Scrubbing

File Under: He didn't think that anyone would notice?

President Trump has come up with a novel plan to deal with the Palestinian-Israeli conflict: Ethnic cleansing.

I don’t know, something has to happen, but it’s literally a demolition site right now. Almost everything’s demolished, and people are dying there, so I’d rather get involved with some of the Arab nations and build housing in a different location where I think they could maybe live in peace for a change.
Trump suggests his plan for Gaza Strip is to ‘clean out the whole thing’

I suspect that the biggest problem with this whole scheme is the fact that it immediately creates the suspicion that President Trump is attempting to help out the Israeli far right, given that, on his first day in office, he lifted sanctions against Israeli settlers deemed responsible for the murders of Palestinians in the West Bank. The United States' pretense of being an honest broker in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict had worn thin a lot time ago; so while it's somewhat refreshing that President Trump doesn't bother attempting to maintain it, that doesn't give him any more credibility with the Palestinians or their Arab supporters in the region. While he stopped short of calling for the permanent removal of the Palestinians from Gaza, using the words "temporary or long-term" instead, I can't imagine that anyone believes that the Israeli settler movement wouldn't be on the ground the day after the last Gazan left. Or that they wouldn't be prepared to use force to keep them from ever returning.

This is a part of the President's well-known M.O., find a conflict, and then ally himself with one side, and champion their issues. And, hear me out here, it might be for the best. I'm one of those people who thinks that the United States really doesn't have any more of a role to play in this whole thing. As I've said before, no-one honestly views the United States as a disinterested third party whose primary motivation is peacemaking. Alleged support for a "two-state solution" notwithstanding, pretty much everyone understands that the United States is backing Israel. And maybe Donald Trump, his administration and his family will be so open about it that it puts and end to the entire charade, and the Palestinians and their backers simply refuse to come to the table when the United States is present. It's not a state of affairs that could possibly make anything worse.