Saw a report the other day that Trump was holding a meeting about Gaza with a group that included Tony Blair and Jared Kushner. “That can’t be good,” I thought.
It’s not good. It is, in fact, downright obscene. Exclusive from WaPo:
Gaza postwar plan envisions ‘voluntary’ relocation of entire population
A postwar plan for Gaza circulating within the Trump administration, modeled on President Donald Trump’s vow to “take over” the enclave, would turn it into a trusteeship administered by the United States for at least 10 years while it is transformed into a gleaming tourism resort and high-tech manufacturing and technology hub.
The 38-page prospectus seen by The Washington Post envisions at least a temporary relocation of all of Gaza’s more than 2 million population, either through what it calls “voluntary” departures to another country or into restricted, secured zones inside the enclave during reconstruction.
Those who own land would be offered a digital token by the trust in exchange for rights to redevelop their property, to be used to finance a new life elsewhere or eventually redeemed for an apartment in one of six to eight new “AI-powered, smart cities” to be built in Gaza. Each Palestinian who chooses to leave would be given a $5,000 cash payment and subsidies to cover four years of rent elsewhere, as well as a year of food.
The genocide blueprint was developed by the same incompetent and evil Americans and Israelis who set up food distribution sites in Gaza that frequently turn into killing zones.
The plan estimates that every individual departure from Gaza would save the trust $23,000, compared with the cost of temporary housing and what it calls “life support” services in the secure zones for those who stay.
Called the Gaza Reconstitution, Economic Acceleration and Transformation Trust, or GREAT Trust, the proposal was developed by some of the same Israelis who created and set in motion the U.S.- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) now distributing food inside the enclave. Financial planning was done by a team working at the time for the Boston Consulting Group.
Trump has been telegraphing such a plan since at least February. In March, he and Netanyahu nixed a proposal from Arab leaders that featured a new Palestinian Authority government and Arab peacekeepers backed by funding from Persian Gulf states.
“I’ve studied this very closely over a lot of months, and I’ve seen it from every different angle,” Trump said. “I don’t want to be cute. I don’t want to be a wise guy. But the Riviera of the Middle East, this could be something that could be so magnificent.”…
Shortly after his February vow to take over Gaza, Trump reposted on his Truth Social account an AI-generated video of his vision. It begins with children picking through the rubble amid gun-toting militants, then quickly shifts to a wonderland of sparkling high-rises, pristine beaches and money falling from the sky. Trump and Netanyahu appear sunbathing on the Gaza shore, and a golden Trump statue lords benevolently over a clean and lively urban scene.
A catchy song provides the soundtrack. “Donald’s coming to set you free/ Bringing delight to all you see. No more tunnels, no more fear/ Trump Gaza is finally here.”
According to the WaPo article, the so-called “GREAT Trust” would be funded by a public and private investments that would receive “a nearly fourfold return on a $100 billion investment after 10 years, with ongoing ‘self-generating’ revenue streams.”
The investment scheme explains Kushner’s presence. Not sure why Tony Blair was there. Just being the Forrest Gump of world-historical American fuck-ups, maybe.
***
As a token of my contrition for bringing the above horror to your attention, please accept this picture of a nearby spring that I took this morning from our filthy canoe:
I didn’t jump in because rain was on the way. On the way home, we saw an extra-large gator, and Bill learned how fast I can paddle a canoe when properly motivated.
Open thread.
Denali5
Lovely photo of your swimming spot. I must say that gators give me pause though.
That post war plan is a horror. Who gives them the right?
Glidwrith
Gators are a problem for canoes?
matt
I don’t like the sound of ‘AI powered smart cities’.
Eolirin
@Denali5: That’s not the right question, the right question is who’s going to stop them?
And it appears the answer to that is no one, though there’s no way they’re going to actually succeed at this sort of project, since they’re all wildly incompetent.
This is the core of all of the horrors in the world.
Jerry
Every single time that I think that you have written your greatest line that can never be topped, you prove me wrong. But this! This will have to be the funniest thing you have ever written. How can this be topped?
Scout211
Thank you for the pic of the spring. The horror is indeed, horrible.
