I said today on Facebook: “Annoying to always be right and ahead of the times.” I apologise if the sentence reveals a slightly arrogant undertone, but given the predictability of legacy media journalists’ reporting, this is quite often true. About nine hours ago I posted on Facebook perfectly anticipating how journalists would write about President Trump’s proposal for a US military takeover of Gaza.

President Trump said in a press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the US would play a key role in the management and reconstruction of post-war Gaza. This is another excellent example of Trump’s bold and innovative thinking, albeit one that provides a delicious opportunity for journalists to smear Trump again. Journalists live under the delusion that when things are done the way they used to be, all is well in the kingdom (without even trying to learn anything from the mistakes of history). Take, for example, the two-state model that has been chanted for the last 30 years, and if it hasn’t worked, the blame has been laid at the door of Israel or Netanyahu’s government, Israel’s settlement policy in the West Bank, etc., but never at the door of Israel’s opponents, who have not been prepared to give up their terrorism and hatred of the Jews.

But it is better that the US be given some (at least temporary) role in the management of Gaza, just as the US had a role in the reconstruction of Japan and Germany after World War II. Elon Musk too has often compared the situation in Gaza to World War II, because Germany and Japan were also very radical countries saturated with Jew-hatred and anti-Americanism, but today they are the main allies and friends of Jews and America. This was only possible because the Allies militarily defeated the Axis powers and offered to help rebuild the countries after the war (which included a reformed education system). Indeed, a big part of the problem is the education in Gaza, saturated with Islamic radicalism, which has been fuelling Arabs Jew-hatred in the region since the kindergarten. This only ensures that the country remains in a supra-generational spiral of hatred and revenge where all Gazan Arab resources go into building tunnels and manufacturing missiles, rather than into providing better education and better socio-economic conditions for their own people. If the people of Gaza had used those resources constructively, they could have competed with Israel to see who could get to the moon first, for example.

Not long after, Reuters published the following headline: “Trump’s proposal for Gaza as ‘Middle East Riviera’ draws global condemnation.” The article went on to say how Trump’s proposals posed a threat to the two-state “solution” and how the president’s proposals to resettle Palestinians in Gaza in surrounding Arab countries could mean a “new Nakba”, referring to the expulsion of Palestinian Arabs from Israel after the 1948-49 War of Independence (although this only affected some of the Arabs in the country, who often left voluntarily, as 20% of Israel’s population are still Arabs today with full civil rights). But by my foreknowledge I was referring not only how the mainstream journalists would report on Trump’s Gaza plans, but also how I myself predicted Trump administration’s Middle East policy turn about three weeks ago, when I posted on Facebook regarding the latest ceasefire:

Many have wondered why Israel just agreed to the disastrous peace deal with Hamas, where only 33 Israeli hostages would be returned to Israel (with no guarantees whether they are alive or not) and where Israel would have to withdraw from a large part of Gaza and release the Hamas terrorists involved in the October 7 terror attack. While President Trump has endorsed the deal and the Biden administration has tried to take credit for it, I think something else is going on behind the scenes. Trump has been saying for several weeks that unless Hamas returns ALL the hostages they kidnapped by his inauguration day, “All hell will break loose”. I find it hard to believe that a strong leader and friend of Israel like Trump would allow Hamas to get away with it. So it is worth watching the weeks after Trump’s inauguration, because this could be a diversion to make Hamas believe that Israel is withdrawing from the war.

Indeed, the agreement was a diversion in the sense that the Trump administration did not intend to leave Israel in this unfavourable negotiating position, which could have been broken at any time and the security of Israeli citizens would have been jeopardised once again. Jerusalem Post columnist Alex Winston speculated today that Trump’s proposal on the Gaza Strip was not a serious proposal but part of the Trump negotiating tactics that characterised Trump’s policy already in his first term. I quote part of this article:

US President Donald Trump dropped a bombshell on Tuesday when he announced that the United States will take over the Gaza Strip for the foreseeable future.

With his declaration, the president has once again thrown a diplomatic grenade into the Middle East conversation – not a particularly quiet region at the best of times and one beset by 15 months of war.

