Paul Rotenbergedits the Toronto Zionist Council weekly newsletter Israel and the Jewish World.. His third daughters has begun her service in the IDF. May Hashem protect all those who defend israel.
It is easy to understand President Trump’s proposal re: Gaza. For years all the proposals from authoritative sources that offer peace with Gaza have included removing the terror civilization, but none of them have hit the mainstream media which makes this appear to be a total rethinking of the solution to the perpetual violence emanating from Gaza. This proposal, that the USA adopt an active role in the form of control of Gaza does separate Trump’s proposal from all the rest.
This very feature took both politics and the media by storm and produced acres of print for and against the idea. By and large the perspective taken has been immediate and short term, as the proposal timeline has been. However the proposal is a long term proposal, Gaza will not be rebuilt in 2 years, it will take 10 or 20, and the American presence will be equally long so it must be considered in that context.
Trump’s proposal is a no-brainer. He loves game changing strategies, for all the right reasons, they destroy the restrictive encumbrances of repeatedly recycled failed efforts. This proposal also gives the USA a coveted goldmine in international power brokerage – a Mediterranean port. The Russians have tried for decades to secure such a prize, first in their losing efforts in Egypt before 1967, then with the same tactics in Syria. The USA lost their purchase in Haifa when Israel signed the port management over to China. This proposal and a Gaza port is part of a serious global military strategy. It is also highly inappropriate.
There is nothing in Israel’s history in Gaza that would preclude Israel from overseeing the future of Gaza. In fact, everything Israel has ever done there indicates that Israel best understands the natural, economic, and social potential and realities of Gaza better than anyone else. Israel has a history and potential to make Gaza blossom as it never has under any other sovereignty. Israel has also paid for Gaza, again, in absolute terms with the lives of IDF soldiers and Israeli civilians, for the umpteenth time, making it perfectly reasonable for Israel to retain control and sovereignty in Gaza.
After Israel has removed the scourge that has been Gaza, at its own “expense”, it is a bully move for the USA to step in and say “we’ll take that now.” That is the short term.
In the long term it is also potentially explosive for at least 2 reasons. Firstly, friends across the ocean is one thing, friends on the same small piece of property is another. It may work well in the cleanup, but the tensions change significantly when the decisions need to be made as to what will be built there and who will be doing the planning, the building, the living and working there. It is not a good idea to put an American elephant beside the Israeli menagerie, even, or especially if it is led by the Lion of Judah.
Secondly, the entire situation becomes more fraught, and even intolerable, when the elephant changes his ideas or becomes the donkey of Obama’s 4th term in a future election. In the past 16 years, 12 have been Obama years that have shown that American elections or electors can be very fickle and the more distance Israel can maintain from the USA the better. Israel can not afford to give away the long term future, with a hateful US administration in Gaza, for an easy path in the very short term, however persuasive or threatening Trump is.
“President Trump, we have fought for this, we have paid for it repeatedly, and been denied. We have won it again and this time we are keeping it.”
At the same time, in the same long term context, it would be just as short sighted to not recognize advantage of an American presence in Gaza. The possibility that Israel’s greatest threat coming out of the present war against Iran could be Egypt, who have managed a cold peace brilliantly, if hostilities with Israel are the plan.
Their troops have trained simulated attacks on Israel, they have constructed multiple tunnels big enough to drive tanks through under the Suez Canal, a highway road network across the Sinai to israel with a major fuel depot along the way, all in the demilitarized Sinai that has become thoroughly militarized under the guise of stopping illegal drug and migration activities in Gaza, which continues unabated, even as Egypt profited handsomely supplying Hamas in Gaza with massive quantities of arms to fight Israel, through a second extensive network of tunnels under the blockaded Philadelphi corridor. Some peace partner.
Israel could benefit greatly from having the USA with boots on the ground in Gaza, smiling southward. But not as a sovereign.
Leadership is challenging as there are many big and small decisions to be made every day. Prime Minister Netanyahu is faced with that very publicly on this issue. There are people suggesting that the proposal to make Gaza American is so radical it should be ignored, it can never happen.
Ignore President Trump’s radical ideas at your own peril because they have a way of becoming reality, as there is solid logic and good reasoning behind them. It would be foolish to deny the immediate logic and solid reasoning behind this one, but there are much better long term solutions.
They all, however, start with the total removal of the terrorist threat from Gaza.