Nothing about US President Donald Trump’s notion that Gaza should come under US control makes sense according to established laws and norms of international relations. However, the current White House regime despises the old way of doing things and intends to reshape the world so drastically that restoration of a pre-Trumpian order would be impossible.
The absurd incoherence of Trump’s proposal that the US “take over” Gaza does not make it any less sinister. The requirement that 2.2 million Palestinians be forcibly resettled in neighboring Arab states amounts to unambiguous endorsement of a criminal atrocity — ethnic cleansing.
The idea that the land, having been requisitioned by the US government, would then be transformed into a Mediterranean riviera, or a coastline, is disturbing and grotesque in its detachment from reality. Trump is treating a war zone at the center of one of the world’s most intractable conflicts as if it were a patch of derelict Manhattan real estate. He is toying with the lives of millions of people in the idiom of a corrupt property developer, and with the methods and ethics of a mafia boss.
The inevitable consequence of handling complex international issues with cruel and bovine simplicity is to spread fear, uncertainty and instability. It adds gratuitous volatility at precisely the moment when the opposite approach is imperative to preserve the fragile ceasefire in Gaza.
Every government in the Middle East, except Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ultra-nationalist coalition, rejects Trump’s intervention as dangerous and counterproductive. That is also the view among the US’ European allies — or the countries that two weeks ago considered themselves free-thinking allies of the US, but now see that no such concept exists in the president’s mind.
He recognizes only clients, rivals and enemies. It is possible to move between those categories by deploying flattery and offering favors. However, durable alignment based on mutual interest, legally binding treaty obligations and democratic values is a model that no longer has currency in the White House.
That is a tremendous boost to the geopolitical ambitions of Russia and China. It vindicates a vicious might-is-right approach to international relations. It legitimates the kind of imperialistic land grab that Russian President Vladimir Putin is pursuing in Ukraine. For Beijing, an age of US unreliability offers lucrative avenues of economic and strategic expansion. China sees a vacancy for itself as the world’s most predictable superpower.
There is a common rationalization that explains his recklessness as opening moves in a negotiation. His most outlandish ideas, such as US appropriation of Gaza, are thus sanitized as the freewheeling improvisations of a “transactional” businessman. He is cast as a master of brinkmanship who uses shock and chaos to wrongfoot opponents before settling, in the end, for more sober outcomes.
That analysis looks increasingly naive, even if it tallies with the president’s self-image. He might think he is just doing “deals,” but others should be clear that the correct terms are coercion and extortion.
There are plenty of examples from history of capricious potentates spreading disorder in their own territories and abroad. There is no precedent for that happening to the world’s most powerful democracy, and no playbook to guide that country’s former allies in handling the situation. However, one thing is now clear — hoping Trump’s US might be cajoled into following the old rules is not a safe strategy.
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