and treasure spent rebuilding some little strip of land thousands of miles away,” said Matt Walsh. “But I have to assume that this is a negotiating tactic by Trump. We’ve seen this kind of approach work repeatedly just in the past few weeks.”
At a Wednesday briefing, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt reiterated that Trump “has not committed to sending Marines or any boots on the ground to Gaza.” Leavitt referred to Trump as the “peacemaker-in-chief” and said the US would not be paying to rebuild Gaza but would instead work with partners in the region to develop the land, temporarily relocate residents, and make the area safe.
An American takeover of the Gaza Strip would not come peacefully. As he left office, Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced”: “We assess that Hamas has recruited almost as many new militants as it has lost.” Hamas, unsurprisingly, called Trump’s new plan “a crime against humanity.” Saudi Arabia and Turkey oppose the measure, with other countries whose cooperation would be key likely to follow. If the US and Israel want to move the people of Gaza, who’ve fought for years to stay on their land, it will require force — barring some unforeseen development.
Israel has long muddled the boundaries of Trump’s “America First” ideology, pitting some realists who found common cause with the movement on, for example, Ukraine, against conservatives who appreciate Trump’s rejection of the Beltway blob because they believe it’s under the sway of Iran sympathisers and antisemites.
Is MAGA realist or neoconservative? The correct answer is the one hiding in plain sight: it’s whatever Trump decides, and he couldn’t care less about DC labels.
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SubscribeI think it’s the same negotiation tactic of coming out with a maximum threat/demand right away while keeping his opposite in a state of uncertainty about what he actually wants – this leads to him getting more than he bargained for.
This tactic is only possible if you are very, VERY powerful and you can afford to offend and annoy a LOT of people. But you have to issue a credible threat in order for it to work.
I think what Trump trying to get at primarily is a conclusion as to whether the 2-state solution is really dead or not. It’s certainly looked that way since 7th October 2023, although no-one has so fat had the guts to declare it so or come up with any alternative.
Saying that Gazans will be relocated to surrounding countries will lead to those countries (Egypt, Jordan etc.) putting pressure on the Palestinians to rid themselves of Hamas which I guess is the condition required for Israel to even continue wanting to deal with them. Because none of these neighbouring countries want to have thousands of Palestinians – neither does Europe. So Europe better get its geopolitical act pulled together too, because this is our backyard and the Americans don’t want to sort it out for us anymore.
And if that doesn’t work out, then we have to bury the solutions we’ve been trying thus far and think about some others.
If all goes well, then the Middle East will sort itself out under the umbrella of the American threat. If not, and nobody really believes the Americans are going to “take over” Gaza…then you have a terminal mess which I don’t really want to think about at 7.15am.
I think what Trump trying to get at primarily is a conclusion as to whether the 2-state solution is really dead or not. [etc.]
Yes. A narrative shift. Seems like it might be working.
Perhaps you’re right. I admit this one threw me for a loop but that’s a plausible theory of what he might be trying to accomplish here. Just chuck a big rock in the pond and see if anything floats to the surface. Brings to mind an old cartoon where Bugs Bunny, in full Teddy Roosevelt costume, quotes the famous line “I speak softly but I carry a big stick”, to which Yosemite Sam replies, “well I speak LOUD and I carry a BIGGER stick.” Donald Trump is rather the living embodiment of the Yosemite Sam school of diplomacy. I confess it’s effective insofar as if the stick is big enough, the words barely matter. Any person with an unstable, unpredictable personality with the world’s most devastating military machine and a substantial nuclear arsenal is going to be given great leeway out of a fear of unknown consequences. Trump can make threats that only one or two other people on the planet can with any degree of credibility. In the short term, it’s going to be mostly effective. The vast majority of nations will be cautious out of fear and uncertainty. There will, of course, be a price to pay over the long term. America’s reputation will suffer. The public threat making and overt, unapologetic nationalism will no doubt spread conflicts down to the level of actual people. It will no doubt undermine international cooperation and friendship in all respects, the political, the economic, and also the social. I foresee a resurgence of nationalism globally, but then one could argue that we’ve already seen that and Trump is more the result than a cause. Perhaps he is simply an example of how nationalism is self-reinforcing and compatible with natural human tribalism and how globalism isn’t.
I’m going out on a limb here. I’m not really a Trump follower.
