by
Austin BayFebruary 5, 2025
The Great 21st-Century Creative Strategic Thinker (Donald Trump, aka, The Great Disruptor) wants to make rubbled Gaza the Riviera of The Middle East.
That's a fair translation of what President Donald Trump said in a Feb. 4 news conference he held with Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu at the other podium.
Fantasy?
If you understand the threat frozen wars pose to human life, Trump's proposal is provocative hope.
Here's the hard, deep fact shaping Trump's jaw-drop suggestion: Frozen Wars and Endless Wars plague Planet Earth.
Based on his astonishing news conference, Trump intends to break the deadly ice freezing one of them.
Here's some more useful background that helps understand the big problem.
Frozen Wars. Nuclear Example 1: India versus China in the Himalayas. The Sino-Indian War of 1962 has no peace treaty. The mountain borders between two nuclear-armed giants is -- polite diplo-term coming -- "undetermined."
Nuclear Example 2: North Korea likely has a primitive nuke. South Korea could have an effective nuke in, oh, 72 hours? Same for Japan.
Nuke Example 3: India versus Pakistan. Should this war go hot, India will win but Mumbai and Delhi will have Gaza craters. Islamabad? A radioactive memory -- and the real victor is China.
Nuke 4: Israel versus Iran. Israel's nukes will work -- they are NATO grade. Iran? As I write this column, Tehran may or may not have a workable nuke, but, thanks to North Korea and Russia, it's close to it.
More useful background to appreciate the gift of Creative Strategic Disruption. Non-Nuke Frozen Wars: I count over three-score. Examples: Eastern Congo. Peru-Ecuador. Mali. Myanmar. Sudan. Turkey versus Kurd separatists. Afghanistan (valley tribe versus valley tribe, even vexing the Taliban).
And of course, Israel versus Palestine -- which is really Israel versus Iranian proxies, and takes us back to Nuke 4.
Typical politician response to a frozen war: continue the policies that keep The Frozen and The Endless.
Typical U.S. liberal political response: give everybody money!
Well, grift is an international political trait. But grift doesn't solve problems, it merely pays off elites who eventually flee when the killer extremists strike.
Feb. 4, Washington: Enter the creative strategic dealmaker who has the power to make a win-win happen because he has the guts, money and firepower to melt deadly no-win war.
Trump's new gambit: Gaza could be the "Riviera of the Middle East."
At the moment, Gaza is a wasteland -- as pulverized, burned out and ghostly as a Los Angeles suburb.
Trump has real estate cred. Suddenly, devastated Gaza is a real estate development -- it has a future no one else ever saw. Gaza beach and sea. Mild eastern Mediterranean climate. This piece of real estate has "possibilities." Condos -- not craters!
To repeat: Fantasy?
Trump's Abraham Accords should have won a Nobel Prize. But -- alas! -- only lib American Democrats can win Nobel Peace Prizes. Barack Obama won one for doing nothing. Trump brought Arabs and Israel together, and in summer 2023 (Biden era) Saudi Arabia was considering direct, open deals with Israel.
Iran and Hamas raped that idea on Oct. 7, 2023.
But Trump is back. Israel didn't cower. Hamas still exists but its Gaza redoubt is a ruin.
So Trump proposes building a great place for Palestinians to live free from the death grip of Hamas.
It's aspirational. A pleasant future.
With American know-how and power, with Egyptian political support, with Saudi money, with UAE money and engineering expertise ...
New Gaza's residents can enjoy the palms, lie back and catch some lovely sun rays.
It's a lot of work. But it's an alternative -- to mass death and devastation.
It's also a REAL Nobel Peace Prize.