The proposal – one that envisions the US developing Gaza, creating jobs, and turning it into an international hub – immediately triggered widespread backlash. The Palestinians see it as a veiled attempt at forced displacement, Israel remains cautious, and Arab states like Egypt and Jordan swiftly rejected the idea.

On the face of it, the plan is not remotely feasible. The US military occupying Gaza is a logistical and political nightmare. Some 20 years of experience in dealing with Iraq and Afghanistan will have taught the upper echelons in the Pentagon that Arab states would never publicly accept a mass Palestinian exodus onto their soil.

Even Israel, despite its frustration with Hamas, understands the consequences of such a move.

This is Trumpian negotiation 101, lifted straight from his 1987 book The Art of the Deal.

In his world, you start with an extreme demand – one that is so outrageous it shifts the boundaries of what was previously considered possible. Then, when the inevitable pushback comes, you negotiate down to something that, while far less extreme than your initial position, is still a big win. You aim for 100, knowing that landing at 50 is still a success.

TRUMP’S TRACK record in real estate and politics could suggest that his goal isn’t to occupy Gaza – it’s to force neighboring Arab nations, who have up until now dragged their feet, to take a more active role in solving the crisis. His assumption? That the shock of such a radical proposal will jolt Egypt, Jordan, and the Gulf states into stepping up in ways they have so far refused to.

For decades, Arab nations have loudly supported the Palestinian cause, but they have done little to materially improve the situation in Gaza beyond funneling money to Hamas.

Egypt, which once ruled Gaza, keeps its border tightly sealed, building barriers that make Israel’s security walls look lenient by comparison. Jordan, already home to a massive Palestinian population, wants no part of an influx from Gaza. Meanwhile, wealthy Gulf states, despite their enormous resources, have largely avoided offering Palestinian refugees permanent resettlement or serious infrastructure investments in Gaza.

By throwing out a seemingly preposterous plan, Trump may be forcing these countries to react – if only to reject his idea and propose an alternative. Suddenly, discussions about how to rebuild Gaza, who will govern it, and where displaced Palestinians might go shift from a vague, open-ended conversation to one with real stakes.

While Winston may well be right about this, I would not be so sure about his conclusion: ” The chances of the US taking over Gaza are close to zero. The idea is riddled with insurmountable obstacles.” The author’s point is essentially that taking over Gaza would be too risky for the US and contradicts Trump’s campaign policy of “America First”, which sought to avoid getting the country involved in the “never-ending” wars in the Middle East in order to use its resources instead to secure its own borders and the welfare of its own citizens.

But I have often said before that Trump was never a supporter of a paleoconservative isolationist policy where the US would withdraw from its role as a global superpower and world power. President Trump was not opposed to America’s wars per se, but to America’s “stupid wars”. By this he was referring to wars that only strengthened America’s enemies and were very destructive to American moral and military supremacy. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, for example, were intended to defeat Islamic terrorism, but instead succeeded only in strengthening it, with ISIS eventually taking power in Iraq after the Americans withdrew and the Taliban retaking Afghanistan. Below is a video I posted in August 2022 of this Biden administration’s Afghanistan fiasco:

As Trump’s campaign slogan put it, Trump’s goal was to “Make America Great Again”. This means making America great also in the international arena. America could not be great if it withdrew from the world to its pre-World War II and World War I state where it stayed completely out of overseas wars. Indeed, America only became a global superpower with the Second World War, when it defeated Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. For the same reason, Trump also first announced the massive Stargate project where Washington invested $500 billion in the country’s artificial intelligence infrastructure, which has already been compared to the World War II-era Manhattan Project that led to the creation of the atomic bomb. Unlike some of his paleoconservative MAGA supporters, Trump is not either a Luddite who would seek to limit the dominance of the country’s tech sector but believes strengthening it is vital to beating China in the newly launched AI race. This is all perfectly in line with Trump’s ambition to make America great again because – as President Putin has said – “he who controls AI controls the world.”