I think he is painting a picture of what Gaza could be in an alternative Middle East. It could be beautiful. It could be free of ethnic and religious conflict. It could be a modern country.
He is laying down a dream. To Gaza, to Israel, to the Arab countries. And even more to all the people there. How about it? Do you want to try?
If they all say no. At least he has made them think.
He’s clever. And good. Who would have thought it.
If you take him seriously rather than literally, you would understand more of what he says. In his first term he was unprepared and inexperienced with Washington. He went away for 4 years and did his homework. He has been brilliant since Jan 20 – exceeding even his supporters’ expectations. There will be mistakes, but so far they have been inconsequential.
The only thing he should have done differently would have been to start his statement with “I have a dream…”
I have NO IDEA what he may have in mind except to highlight his apparent recognition that Gaza has always held promise for being exclusive, prime Mediterranean real estate for economic development. That promise has been absolutely squandered since Hamas was invited to power, and its fruits will remain out of reach until the present culture of hatred is purged. The region and its society is now rubble, with no stable foundations for reconstruction, literally and figuratively. A lost civilization.
The people who hate each other must reconcile or standby and let the people who dont work on rebuilding Palestine for the benefit of the millions of families living ordinary lives there.
I think he could see a beautiful place, a dream, peace and he just decided to talk about it. He said Palestinians would live there and others from all over the world, and they would create a lot of jobs. Maybe it just injects some hope, and pressure on the rest of the world, to see Gaza as a desirable place how do we get there?
The USA is a newish country. Why not Gaza? Write a Constitution and Gaza could rise out of the rubble.
He’s calling for ethnic cleansing.
You make it sound like a risky real estate venture.
The current residents of Gaza also endorse ethnic cleansing, as do their comrades in the West Bank.
Many of the “Anti-Zionists” on the progressive left feel the same, as well.
It may be that force of arms will eventually determine who is cleansed from where, but for the time being, it’s a matter for the Israelis. We in the US have problems enough to handle, without directly taking on the Middle East’s eternal bellum omni contra omni.
Look at me. Look at me with my Latin quotes.
Pompous oaf.
Don’t be fooled! He went to the LSE!
Look at you. Too lazy to use Google. (or too poorly educated to figure it out for yourself)
Objectionable!
The only calls for ethnic cleansing have been by Hamas who remain committed to killing every last Jew in Israel.
I officially have no idea what Trump is thinking or planning. It’s a bit uncomfortable for me as I usually read typical politicians easily enough. I have no clue what he’s going for. Offering to administer and take over Gaza is lunacy. I hope he’s just blowing smoke and this is part of some kind of misdirection strategy, but if it is, he’s a better strategist than me because I cannot see what angle he’s playing or how this might further any rational objective he might have. I can’t say what this means because it is so far removed from his entire political movement. Maybe he is betraying his own movement now that he won’t have to run i another election. . Maybe he really thinks the people will support him no matter what insanity he proposes. Maybe this is Elon’s idea. Hell, maybe he just wants to open a resort there. I have no idea. Trump is either a Machiavellian manipulator whose schemes are beyond my understanding or he’s some kind of political idiot savant who’s just stumbling around blindly and avoiding disaster by sheer dumb luck like Mr. Magoo. I can’t honestly say anymore.
I sometimes think Donald Trump is a Chauncey Gardiner.
That was Biden.
My favorite was when he pitched the idea of building luxury resorts in North Korea to Kim Jong Un (because of course the thing Kim wants most of all is his people seeing how life is for rich foreigners).
Don’t even try to understand a psychopath
Oddly, if Trump truly were a psychopath, I would probably understand him much better. I have always been able to pick up on psychopathy more easily than most. It probably is because I have Asperger’s, which is a completely different condition that nevertheless has some overlap in that both disorders make it difficult if not impossible to form normal relationships with people and groups for different reasons. I don’t have the same social blind spots that true psychopaths use to manipulate people to get what they want. The few that I have known have regarded me as someone like themselves, either as a rival to be persecuted or a possible accomplice, neither of which interested me at all.
I’m fairly confident Trump is not a psychopath. Psychopaths are manipulators who generally thrive on not being noticed as such. They tend to be secretive figures who project themselves as well mannered and relatively harmless as a cover for pursuing whatever their particular obsession is. A psychopath would be far more likely to say all the right things and project an image of a normal politician, or even a righteous crusader.
