Is the core problem of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs simply that the Palestinians feel hopeless? Is the solution as simple as giving them money, job opportunities, and the prospect of a brighter future? Wow, why didn’t anybody think of that over the last 77 years? Actually they did. This idea has been put to the test again and again, with billions upon billions of dollars showered upon the Palestinians, and shown to be false. Nevertheless, a Trump “transition official” thinks that what we need to do at this critical juncture is implement this failed approach yet again.
NBC News published a curious story on Saturday in praise of Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, and giving some of the inside details of how the Trump camp views the situation in Gaza and what Trump may be planning regarding Israel and the Palestinians. The story relies heavily on information from an unnamed “transition official with direct knowledge of the ceasefire process,” and who seems intent on reimplementing multiply failed policies that essentially involve bribing the Palestinians to maintain peace with Israel. This has never worked, and never will work, and it’s unsettling to see it coming from someone who is allegedly a Trump official. Who is this person, NBC?
The “transition official” is the source for the claim in NBC’s article that Witkoff is thinking about paying a visit to Gaza “as part of his efforts to keep a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas on track.” The official explained: “Remember, there’s a lot of people, radicals, fanatics, not just from the Hamas side, from the right wing of the Israeli side, who are absolutely incentivized to blow this whole deal up.”
Now wait a minute. A Trump official is complaining about the “right wing of the Israeli side,” and likening it to Hamas? Where did they find this guy — Dearborn? Usually this kind of rhetoric only emanates from Muslims who are sympathetic to the jihad against Israel (as it’s the “right wing” that is most vocal about resisting that jihad) or their leftist allies. Why is this person a part of Trump’s transition team?
NBC continues: “Visiting Gaza would allow Witkoff to see for himself what the dynamics are there, rather than taking Israel’s or the Palestinians’ word for it, the official said, adding: ‘You got to see it, you got to feel it.’” Well, yes, it’s good not to take the Palestinians’ word for how things are in Gaza, given the fanciful casualty numbers that the Hamas-controlled Gaza Ministry of Health has reported since the beginning of the war. But then the transition official warns: “If we don’t help the Gazans, if we don’t make their life better, if we don’t give them a sense of hope, there’s going to be a rebellion.”
A rebellion? A rebellion against whom, exactly? Hamas has ruled Gaza since 2007, and from the looks of the multitudes of masked, armed, uniformed Hamas members joining in the celebrations of the ceasefire over the last few days, the jihad terror group hasn’t been defeated and isn’t going anywhere. Nor do those celebrations give any indication that the people of Gaza are fed up with Hamas and ready to rebel against it.
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So does the transition official mean that the Gazans might rebel against Israel? The only problem with that is that Israel had no presence whatsoever in Gaza from Aug. 15, 2005 until it invaded in the aftermath of the Oct. 7 massacre, and no interest in ruling Gaza now. The official’s warning, however, reflects the convention wisdom in Washington: if we don’t rain American largesse down upon the Gazans, there will be trouble. The thing is that the Gazans have been getting helped for years. The U.S. and others have given billions upon billions of dollars to them to “make their life better” and “give them a sense of hope.” They used the money to build the astonishing network of terror tunnels that run underneath Gaza and enabled them to murder Israelis. And now this “transition official,” and apparently Steve Witkoff as well with his plans to visit Gaza, promise nothing but more of the same appeasement and enablement that have never brought peace before, and never will in the future.
Trump wasn’t elected to heed the conventional wisdom and reapply failed policies. Let’s hope that this “transition official,” and his Obamaite ideas, will soon be sent packing.
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