TRUMP'S MOVING MESSAGE

Invented Power over Real People

QUESTION RE: GAZA: "Taken under what authority? It is sovereign territory."

TRUMP: "Under the US authority."

That exchange came near the end of a prolonged Oval Office “pool spray” with President Trump and King Abdullah of Jordan.

The King is in town to ameliorate Trump as best he can while the President pursues his *supposedly* cockamamie plan to ethnically cleanse the Gaza Strip of approximately two million people and convert its beachfront property into a post-Palestinian paradise.

I liveblogged the spray in its entirety. … and his assertion of a new authority, a.k.a. “the US authority” … was just one of many striking statements that would’ve seemed surreal coming from any other President’s maw. In other words, it wasn’t. It’s starting to feel almost normal. Or maybe I now know what’s coming and I’m able to brace for the impact?

It is surreal, however, to ponder the possibility he might actually use that mythological “authority” to “take ownership” over the Gaza without having to “buy anything.” Said Trump, "we're going to have it, and we're going to keep it" and "nobody's going to question it."

“It's going to be a diamond.”

When asked about the problem of moving the people who live in Gaza, Trump reassured the world that Gazans are an ethnicity looking for a clean getaway from the scene of many crimes. He said, "they don't want to be there ... they are only there because they have no alternative" … “they don't know anything else" ... "no where in the world is as dangerous as the Gaza Strip ... they are living in hell ... it's a death trap."

Repeatedly pressed about Gazans’ resistance to be ethnically cleansed, Trump defaulted to a version of the Field Of Dreams defense; “if I build it, they will come.”

In this case, it would be a Parcel Of Dreams, as in "a parcel of land in Egypt and a parcel of land in Jordan." He spoke of “tremendous support” from a large number of unnamed countries. He also defended the logic and the logistics of ethnically cleansing a heavily traumatized population with emotional ties to their embattled homeland. Don’t worry, Trump cooed, "we're moving them to a beautiful location where they'll have new homes, they'll have medical and all of those things and I think it’s gonna be great!"

Near the end, an Arabic-speaking reporter asked, “How are you going to force them if they don't want to leave," to which he quipped, “I think they're going to be very happy."

He’s thinks they are going to be “very happy.” Perhaps he’s right. They may have no feelings of nationalism or patriotism. They may have no ethnic identity or religious affinity. If he is right, they’re also indifferent to their geography, care little for their history and they’re one Trail of Tears away from overcoming decades of grievance and humiliation. If Trump is right, they’ll welcome other people in other countries making momentous decisions that will fundamentally change their lives for generations to come.

And he knows all this without any input from an actual Gazan.

That’s the real takeaway from today’s pool spray … because there is nothing more telling than Trump never once citing a single Gazan who approves off his plan for their lives. He never said he is planning to meet with or talk to Gazans about his plan for their lives. He never once mentioned giving them a seat at the table.

But he's met and talked to Bibi. Today he met with the King of Jordan. He's already talked to al-Sisi in Egypt and will meet with him in the coming days. Apparently there will be a meeting that includes the Saudis.

But the people in question--the Gazans--have not been consulted or queried or cajoled or, it seems, even considered.

Trump is twisting the arms of potential hosts for his beautiful ethnic cleansing parcel of paradise.

But he doesn't have to convince the people of Gaza? Or ask them for permission to decide their future on their behalf?

Why is that?

Why is his indifference to their right to determine their own destiny somehow not the drumbeat of every pool spray and presser? Why isn’t it the centerpiece of every cable news panel discussion or Op-Ed? Why is this glaring omission treated like a banal fact of life?

Is that just a tacit admission that they have no rights?

Maybe that's why he doesn't care. The reality is that he doesn't have to care. The Palestinians in Gaza have no recourse or protection from the whims of external powers. International law is meaningless if the US ignores it. Clearly, the future of Gazans is subject to the power of “the US Authority.”

Not surprisingly, Trump also brandished the business end “the US Authority” when he reiterated his “high noon “ ultimatum to Hamas. Release the hostages, or else. He also made it clear he's operating under the assumption they will not release the hostages and that the ceasefire will fail.

Maybe it was even destined or designed to fail? Get out as many hostages as you can and then resume bombing, particularly with the 2,000 lb. behemoths Trump is lavishing on the IDF.

Maybe he's not talking to Gazans because the bombs are going to do the talking for him. It could be that he's banking on more suffering, more amputations or more dead kids to motivate the people. Just wait for the IDF to break them.

Maybe that's all the persuasion he and the Israelis need. Either whole families move or whole families die. As far as Netanyahu's government and Evangelical Americans are concerned ... their goal is met either way … and the goal is to cleanse the land of people God doesn’t like … so he can replace them with people he loves. And God wants to reward them with beachfront property in the Mediterranean ... you know, so they can manifest their destiny.

Maybe Trump is treating the Gazans like little more than biological material that needs to be removed because that’s what he knows. That is exactly how American settlers and their government viewed Native Americans when they lived on land Americans’ coveted. Many of them also believed God was a real estate agent. God repeatedly had some beautiful homesteads to show them … each time just a little further out west. They just had to evict the heathens. So, maybe it’s no coincidence that Israeli settlers and their champions in the Israeli government feel the same way. After all, Israel is just franchising the US model … which makes sense when you realize many settlers come from the boroughs of New York. They learned from the best.