Trump doesn’t fit the pattern. As I said, he’s either far more capable than I ever credited him being, or he’s maybe the luckiest person on the planet. I don’t know which. Up until recently, I was convinced he was a strutting peacock just trying to get people’s attention to inflate his own ego. I figured that just as in his first administration, he’d govern like a standard Republican while picking random fights with the media and dropping the occasional twitter bomb in the wee hours of the morning just to make sure everybody was till paying attention to his antics. Clearly I was wrong, and I’m not accustomed to being this far wrong.
I doubt any world leader is a true psychopath. The psychology of psychopaths generally doesn’t map well onto people who seek political power and high office. The only possibility I see is Kim Jong Un.
Trump is a narcissist not a psychopath. Even Musk isn’t a psychopath, although I’m not sure they have invented a word for whatever he is.
I actually do understand Elon and i get why he comes across as odd, confusing, and eccentric. He has admitted he has Asperger’s like I do. He’s just a lot smarter and wealthier and more motivated. His sudden pivot from typical billionaire davos man building EVs and fighting climate change to the populist right is typical. We don’t typically have any real loyalty to any social or political group. We can have loyalty to individuals but not a collective. We tend not to tie up much if any of our self worth in our group identification or tribal loyalties. Theoretically, if everyone were like me, globalism might actually work. I argue against globalism because I know the extent to which they are not like me and I have a better sense of how massive the gap is.
People with Asperger syndrome are usually harmless because they tend to pursue their own interests and their interests are rarely related to people at all. I’m actually untypical in that I do find people fascinating from a comfortable distance, hence my interest in politics. I enjoy observing and commenting but would never seek power or office myself. I doubt Musk would either. Musk though has a great fortune and many things he wants to accomplish with said fortune. Political favor can give him an advantage and he can gain access to anyone with his money. He simply made an observation, the same one I did, that the globalist dream was doomed and the neoliberal order was coming apart for a number of reasons and it’s far too late now for any amount of power or wealth to alter that reality. Thus, it was logical to seek out different political allies in a changing world to gain advantage over his rivals and leverage his own assets towards his goals, which I am near certain are basically related to continued human technological progress and innovation. Put simply, he wants to to make sure the new order includes the things he wants like intellectual freedom and technological advancement.
If I had a fortune like he does and something i wanted to do with it that the government could impact for good or for bad, I would most like do the same thing he is, that is find someone who already has power and influence and ingratiate myself to them on an individual basis, which most of us can do if we have sufficient powers of observation and sharp enough intellect to compensate for our lack of innate social skills. So long as it’s one on one, I can fake normal behavior and even deceive and manipulate nearly as well as a true psychopath, but add another person and I simply can’t keep up. Add two or more I don’t even bother to make the attempt anymore. I tend to use the ability to make people I don’t like stop talking to me. Elon is far more capable than I am, but he still comes off as odd as one can see from comments such as yours. He can’t completely hide his awkwardness and he comes off as odd, especially when he does things that normal people almost never do, like completely change his political leanings and the groups he associates with for purely strategic reasons without any preamble or indication. I could and have done similar things in my youth.
All that said, it’s theoretically possible for Elon’s influence to be dangerous because he lacks social loyalties, but I just doubt it is. I can’t think of anything he would be likely to care about that would lead him towards being a tyrant or oppressor. I just doubt he cares about that. The worst thing he would do is gain some advantage for his company or inventors in general or the tech sector, but normal aristocrats have been doing that since ever, just usually without looking quite as odd diing it and thus alarming the normals. He isn’t a racist or some kind of cultural supremacist or a religious fanatic or a power hungry egomaniac or anything else that is an obvious danger. I suspect he is mostly just a weird dude who makes people vaguely uncomfortable and who in his own mind is trying to help find some acceptablenew normal for ua to inhabit. I can’t imagine anyone with the same dysfunction I have would truly be interested in domination and control. If anything I suspect he is more likely to be a mediating or calming influence on Trump, especially if they have developed a genuine friendship.
As some have suggested. This absurd proposal is drawing MSM & Leftoids attn away from his welcome slash & burn at home.
Suspect it is just a Donald brain fart and hopefully a one off aberration.
It is imperative that Trump prevails however.
If he fails – put simply. – The West is toast.
TOAST
Yeah. There’s no way Trump could ever have a second brain fart.