We often ponder which member of the Trump coalition is the worst or the most dangerous. It has been impossible for me to choose which one is the worst. I’ll go with:
All of them, Katie.
Betty Cracker
@Glidwrith: They’re not, as a rule, but I prefer to give them a wide berth. This one creeped me out because it saw us, sunk below the surface and seemed to be heading in our direction.
Fair Economist
Trump was telegraphing this during his first term. Jared, then his special envoy to the middle east, said he wanted to do something much like this.
JML
Everything about this “plan” is disgusting. So of course member of the Trump Crime Family are in the middle of it.
It will enrich a handful of evil bastards, and ensure there will never be peace in the region. The perfect Trump Crime Family Plan!
Scout211
Governor Pritzker’s appearance on Face the Nation:
Transcript.
He’s the real deal. I was going to excerpt some of his points, but read the whole thing or watch it. There were too many good points.
AM in NC
And the chances that this becomes a violence-free “riviera” is ZERO. But please, let Kushner et all invest billions. And then let the bombers come.
I hate how these evil people are making me wish violence and evil on them. I want to be a good person, but maybe sometimes being good means wishing evil on people doing evil things.
Betty Cracker
@Fair Economist: The WaPo article has a PDF embed of the prospectus. The title page says, “From a Demolished Iranian Proxy to a Prosperous Abrahamic Ally,” and a pull quote says, “A thriving Gaza at the crossroads of a New Abrahamic Architecture.”
Baud
I assume the country of relocation they’re proposing isn’t the US.
Baud
I would have loved a picture of the gator.
They Call Me Noni
@Betty Cracker: I do not have much experience with gators (have seen a few on golf courses), but I do believe that seeing one go into stealth mode would definitely put the pep in my step.
West of the Rockies
@Baud:
Probably Yemen, Syria, Ceti Alpha V…
chemiclord
Listen, this wouldn’t be any better under Genocide Joe’s lieutenant, Kamala Harris.
I am not a crank.
eclare
@Betty Cracker:
Wasn’t some woman in FL recently killed because her canoe bumped a submerged gator which then decided to capsize the canoe?
Splitting Image
Has Donald ever come through on this kind of promise? Ever?
Miss Bianca
@Betty Cracker: “Abrahamic Architecture”? WTF? Jesus wept. So did Abraham.
eclare
@Scout211:
Thanks! I’ll Google the video. So far I like what I’ve seen of him.
Glidwrith
This crap reads worse than the disaster capitalism used in the aftermath of Katrina.
stinger
Thanks for the photo of the spring — so cool and calming.
And needed, after learning about the GREAT plan — surprised they couldn’t work in the Felon’s favorite word “beautiful”. Obviously the plan has nothing whatsoever to do with improving the lives of the people who currently live there. It is 100% about making the already overly rich even richer.
@Baud:
Ha ha, she laughed bitterly.
zhena gogolia
All quite predictable before November. Yet protests were directed exclusively at Biden, Harris, and Walz.
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: One thing about the “Abraham Accords”: Morocco, Bahrain and the UAE would not have normalized relations with Israel without Saudi Arabia’s tacit approval.
The Accords are as much the Saudis’ and the other three Arab countries’ countries’ as they are the US. and Israel’s. So where were they in this supposed plan? They have their own plans and unlike Trump and Netanyahu, the Saudis and Emiratis are willing and able to foot the bill for reconstruction, and it will be a lot more than $100 billion.
And this plan is not even half-baked. It’s an idea of a plan with some nice computer-generated images. It was put together by the same folks who devised the “Gaza Humanitarian Foundation” and that tells me how well thought out it is.
Sure Lurkalot
@matt:
Much less “living” in one. Also begs the question, what powers the AI?
Baud
@Geminid:
The technical term is concept of a plan.
Glidwrith
@Betty Cracker: And for the record, those ignorant, ahistorical, irreligious anti-christs apparently don’t know Islam is an Abrahamic religion.
Baud
@Sure Lurkalot:
It’s AI all the way down.
Another Scott
@Splitting Image: Mexico will pay for it.
[ groucho-roll-eyes.gif ]
Yeah, people who have suffered for decades to stay in their communities and in their homes and on their land are going to take a magic beans promise of $5000 to be an immigrant elsewhere. And a “year of food”.