President Trump’s recent statements in which he has threatened to take over the Panama Canal and Greenland, and even to make Canada the 51st state of the United States, follow exactly the same line. It has been quite hilarious to watch Trump’s defiance and the rather predictable reaction to it from the liberal left-wing media. I was recently voicing my slightly annoyed feelings about how many people who follow the secular media narrative find it so difficult to understand international power politics. While Trump’s provocative comments may be partly trolling and negotiating tactics, they also reflect the realism of our world that if America doesn’t rule the world, then China or Russia will. So which is better, that strategically important areas like Greenland or the Panama Canal (originally built and controlled by the US for most of the 1900s) end up with China, or that they end up with the US? Because China’s insidious seizure of them and their strategic importance to US security is now the reason the US is seeking to buy them from Panama and Denmark. In my video I stressed that it is in the interest of all democratic and free countries for the US to be great instead of China or Russia.

Similarly, the takeover of Gaza could be of great strategic value in strengthening the US’s position as a superpower. I asked ChatGPT what strategic benefits taking control of Gaza could have for the US superpower position, to which it offered the following 5 points:

Location: Gaza is located in the eastern Mediterranean, close to key areas of the Middle East. This location could provide the United States with a strategic base in the region, facilitating military and logistical operations in the Middle East and North Africa.

Power in the Middle East: By controlling Gaza, the United States could strengthen its influence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This could allow for a more active role in the peace process and in promoting regional stability.

Combating terrorism: Controlling Gaza could help the US control and deter the activities of terrorist groups in the region, thus contributing to both regional and global security.

Energy resources: Significant natural gas reserves have been discovered in the eastern Mediterranean. Control of Gaza could provide an opportunity for the United States to participate in the exploitation and management of these resources, thereby strengthening its energy independence and economic influence.

Humanitarian impact: US-led reconstruction and economic development of Gaza could improve living conditions in the region, which could enhance the US reputation as a global philanthropist and soft power.

I followed up my curiosity with the following question:“What if we take into account the network of trade routes from India to Europe planned by Israel and India?”

If we consider the control of Gaza in relation to the Israeli-Indian trade route network (the so-called IMEC project, India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor), US control of the region could offer several strategic advantages:

1. Gaza’s geopolitical position and the IMEC project

IMEC is designed to provide an alternative to the Chinese Silk Road by connecting Indian ports via the Middle East to Europe. The trade route would pass through the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Israel to Europe, with the development of Gaza and its ports making it a key hub.

If the US controlled Gaza, it could:

• Construct and control port infrastructure in Gaza, enabling its use as part of the IMEC route.
• Secure the security of the route and prevent the Gaza Strip from falling into the hands of Iranian-backed factions such as Hamas or Hezbollah.
• Enhance cooperation with Israel and India, which would improve the US economic and military position in the Middle East.

2. Alternative to the Suez Canal.

Egypt’s Suez Canal is one of the world’s most important sea routes, but it is prone to political disruption and bottlenecks. IMEC offers the possibility of a partial bypass of the Suez, and the port of Gaza could serve as a new transport hub in the Mediterranean.

• The US could develop the Gaza port as an alternative route to the Suez Canal, which would weaken the influence of Egypt and China in the region.
• The use of IMEC could speed up the flow of goods from Asia to Europe compared to the traditional sea route via the Suez.

3. Balancing force against the influence of Iran and China

The main benefit of the IMEC project is that it will reduce the influence of the China-led Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in the Middle East. If the US controlled Gaza:

• It could hinder Chinese economic expansion in the region, as China seeks to build its own port investments in the Middle East.
• It could limit the ability of Iran and its allies (Hamas, Hezbollah) to disrupt the route, as Iran is one of the main opponents of the IMEC project.

4. Economic and logistical advantages for the US.

The US could use Gaza:

• as a base for American companies to develop infrastructure for the IMEC route.
• A military and logistics hub to support US allies such as Israel and Saudi Arabia.
• As an investment zone, which would create new industry and jobs in Gaza, reducing political tensions and enabling the integration of the region into the wider economic network.