Enjoy your toast, he is a brain fart
If Trump made the Gaza remark for any agenda other than to get everyone’s attention, he might as well resign now and move to tel Aviv. MAGA faithful did not sign up for ideas such as this, and will not support it.
He has a touching affinity for the Jewish people which must come from Ivanka’s marriage. As for the hardcore Vance followers, Tucker’s disciples here and the James Lindsay school, in no way do I associate support for Israel with neoconservatism. Neoconservatism now operates exclusively in the post-Soviet east of Europe.
And let’s face it, removing the Hamas and Hezbollah threat – via annexation in at least one place – is anti-neocon in reducing American military support for Israel.
Strangely, I get called a “neoconservative” a lot round these parts, and I am based in Australia. I don’t think I am one though. I will occasionally plead guilty to “neoliberal” though, although I am aware it is mostly a term of abuse. I use “socialist” the same way (hint: it doesn’t work on actual socialists).
Many New Yorkers have a ” touching affinity for the Jewish people”. They’re our neighbors.
Everyone should calm down about Trump and Gaza. All he is saying is that the Strip is uninhabitable but would be a good place to live if there was a peace settlement in the Middle East.
As I said on an earlier thread, son-in’law Jared Kushner & co only want the 6-7km of the beach nearest Israel. I suspect Trump is preparing the ground for seizing just this section as a walk-back from his statement yesterday.
Does anyone actually believe that risking PTSD—or even dying—for a Trump hotel is a viable solution?
Instead of attempting to displace millions, why not relocate the few hundred thousand settlers from the West Bank and call it a three-state solution?
“There’ll be a Hard Rock Hotel and a Throw-rock Hotel” (Bill Maher)
Just because Trump’s MAGA minions got him elected does not mean their opinion matters to him. Quite the opposite in fact. Trump is transactional and is only interested in furthering the interests of those who oppose him so that he can “make the deal”.
Gaz-a-lago is a distraction for something. Probably for what Musk is doing to the government
It’s not a “plan”. It’s just Trump blathering impulsively on a topic he knows nothing about.
Without passing judgment on the Gaza proposal itself (okay, I will pass judgment — it’s silly), let me just say people should pay little attention to what Donald Trump says. He is a bloviator, and he is more ciceronian in his hyperbole than Cicero. Pay attention to what he does. And I can guarantee you — we will see Elon Musk’s pipe dream of men on Mars before we will ever see the US develop Gaza.
He’s calling for ethnic cleansing.
Maybe Putin should just take the rest of Ukraine? Why not?
Silly, Carlos??
It’s ethnic cleansing.
He said it out loud, with psycho smirking ahoo beside him!
Donald Trump did not call for ethnic cleansing. He said nothing of the kind.
Yes, he didn’t say the words “ethnic” and “cleansing.”
But moving 1.7 million people out of the area to a ‘new beautiful place with much sunlight’ is what , Carlos?
Donald Trump never said anything about forcibly moving Gazans out. That’s the point. You are reading into his comments something he never said.
It may surprise you, but some Gazans are saying they want to go. They are tired of living in a hell hole. And during the war many Gazans wanted to flee the fighting by going into Egypt, but Egypt wouldn’t let them in.
This is accurate and who can blame the Egyptians. They don’t want the headache of trying to figure out they which ones are Hamas or Iranian agents or just militant jihadists. Egypt has actually imposed the same blockade and restrictions that Israel has on Gaza for most of the period of Hamas rule because neither ordinary Muslims nor ordinary Jews want terrorists in their midst. Nobody ever seems to remember that Gaza’s border with Egypt was just as closed and just as well guarded as its border with Israel.
Why should they leave the land that their ancestors have lived on for hundreds of years? Why? You forget that the zionists were the colonists. Would you fight for your land – and risk being a “terrorist” – or would you meekly submit to superior tech and watch yr kids be blown apart daily? And then move.
Your answer will say a lot about yr Character.
And West Bank land stealing? Cool with that? Jordan should just take them?
the zionists were the colonists.
True. 4,000 years ago.
There were Zionists 4000 years ago?
Yes, the druids should reclaim England.
Moron
Jordan *is* the Palestinian state.