Sure.
Just like Melon promised to end world hunger by donating $6B.
This “plan” is just mouth noises.
47 and Jarvanka and Melon and their enablers are monsters. They should be shunned.
Grr…
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Central Planning
@AM in NC:
This. I think it becomes a car bomb/suicide bomb/drone bomb environment. That would probably bankrupt the place. Who would want to go there and risk their life for a week on the beach?
kindness
I’m pretty sure Europe won’t tolerate the exile of Palestinians. I mean, yea, they’re (& us) tolerating the genocide of the Palestinians in Gaza (& a more limited version in the West Bank) so really I have no past to base my future on. Maybe it’s hope.
Barney
What kind of “trust” promises “a nearly fourfold return” in 10 years, by chucking out a couple of million people? It’s not a trust (in trust for whom?), it’s an international criminal enterprise. The pitch wouldn’t be out of place in a SPECTRE meeting.
Anyway
only bcos they’re afraid/wary of Palestinians on their doorsteps. They’re still dealing with the fallout of Dubya’s glorious adventure which resulted in large numbers of displaced MiddleEasterners in Western Europe.
ETA Gazans will be shunted into some sort of “camps” where multiple generations may end up.
Barney
@Glidwrith: I think that means they think they will get some Arabs to “invest” in the ethnic cleansing. The countries they want to expel the Gazans to are mostly Islamic as well – though most are currently at the bottom of “places in the world to live”, due to war, famine etc.
Betty Cracker
@Geminid: Yeah, the $100 billion reminded me of Dr. Evil’s “$1 milllllllion dollars!” line.
WereBear
@Betty Cracker: That is definitely a Gator Alert. Bon voyage!
Glidwrith
@Barney: Honestly, it’s the plot line from the first Superman movie (Christopher Reeves/Gene Hackman) where Lex Luthor causes an earthquake on the San Andreas fault line to make himself a bunch of money for the new beachfront property.
Betty Cracker
@eclare: Gotta admit that incident crossed my mind! From the accounts I read, it sounded like it was an accident, meaning the gator didn’t set out to capsize the canoe but reacted when bumped. But still…
hitchhiker
Did I miss the part where there are any Palestinians present at these planning sessions?
Hahahahahahaha, no, who needs them? The whole point is to get them out of the way.
Unbelievable.
Marleedog
I am not sure who is worse t rump or bibi, but the two of them together is a toxic peril for humanity.
The world would be a better place without both of them along with their entourages.
In response to chemiclord, It is hard to imagine anything being worse than t rump and kushner. But Joe biden’s legacy is definitely tarnished by his inaction regarding the suffering of the Palestinians. He had the power to put the brakes on BB and he did not, sadly. But we cannot know if Kamala Harris would have acted differently or continued biden’s policies towards Israel and Palestine
Edit to add, I’m sorry if I missed your snark but I think that overall my comments still stands.
marklar
@chemiclord:
“Listen, this wouldn’t be any better under Genocide Joe’s lieutenant, Kamala Harris.
I am not a crank.”
You forgot the /s, chemiclord
Melancholy Jaques
Temporary, voluntary, restricted secure zones. It’s all for their own good, apparently.
Republicans are monsters.
rattlemullet
Resurrecting the good old days of American Indian relocation policy, reservation, food allotment and annual annuity payment. Those promises of money, AI cities and cash are made of the same smoke vapor that is analogous to the ” become a white man, learn to farm and adopt our religion everything will work great”. tRump and his ilk remind me of the lyric by Rod MaDonald – The Aliens came in business suits and said business is our business.
m.j.
It isn’t, “filthy,” it’s rustic.
Suzanne
Four years of rent where? What about a job, education for children?
For fuck’s sake.
WereBear
@rattlemullet: This also caught white people, who were lured into hostile territory to “homestead” and be the shock troops.
Sold land past the “rain line” of the West, for instance, condemning the new land barons to subsistence farming.
stinger
Thank you, Albatrossity, for today’s image.
TheOtherHank
When I load the front page on my Mac with Firefox, Chrome, and Safari the sidebar on the right is not shown. But if I click through on a post then the sidebar shows up on that page
trollhattan
These mooks have already settled on the outcome, now they just need to proper set of conditions to bring it about.
