by Dr. Meir Seidler, Senior Lecturer in the Jewish Heritage Department of Ariel University in the Shomron, translated by Hillel Fendel.
This past Tuesday evening, I set
myself down in front of the TV and internet screens, and prepared myself for a
long night.
The last time I remember doing
something like that was when I was a boy and my parents gave me special
permission to stay up to watch the legendary late-night championship fight
between Muhammed Ali and Joe Frazier. And here it was, over 50 years later, and
it was happening again.
This time, too, I watched and
listened up to the end, jumping from one channel to another internet site and
back again. I started with my favorite station, Reshet Bet, the news and talk
station of the Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation. It has a large
selection of broadcasters who enjoy frustrating and angering me and my fellow
nationalists. And since, like most Israelis, I like to get angry, I listen to
Reshet Bet a lot. This particular time Reshet Bet was producing a special
Trump-Netanyahu summit broadcast.
The atmosphere its broadcasters
emitted was one of depression, something between extreme sourness and heavy mourning.
The main topic discussed for many minutes at the beginning was Netanyahu's "betrayal"
of Biden. That is, Trump had said that, in contrast with Biden, he himself
supported Israel absolutely and without reservations – and Netanyahu did not
come out in Biden's defense! Yes, I'm serious: The Reshet Bet journalists felt
that the most important thing to talk about at this time was why Netanyahu
didn't have a good word for Biden. In any event, the real news – the
Trump-Netanyahu meeting and subsequent press conference – soon pushed even the critical
topic of Netanyahu and Biden to the back burners, and the real show began.
And what do you know? Trump took the
whole world by surprise. The plan that he came up with was something that we
really hadn't thought of. He explained, perhaps three times, that the reason he
wanted the U.S. to essentially border Israel is that the world can't go on making
the same mistakes again and again, when all they lead to is more war and more
suffering. When you think about it, what he said was totally logical. War,
ceasefire, rebuilding, rearming, war, ceasefire, rebuilding, rearming, and so
on, over and over. What business that wants to remain competitive would ever
adopt a business model like that, one that has failed time after time?
Countries from all over the world
have invested large fortunes of money in what has been called, in accordance
with the best Orwellian tradition, the "peace process." These monies
ended up supporting not housing and reparations, but only one thing: Arab
aggression that has become increasingly more brutal and has brought upon us
never-ending rounds of war. One round barely ends before the next one appears
on the horizon. Just in the last 15 years we have seen Operations Cast Lead,
Pillar of Cloud, and Protective Edge, then the fighting accompanying the 2021
Israeli-Arab revolt, Operation Summer Rains, and more.
And now comes along Donald Trump with
a vision that no one thought of; he himself could not have imagined it up until
possibly a year ago. His creative plan is to turn the Gaza Strip not into the
51st state of the United States, but something close: a beautiful
shoreline front of American-built and American-owned hotels, where "anyone
who wants to" can live, presumably after having been vetted for terrorist
backgrounds and the like.
And here must be said something that has not yet been said outright, but appears to me to be quite obvious: The Trump Gaza Plan will include the establishment of an American military base offshore of the Mediterranean Sea (or perhaps on the beach). This explains why Trump is pushing this plan so enthusiastically. It's not because he has become a Messianic evangelical who wishes to help Israel even more than Israel itself asked for. He's still the same businessman he always was – but now he is more creative and has the resources of a superpower in his pocket. This is a golden opportunity for the United States to improve its strategic status in our region. It's the kind of thing that happens once in a century – and it happened precisely when Trump was elected President with his Make American Great Again program atop the agenda. How wondrous are G-d's ways!
The U.S. military base will benefit
from a friendly neighborhood, and of course will leave plenty of space for a
tourism paradise on the beach. All this will supply the "thousands of
jobs" that Trump promised – and there is no doubt that he will give
priority to Israeli workers over Arabs, who are liable to turn hostile at any
given moment.
This is also what stands behind the
weakest link in Trump's plan: the transfer of all or most of the residents of
Gaza to other countries. But even this part of the plan can become realistic. Given
the tremendous interest that the U.S. has in implementing this tremendous
strategic upgrade, and also the no-less tremendous aid that American provides
Egypt, it is very likely that a solution will be found for the transfer. This
is true especially when the countries of the region wake up to the tremendous
economic potential for everyone when the dollars start pouring in. Egyptian and
other workers will be glad to receive American salaries in order to build the
grandiose American project that will take shape here. This is a dream that with
G-d's help can and will come true!
We can only hope that in the
framework of this unexpected plan – and of course given the most recent
developments sparked by Hamas' threats and Trump's bellicose response – all the
hostages will be freed before it's too late. Hopefully, the leaders of Hamas
will be made to realize that they have no hope of remaining alive if they do
not release the hostages. We can only pray that this works out, under the
guiding hand of the Leader of History in Whose hands are placed the hearts of kings
(see Proverbs 21,1). May it be soon!