I don’t really care what people think of my character. As far as I’m concerned, that’s between me and the Almighty. What I’m consistently against first and foremost is killing, kidnapping, and torturing innocent people who have done absolutely nothing to you for no reason. That’s what October 7th was. It was a plan concocted by Hamas, and Hamas was elected by the Palestinian people, thus like the Germans of the 1930s, they all bear some small burden of guilt. The Israelis, on the other hand, are responding to that attack. They are killing with a reason, an act of war committed against them. What government would fail to protect its people and respond to an act of war? Whatever the political situation, it is an established fact that on October 7th, Hamas attacked Israel in a deplorable and heinous way. This attack was not provoked by anything Israel had done recently. In fact, Israel had completely withdrawn from Gaza over a decade earlier. Nevertheless, Hamas attacked on October 7th, targeting innocent civilians and taking hostages. That happened first, and had it not happened, presumably Israel would have no reason to respond and all those Palestinian casualties could have been avoided.
What exactly do you expect the Israelis to do? One can criticize how they have conducted their military operations, but there is much to criticize on the other side as well, such as Hamas building their underground fortresses under residential buildings, schools, and hospitals for the express purpose of using their own people as shields. I’m sorry but that seems worse than responding to an act of open warfare. Avoiding civilian casualties in warfare is a responsibility of both sides, and one side has done what it could to minimize casualties to the extent possible while the other showed no respect for that responsibility by deliberately targeting civilians on October 7th and by their shameful military tactics.
The logic of who is a colonizer works both ways. In point of fact, the Jews did occupy the region before the current occupants and their descendants. If we’re appealing to the notion that the original inhabitants have the only legitimate claim to an area, the Jews actually have an earlier claim. Why does who was there in 1850 matter more than 1000 BC? What moral principle are you standing upon here? Your logic would have everyone in the US and Canada who didn’t have Native American blood deported as well. Is that fair or morally right? How long does a people have to occupy an area for it to be legitimately theirs. How long do they have to leave before it becomes fair game? Does it matter whether they left voluntarily or forcefully, because the Jews have been removed from that area by force more than once during their history. Is it the Israelis’ fault for settling there, or is it the Ottoman and then British authorities for letting them. The Zionists didn’t march in and seize land at gunpoint. They sought the approval of the recognized governing nations and were permitted to settle there legally and buy land or occupy unused land owned by the state. Are we to penalize them for doing things the right way? Should Trump be deporting all the legal immigrants as well? These are all serious philosophical and moral questions that you just ignore in order to reduce a complex historical problem to “Zionists are bad”. You’re drawing the conclusion and then picking a handful of relevant information to support it, and that’s not an argument any serious person should listen to.
Again, I agree. Kidnapping and torture are wrong. What a bold stand you take!
Do you have problems when Israel does it? Or just when terrorists do it? There are many Palestinians in Israelis jails, being tortured, and raped, without any charges against them. Are you ok with the bulldozing of the West Bank? Are you ok with basically pushing these people off the land entirely and having no two state solution at all. Just get rid of them?
He didn’t? What did you watch?
Why are eve his supporters saying it was out of line? Carlos. Cmon.
I watched the press conference with Benjamin Netanyahu where Donald Trump read from his notes. Quote me the words he said that you object to. I’d like to see what exactly bothers you.
We a re going to take it over.
We will move the people, 1,7 maybe 1.8 million out of there and re settle then somewhere beautiful and safe.
Is what?
What would you lawyerly call it?
Pay attention to what he does. I’ve noticed a pattern. He says stupid stuff. He does stupid stuff. It’s just that sometimes the stupid stuff he says is different to the stupid stuff he does.
Look he’s surrounded by sycophants and comes out with twaddle which they’ve probably told him a good idea.
Then other sycophants try to make an argument it’s some form of clever negotiation tactic. You can see Author’s who’ve supported him contorting themselves to do so. It’s drivel.
Now if he’d said we’ll help rebuild Gaza if there is leadership that accepts Israel and genuine about peace… But of course neither he nor his support in Congress any intention in giving significant aid to Gaza. He’s just intrigued momentarily by a seashore real estate option.
In the meantime notice how little he’s really doing for the ‘little guy’ and ‘left behinds’ in US. No reshoring strategy, no healthcare reform, no affordable housing drive, and he’s likely to increase their food prices. He’s used them for what he wanted – to get elected and stay out of Prison.
Trump’s skill has always been to get people to think he cares about them (whereas in fact he cares only about Trump).
I guess fat boy felt he needed to do something big after his humiliating stand down against Canada and Mexico. Although even I am amazed at this particular idiocy. Did Hegseth come up with it when he was hammered?