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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.

...Damn. I have honestly pondered whether or not putting all of Israel-Palestine under American control so as to keep the Israelis and Palestinians from hating each other for long enough would actually be an improvement. Never thought anyone would actually even consider something in the ballpark of that idea, though.

Why? What's the point?

Should the US go in and annex the Congo and Rwanda to stop them fighting? Should America get involved in Ngorno-Karabakh? Annex Kurdistan and sort things out? Go into Kashmir? Annex Donbass?

Even if the US had the military-political power to 'fix' these things, which is very dubious... why even try? What does it gain for the US? How are US interests at stake in these places, such that the effort expended and risks incurred would be commensurate with the gains?

If someone on the other side of the city has a feud with his drug dealer/girlfriend/gambling partner/brother there's no reason to join this fight and impose yourself as judge and arbiter. It's a lot of work for no payoff. You'd need to be Superman to get away with it. And Superman would be bitterly resented even if everyone had no choice to tremble and obey.

And if you're not Superman...

The time to not get involved was generations ago, you must realize. There is little will to become uninvolved; therefore, one must either live with the current level of involvement (mild, but still causes issues here at home), or get more involved (painful and intense, but has the potential to end the issue for good).

I would contend that it actually does serve US interests because the status quo keeps causing issues for us. Downstream effects, the flap of a butterfly's wings, and so on. I made a similar point in response to 2rafa about the desire to just ignore Chinese aspirations to hegemony in favor of trying to focus on domestic issues: ignoring the outside world may actually make it harder to fix problems at home. If you let chaos fester far away, it will probably find you at home.

Firstly "putting all of Israel-Palestine under American control so as to keep the Israelis and Palestinians from hating each other for long enough" would make it extremely difficult to do anything about China.

Secondly, chaos finds its way to America precisely because of its support for Israel. First World Trade Centre bombing motive? US support for Israel. 9/11? Osama Bin Laden was heavily influenced by his anger over US support for Israel.