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PaperclipPerfector  9mo ago (text post)   36994 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 3, 2025

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Trump, in Shock Announcement, Says U.S. Will Take Over Gaza After Permanently Displacing Palestinians

U.S. President Donald Trump made the shocking announcement on Tuesday during a joint press conference with visiting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he will pursue a plan where the U.S. assumes ownership of Gaza, shortly after calling for the permanent displacement of the Strip's residents.

"The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip and we'll do a good job with it too. We'll own it and be responsible for dismantling all the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site, level the site and get rid of the destroyed buildings, level it out and create economic development that will supply unlimited numbers of jobs and housing for the people of the area," he said.

When asked if this meant that Trump would send U.S. troops to Gaza, he said "if it's necessary, we'll do that. We're gonna take over that piece and develop it, create thousands and thousands of jobs. It will be something the entire Middle East can be very proud of."

Now there are a few problems with this. One is that Egypt and Jordan, the obvious candidates, are absolutely against it. Second is that it will be horribly embarrassing when an American soldier gets blown up by unexploded American ordnance that was donated to Israel. It's also somewhat incoherent - he's going to make it into some kind of big multicultural party zone?

"I envision the world's people living there. You'll make it into an international, unbelievable place. The entire world will be there - Palestinians also - many people will live there.

The US does have lots of leverage over Egypt though, their economy has been on the cusp of collapse for a while now. So maybe Trump's increased willingness to deploy coercion will bear fruit here.

Sounds like Trump wants to turn Gaza into a kind of international zone of centuries past (maybe post war occupation Japan is a better analogy)? Honestly, not a terrible idea when compared with every other option available. Of course, it can easily go horribly horribly wrong but literally every other idea seems equally likely to be horrible.

shortly after calling for the permanent displacement of the Strip's residents.

I hate hate hate modern journalism. At no point (at least based on the words actually said as reported in article) does Trump actually call for displacement of Palestinians. He is calling for the construction of an international zone in Gaza, which will include the local Palestinians. He is also calling for the creation of something like special economic zones for Gazan migrants in nearby (?) countries, this is honestly super unclear.

Trump is calling for a loss of sovereignity for Gazan and its inhabitants, which is arguably a bad thing (depending on your perspective), but at no point is he straight up calling for displacement. And honestly, Gaza has limited sovereignty anyway, and what sovereignty they do have is largely exerted by a terrorist group.

This is one of those times when people's ignorance of history is actually important rather than a meme. Palestinians will never trust that displacement isn't permanent, that's sort of their whole thing. No Palestinian who gets herded into a camp in Egypt or Jordan would really expect a Right of Return, and they'd be stupid to expect it.

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