Never thought I’d see Israel turn itself into South Africa circa 1950 but unless something changes there soon, that’s what they’re to become. Our religious right are 100% on board while Trump just wants a fucking beachfront resort and casino. And guess what, it’s going to stay open Saturdays.
hells littlest angel
“Genocide Jared” is a good name for him, except he’d probably like it.
TONYG
The people who helped to elect Donald Trump by ranting about “Genocide Joe” will learn nothing from this.
chemiclord
@Anyway: Hell, the core of this current problem stems from the West wanting a solution to their “Jew Problem” that wasn’t a FINAL solution. Europe won’t tolerate a Palestinian relocation any more than they accepted the Jewish population almost a century ago.
Europe’s entire investment in this crisis extends only to the point that all those people stay over there.
TONYG
@rattlemullet: “AI cities”. The “tech” assholes who are selling their vaporware would have allied themselves with Hitler back in the day. (As IBM did, in fact, do in the 1930’s.)
chemiclord
@Marleedog: The problem is that no, Biden didn’t have the power to dictate the policy of a foreign country. Bibi was not going to be stopped by anything short of an invasion of Israel to get what he wanted after Oct. 7th.
Biden could have done more, to be sure, but the only thing that would have changed was America’s complicity as Israel steamrolled the Palestinian people. When I say Biden did more for Palestine than anyone else in the world, I don’t say that as a compliment to Biden, but a condemnation to the rest of the world that has contributed nothing more than mouth noises.
Scout211
Same here on Chrome for iPad, with several redis interruptions.
Baud
@chemiclord:
I agree. Kamala Harris was the best hope Palestinians had.
Sure Lurkalot
Sure, name the few exceptions, but it seems to me that those on whom there has been bestowed immeasurable and innumerable wealth can not escape the sociopathy that accompanies the accumulation.
The staggering amounts of money to lose on “ventures” like this and AI could feed, health care and educate millions, but world governments preferred to fight each other to create off shore tax havens and other incentives to outsize wealth.
Elizabelle
This Gaza plan is morally and ethically wrong. And way to put a target on Americans’ backs, no? Soldiers, diplomats, travelers, cities and transportation facilities.
Only those who can rely on Secret Service and private security would cotton to something like this.
Elizabelle
@Baud:
The 2024 US election results are going to be historically worse than the aftereffects of 9/11. And it was self-delivered.
The world does not deserve this. We who despise Trump did not deserve this. But it’s what the oligarchs and their idiot voters served up.
frosty
@Scout211: Jeez, that interviewer couldn’t let go of the Presidential horse race, could he? Pritzker said he was working on getting reelected and that’s it, but “Can you guarantee to the voters in Illinois that you’ll serve out your term?” They only have one thing on their minds to report. Everything else is an aside. Assholes.
chemiclord
@Baud: I would disagree in the sense that neither Biden or Harris or anyone had the political will or appetite to stop this. No one in the world cared enough to do what would have needed to have been done.
It would have required boots on the ground in Gaza and the West Bank forcing the IDF out. It would have required an invasion of Israel and Nuremberg-style trials for every member of Likud, its allied parties, and military officers. It would have required outright threats and potential violence against Russia and China from exploiting the United States withdrawing from the region and getting involved (Bibi had been playing footsie with both countries for precisely that reason).
And absolutely no one on Earth was willing to do that. No one was willing to risk the potential of World War 3 to save Palestine.
Baud
@chemiclord:
I don’t know if I’d go that far in terms of what would be required. I agree Harris wouldn’t have deployed troops to stop Netanyahu.
chemiclord
@Baud: All I can say is that Bibi was playing the long game with both China and Russia, explicitly in the possibility that the United States withdrew military and economic support. This was not a secret. Bibi didn’t try to do this on the down low. It was as explicit of a threat to the USA as if he had outright said, “We will ally with them, and give them everything we have, if you walk away.”
The instant American weapons stopped, Russian and/or Chinese weapons would come in, and the genocide (or just sparkling ethnic cleansing, I don’t care what you call it) would have continued with very little, if any, hiatus.
