February 5, 2025 - 9:00pm

“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.


Emily Jashinsky is UnHerd‘s Washington D.C. Correspondent.

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