I Defended Israel Against Misguided "Imperialism" Accusations. Then POTUS Declared American Imperialism on Gaza.

Photo credit: Jeremy Kamali

For years, and in the last year and a half especially, I have spent a lot of time and energy defending the Jewish homeland against accusations from the severely misinformed. Much of the hateful rhetoric became front-and-center after October 7th, when we began to hear it constantly over social media and out in public. They would use terms like “settler-colonialism” and “imperialism” to describe Israel and Jews, and it was easy enough to explain why those characterizations were grossly inaccurate. If they took the time to learn the relevant history, they would know that Israel’s is nothing like that of the United States. I even devoted an entire series on this very publication to combat that type of misinformation.

Now, we all have the President of the United States to thank for giving these anti-Israel talking points actual legitimacy.

First, let me back up to Bibi’s most recent visit to the White House, where this “plan” for Gaza was announced. I couldn’t help but notice that the press conference in the Oval Office featured a significant number of Israeli reporters representing Israeli news stations. I found it curious that they would make such a long journey to see their own PM speak in a foreign country, but didn’t think much of it until the following exchange:

Israeli reporter: PM, what about the Israeli hostage held in Iraq?

Bibi: What about the Israeli press taking a press conference in Israel and not in Washington?

Israeli reporters (yelling in unison): We would LOVE to take a press conference in Israel to interview you, but you won’t.

The hostility of the Israeli press towards Bibi is very real. Because clearly, the PM is two-faced, with one persona that he puts out to his own country, and another that he produces for an international audience. They’re different, but it all amounts to the same stereotype of the Deceitful Jew.

Here is Trump’s stated vision for Gaza. I’m just reproducing his own words verbatim:

If you look over the decades, it’s all death in Gaza. If we can get a beautiful area to resettle people permanently in nice homes where they can be happy and not be shot, not be killed, not be knifed to death like what’s happening in Gaza. Right now in Gaza you have a dangerous situation with explosives all over the place, in terms of tunnels, nobody knows who’s in the tunnels. The whole thing is a mess. And I think that if we can resettle—and I believe we can do it in areas where the leaders are currently saying no.

[…]

The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip. 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.

How interesting that the leader of the free world is stating positions that up until now, only the most far-right fringe types openly expressed: remove them all and build. This plan would apparently involve moving the roughly 2 million people living in Gaza to new houses replete with sunshine and rainbows—where exactly, no one knows. How lucky is Netanyahu right now? The leader of the free world is doing all of his bidding without him having to open his mouth!

I am hardly in a position to speak on the wants and needs of actual Gazans, yet I find it hilarious how Trump is attempting to do it, clearly without having talked to any. In general, when a world leader speaks for a particular group of people as part of a major announcement, it’s best to have at least one representative of said group in the room with them. I know the knee-jerk response to that: “but it’s not about the interests of the enemies of the U.S., it’s about our own.” Well, yes, but the following two things cannot be true at the same time: 1) we are taking over Gaza and displacing 2 million people to make Gazans safer; and 2) the situation befalling the Gazan people is their own fault for starting the war and propping up terrorists, so they deserve to be punished. Those two ideas cannot co-exist side-by-side in such a vision.

I would like to remind everyone that the Israel-Hamas War is not over. At the time of this writing, Hamas still controls Gaza and is still holding 76 hostages, including two children under the age of 6. Hamas is not yet destroyed, despite that being one of Israel’s stated war goals. I think we can all agree that for any post-war plan to work, Hamas must be out of power.

As for me, I care far more about the security of the nation on the Jewish side of that fence. I do not speak for ordinary Gazans and I have no idea what any of them envision for themselves after the war ends. But should my own country get involved in human resettlement and post-war nation-building to the benefit of the Trump family’s real estate empire, what exactly does that make us? There’s definitely a word for it.

After the severe public backlash to Trump’s original stated plan, his administration has suddenly shifted the conversation to what the plan is not:

• It will not involve American troops on the ground.

• It will not happen with American taxpayer money.

• It will not involve permanent displacement or expulsion.

So what exactly is it, then? Beyond the goal of the Trump family real estate development opportunity, I’m not really seeing the vision. Instead, I feel as if I’m watching a brutal game of political ping-pong, with American Jews like me playing the part of the ball being smashed around from side to side. And maybe that’s all part of the plan.