The only way this would have been stopped after Oct. 7th, 2023 was with military force. Bibi got exactly what he had always wanted out of the attacks, and he was not going to be swayed by any pressure that didn’t come from the tip of the bayonet.
Baud
@chemiclord:
What you say is reasonable, but it’s a level of speculation that’s well beyond what I feel comfortable engaging in. Harris may have failed, but I still stink she presented the best chance at success vis a vis Trump.
It’s all moot. Foreign policy belongs to Republicans for at least 3 ½ more years.
XeckyGilchrist
@matt: Right? If there were no other red flags that this was all a pocket-stuffing grift, that would have tipped it.
rattlemullet
@WereBear: Those are not comparative numbers
RaflW
Blair being involved is very on-brand for the wretched Labour Party in the U.K.
Wether it’s profiting from genocide, or kicking trans people in the teeth, Labour is there. Sickening.
trollhattan
@Elizabelle:
Everything Israel does is considered to be at the direction of America, no matter who is in office. This war will echo for decades, regardless of outcome.
bobbo1
Imagine Trump’s shock when it turns out this “plan” doesn’t get him his Nobel Peace Prize.
Bulgakov
More boat-shaming, BC?😁 😉😊
lowtechcyclist
@hitchhiker:
This.
Gvg
@Anyway: aren’t they already multiple generations into camps? Essentially. Gaza is a permanent camp/reservation and now the pioneers think they need that too and want to push the Palestinians…somewhere else. And Trump is worse than the historical USA for keeping promises or contracts. Someone should publish all his broken contracts, including the times he promised the Republican Congress something I’d they did something, and then went back on it. Maybe include how many days or hours till he broke his word.
If I were any foreign party I would just say we are waiting till Trump is gone to sign anything with the US. No real point in even talking to him.
Miss Bianca
@frosty: I was reading the transcript, and I noticed that as well. Really pissed me off. I thought the Great Khan handled it much more graciously and deftly than I would have.
Betty Cracker
@Bulgakov: Haha, yes! We have two vessels: the filthy canoe and a jon boat that is mostly held together by lichen. Both are beat-up pieces of crap from the 1980s, but they float! ;-)
Gloria DryGarden
@stinger: I’m thinking great ghastly grifting Gaza plan.
also: Vile.
Marc
I really don’t want to be rude, but as a non-white non-Jewish person, the parallels have been quite obvious to me since I became aware of the existence of ‘Palestinians’ in the 60s.
Marc
@Gvg: Yeah, nobody wants to remember where Hezbollah came from.
Anonymous At Work
So, we have a combination of Infrastructure Week and the Iraqi invasion/reconstruction, with the armchair neocons being replaced by fail-son real estate developers and Thiel’s techbros? Blair’s presence just lends a nice degree of symmetry to the thing.
rikyrah
Jared been done told us ..
GAZA= BEACHFRONT CONDOS
During the campaign.
So, what did people think that meant? 🧐 🧐
The Unmitigated Gaul
@Marc: For me, it’s gone from “Exodus” to “Mila 18.”
Tehanu
Everybody’s on fire today. Thanks for articulating for me!
@Eolirin: there’s no way they’re going to actually succeed at this sort of project, since they’re all wildly incompetent.
@AM in NC: I hate how these evil people are making me wish violence and evil on them. I want to be a good person, but maybe sometimes being good means wishing evil on people doing evil things.
@Miss Bianca: “Abrahamic Architecture”? WTF? Jesus wept. So did Abraham.
@hitchhiker: Did I miss the part where there are any Palestinians present at these planning sessions? Hahahahahahaha, no, who needs them? The whole point is to get them out of the way. Unbelievable.
Geminid
@Gvg: Have you looked at video of Gaza and life there before the October 7 attack? There is a lot out there if you look for it. I think thst would help in understanding what Gazans had and could have again.
There is a common idea that Gaza was was a crowded hell-hole that Hamas had no choice but break out of. But the people had a good health care system, good public schools and universities, good public services. The “camps” had been turned into neighborhoods of 3 to 4 story apartment buildings decades before.
As for being crowded: Gaza has a land area of 150 square miles and a population of 2.2 million people. By comparison, Brooklyn has a land area of ~80 square miles and a population of ~2.7 million. Gaza’s farmers had enough room to harvest 40,000 tons of olives a year, as well as other fruit and vegetables.
