Trump’s Apparent Gaza Scheme Endangers His Entire Legacy

Dropping bombshells is always better than dropping literal bombs. But President Donald Trump’s pronouncement that “the U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip” may be too close for comfort.

Standing next to Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump laid out his new plan to take possession of the 140-square-mile strip of land, clear out the tens of millions of tons of debris caused by the 15-month Israel–Hamas war, and economically develop it through nation-building.

“We’ll own it. And be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous, unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site. Level the site, and get rid of the destroyed buildings. Level it out, create an economic development that will supply unlimited numbers of jobs and housing for the people of the area,” Trump said.

And the current occupants, the roughly 1.8 million Palestinians who have survived the war? “If we can get a beautiful area to resettle people permanently in nice homes where they can be happy and not be shot and not be killed,” Trump said, suggesting “areas where the leaders currently say no.”

This is a proposal that’s long been recycled by Zionists and just as long rejected by Arab governments and the Palestinians. But this is the first time the idea has been formally proposed by a U.S. president, and the first time a president has declared an intention to officially annex a portion of the Middle East.

“I do see a long-term ownership position, and I see it bringing great stability to that part of the Middle East, and maybe the entire Middle East,” Trump said.

When asked directly whether U.S. troops would be deployed to Gaza, the president replied, “As far as Gaza is concerned, we’ll do what is necessary. If it’s necessary, we’ll do that.”

I believe a U.S. military invasion of Gaza is as likely as B-52s bombing Toronto—like his boisterous declarations to make Canada the 51st state, it’s more jawing of the sort we’ve all come to expect from Donald Trump. I need to believe that because the alternative is too ghoulish to contemplate.

Even Senator Lindsey Graham, arguably the most adamant Zionist on Capitol Hill—“I may have the first all-Jewish cabinet in America because of the pro-Israel funding”—stepped away from Trump’s proposal as too fantastical.

“I think that would be an interesting proposal. We’ll see what our Arab friends say about that. I think most South Carolinians would probably not be excited about sending Americans to take over Gaza. It might be problematic,” Graham hedged. “That would be a tough place to be stationed as an American.”

He’s underselling it. Israel deployed tens of thousands of soldiers in their attempt to pacify and depopulate the Gaza Strip; they sustained this minimal amount of manpower by heavily relying on airpower, drones, and artillery to target civilians and Hamas fighters indiscriminately.

The British non-profit Airwars, which has tracked civilian casualties from drones and bombings in the Middle East since 2014, concluded in their narrow study of just October 2023 that “By almost every metric, the harm to civilians from the first month of the Israeli campaign in Gaza is incomparable with any 21st century air campaign. It is by far the most intense, destructive, and fatal conflict for civilians that Airwars has ever documented.” Rinse and repeat for the next fifteen months.

The United States military (rightfully) has much stricter rules for engagement. Not only to engage in counterinsurgency operations against Hamas, but to commit the horrific action of ethnically cleansing 1.8 million civilians from the area, would require a massive military deployment comparable to the Iraq War (with corresponding casualties).

Just hours before the Trump/Netanyahu press conference, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth proudly announced that January 2025 was the best recruiting month for the U.S. Army in fifteen years, crediting President Trump’s “America First leadership.”

Did those young men sign up in anticipation of another bloody war of choice, or because they had momentary hope that if they put their lives on the line for their country they’d be treated more thoughtfully than by Trump’s predecessors?

The president acknowledged that recent history in his remarks. “I think a lot of bad leadership has taken place in the Middle East that’s allowed this to happen, it’s just terrible. And that includes on the American side by the way. We should have never gone in there a long time ago, spent trillions of dollars and created so much death. So that includes Americans,” he said, standing next to one of those notoriously bad leaders.

The White House has now rhetorically aligned itself with the most diabolical segment of Israeli politics. Itamar Ben-Gvir, who served as Minister of National Security in Netanyahu’s cabinet until his abrupt resignation last month in outraged opposition to the ceasefire agreement, tweeted “Donald, this looks like the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

Ben-Gvir, however, has much more in common with Major Strasser than Rick Blaine. This is the man who defended spitting on Christian worshipers. He is the face of Kahanism in Israel and the push for full expulsion of non-Jews.

Continued American participation in this project would not only be a betrayal of the America First lineage, but a complete subversion of the conservative conception of the nation.

In Donald Trump’s vision, the end goal for Gaza is the importation of a multicultural melting pot into whatever res of the Palestinian homeland. “I think the entire world, representatives from all over the world, will be there, and they’ll live there. Palestinians, also, Palestinians will live there. Many people will live there.” Has the epigram “Invade the World, Invite the World” ever been more appropriate?

Steve Witkoff, Trump’s Special Envoy to the Middle East who negotiated the January ceasefire and hostage exchange, told Fox News, “Peace in the region means a better life for Palestinians—a better life is not necessarily tied to the physical space that you are in today. A better life is about better opportunity, better financial conditions, better aspirations for you and your family.” Is there a mindset more hostile to the conservative understanding of human nature than Witkoff’s reduction of man to a rootless, economic animal unmoored from history, family, land, language, and God?

A nationalist respects the self-determination of all the world’s people; a globalist, none of them.

The principal reason I am skeptical that Trump’s Gaza plan can materialize is there is not sufficient political capital for an exercise as gargantuan and demanding as this. American attitudes have shifted too far away from the large-scale Middle East deployments of the Global War on Terror. Just this week, the Virginia House of Delegates unanimously voted that their National Guard would not be deployed into overseas combat unless Congress first declared war.

Since January 20, Republicans have been exuberant over the decisive and effective action Donald Trump has taken in excising ideological enemies from the federal bureaucracy and accelerating the deportation of illegal aliens. But that domestic program may just as quickly sink into the bottomless sands of the Middle East.

The American Conservative’s Executive Director Curt Mills was correct when he told Tucker Carlson after the inauguration, “It is an actual choice. We cannot do the border if we do the Middle East.”

In the lead-up to the Iraq War, opponents quipped that a person could either prioritize Baghdad or their own backyard, but not both. Today, we can say that Americans must either put their attention towards Gaza or the Rio Grande. But not both.

If nothing tangible comes from this press conference, it will not be the first Trump proposal to never move beyond bloviation. But right now, the people of Gaza have a real ceasefire and Benjamin Netanyahu has just words. Let us pray it stays that way.