Conclusion

If the US were to take control of Gaza and integrate it into the IMEC project:

• It would strengthen the US global economic position and influence in the Middle East.
• It would provide a strategic bridgehead for trade between the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean.
• It would act as a counterweight to China and Iran, preventing their expansion in the region.

This would be reminiscent of the British strategy in Cyprus in the 19th century, when the British seized the island to protect sea routes to India and Egypt. Similarly, control of Gaza could serve as a modern version of imperialist control of trade routes, supporting US interests in 21st century superpower politics.

I already wrote more about this Israeli-Indian planned trade route in my blog in April 2024. I also referred to how these Middle Eastern trade routes have been driving some of the most significant events in history. For example, the closure of the medieval Silk Road by the Ottoman Turks led Christian powers like Spain and Portugal to seek alternative trade routes, which also led to the discovery of the Americas and the era of the great voyages of discovery. In the 19th century, the decline of Ottoman power led to the growing interest of great powers such as Britain and France in control of the Mediterranean and the Middle East, as ChatGPT noted above with reference to Cyprus, which was taken over by the British under the 1878 Berlin Congress agreements. Four years later, the British also took over Egypt as a result of the Anglo-Egyptian war, which launched British imperialist rule in Egypt that lasted until the 1956 Suez Crisis.

This British imperialist meddling in the Middle East ultimately led to the British occupation of Palestine, Iraq and Jordan at the end of World War I and the famous Balfour Declaration, which led to the creation of Israel and the Arab states of the Middle East. The United States has in many ways been seen as the heir to the British Empire, so it would be quite natural why the United States should now also seek a greater imperialist role and influence in the Middle East. After all, the US has been involved in Middle Eastern relations since at least the year 1953 when the CIA, together with Britain’s MI6, was involved in the overthrow of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadeq because of his decision to nationalise Iran’s oil resources, which threatened the British Anglo-Iranian Oil Company’s domination of the world oil market.

The Western powers’ dependence on Middle Eastern oil has been the main reason for their often arrogant policies in the Middle East. Today the US has already achieved energy independence and no longer needs to go to war in the Middle East over oil, as I wrote about in my January 2020 article President Trump just admitted that the US went to war in the Middle East over oil. But times have changed. But even if oil no longer draws America to the Middle East, it can now be drawn there by the aforementioned IMEC project and Israel’s leadership in the development of artificial intelligence (Israel has one of the largest concentrations of start-ups in the world and many of the world’s most important technological inventions were originally developed in Israel). If the US originally supported Israel only out of pity for Jewish refugees who survived the Holocaust, today it also benefits from that alliance itself in areas such as counter-terrorism, intelligence, and the growing importance of AI as a guarantor of national security.

Conclusion

In the light of the above facts and historical background, I could well come to the conclusion that President Trump’s proposal to take over Gaza was not a mere negotiating tactic, but a serious plan for a post-war crisis in Gaza, with strong US-Israeli cooperation. It is clear that under no circumstances will Israel accept an alternative in which Hamas returns to rule the Gaza Strip. This was Israel’s original objective in the Gaza war: the release of the hostages kidnapped by Hamas, the expulsion of Hamas from Gaza and the demilitarisation of the Gaza Strip. However, this objective will not remove the root of the problem unless Israel seeks to re-educate the Arabs of Gaza to remove anti-Semitism from its school curricula and mosque sermons, and offer them the prospect of economic prosperity.

However, a reconstruction project of this magnitude would be very challenging for Israel to undertake on its own and it may therefore need the help of its main ally, the United States. And only a strong friend of Israel like President Trump, who in his first term in office recognised Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, handed over the Golan Heights to Israel, dismantled the Iran deal that endangered Israel’s security, and brought about the 2020 Abrahamic peace agreement, would be ready to support Israel in the reconstruction of Gaza as well. I have stressed since 2017 my belief that President Trump would be a very important US President for Israel. I have even suggested that he might build the Third Temple of the Jews in Jerusalem, where the Antichrist will dwell in the midst of the Seven Years’ Tribulation Period, and which the prophet Isaiah also speaks of in his prophecies of the messianic age. It is therefore very significant that Prime Minister Netanyahu was the first foreign leader Trump met at the White House.