There was an unemployment rate of 30%, and that’s a hardship even with a good social safety net, which Gazans had. But if Hamas had not diverted billions of dollars in aid money for military infrastructure– including 500 kilometers of tunnels– and armaments, and to pad its leaders bank accounts, that money could have gone into building Gaza’s economy and there wouldn’t have been 30% unemployment.
Hamas was Gaza’s biggest problem. Imagine what living in Brooklyn would be like if it was totally controlled by the Mafia, and the Mafia leaders were also Opus Dei leeders. That’s what Gaza became when Hamas threw out the Palestinian Authority almost 20 years ago. Hamas had won a plurality in the elections but instead of forming a coalition government, Hamas grabbed all the power and maintained it afterwards with an iron fist.
Of course, Israel– more particularly Benjamin Netanyahu– used Hamas and its control of Gaza to undercut and marginalize the Palestinian Authority based in the West Bank. This was in order to forestall the creation of a Palestinian State alongside Israel.
But that was fine with Hamas. They wanted to supplant the Palestinian Authority, and the Palestinian State they and their sponsors in Tehran envisioned would not exist alongside Israel, it would exist instead of Israel. So Hamas’s leaders went along with Netanyahu’s plan every step of the way, right up until 6:30 a.m. October 7, 2023.
Anyway, I encourage people to look at the videos available of pre-war Gaza for two reasons: to see what Hamas threw away, and to see what Gazans can have again someday once this stupid, irresponsible and unviable plan floated at the White House last week is replaced by a realistic one.
But nobody can rebuild Gaza until this war is ended. Ending the war and resolving Gaza’s humanitarian crisis are the two critical tasks now, and it’s like Trump is sleeping on the job, dreaming of some fantasy Riviera.
Meanwhile, Netanyahu is getting ready to intensify the war by attacking Gaza City, against the advice of the security services as well as the desires of a clear majority of Israelis. If Netanyahu proceeds, there will be fighting at a scale not yet seen in this war.
The IDF says the operation will entail calling up 50,000 Reservists, for three months, and the draft notices will start going out tomorrow. That is, unless the heads of the IDF, Mossad and national security agency can persuade the Cabinet to hold off. I think they’re meeting today.
Citizen Alan
America didn’t give a shit about the Holocaust until the japanese bombed pearl harbor and then hitler stupidly declared war on us. If he had played it smart and used the excuse of “Japan’s cowardly attack” as an excuse to break his alliance with Japan while undercutting anti fascist sentiment in the US, we would never have gone to war in Europe and the rest of the continent would have fallen.
Citizen Alan
@AM in NC: good people do evil when they tolerate the evil and others.
Bill Arnold
@Glidwrith:
And worse, the “disaster” was caused by 100 kilotons[1] of Israeli high explosives deliberately used to destroy most structures in Gaza. (Many with many human civilians inside them.)
[1] roughly; haven’t seen a recent estimate.
AWOL
@Citizen Alan: The US had no interest in the Holocaust until 1967, when Israel proved it could be useful against the Soviets after the Six-Day War.
During the war—and mostly afterwards—the US didn’t give a flying fuck about the Holocaust and did nothing militarily to assist Jews or other victims (Roma, gay people, communists, many intellectuals) of the Nazis anywhere.
Josie
@Geminid:
Is there a chance that Israeli citizens will react against the call up of more troops? That the people being called up will refuse to go?
Geminid
@Geminid: There is in fact a ceasefire deal on the table that Hamas signed off on almost three weeks ago, at a conference in Al Alamein, Egypt. Israeli reporter Noga Tarnopolsky reported a story about it yesterday:
The Egyptians know Lapid from Israel’s last government. He was Foreign Minister from June, 2021 until June, 2022 and then caretaker Prime Minister until Netanyahu took over again January 1, 2023.
Geminid
@Josie: There have been very large demonstrations against the Gaza City attack and for the ceasefire deal ever since the Cabinet voted for the offensive earlier this month. There also calls for soldiers to refuse service but we won’t know how many will for another week or so I think. Among other media sites, the Times of Israel will be reporting on these stories.