(RNS) — When my sons were young, they had a malapropism that I loved.
Something could be “bad.” Or, it could get “worse.” Or, it could get “worser.”
Last night, I thought of their youthful way of framing the world.
I write of President Donald Trump’s idea that the United States would take over Gaza, forcibly relocate its Palestinian residents, and rebuild it into being the “Riviera of the Middle East.”
Among the miniature storm of texts and Facebook posts from friends, I can honestly say there was exclusively shock at such an idea (though I know there are many out there who salute and applaud it).
Consider what we have experienced since Inauguration Day. Each day has contained its bombshells: freeing and pardoning the Jan. 6 criminals; the rounding up of immigrants, many of them legally here and many of them law-abiding; dangerous Cabinet nominations; proposals to take over Canada, the Panama Canal and Greenland; Trump’s disastrous handling of the Washington, D.C., plane crash, etc.
I can say that my sons’ term holds water: Each day is “worser.”
Trump’s Gaza fantasy is worser, as well.
Alon Pinkas, a political commentator and former Israeli ambassador, calls the idea “comical,” saying it “makes annexing Canada and buying Greenland seem much more practical in comparison.”
I wish I could find this idea “comical.” I wish I could join with my friends as they joke about Trump Tower in Gaza, or Gaza-Lago. Knowing Trump’s property developer son-in-law, Jared Kushner, likes the idea offers me no comfort.
At his core, President Trump is a real estate guy who sees the world as “the art of the deal.” But this deal gazes hungrily at Gaza. It sees miles upon miles of beautiful beachfront property. Trump and Jared would transform a Palestinian-less Gaza into a resort. Theoretically, it would create jobs. But, more accurately, it would become an American outpost in an already tortured area.
I write as an American Jew. Let me start with the first part of that identity.
President Trump’s idea is bad for America. It is hard to imagine the uninvited takeover of a foreign territory would be legal according to international law. It would resurrect claims of American imperialism and the continuation of its colonial legacy.
No one will like this — neither the left, nor the right. MAGA-niks will ask: “How does this make America great again?” Consider Sen. Rand Paul: “I thought we voted for America First. We have no business contemplating yet another occupation to doom our treasure and spill our soldiers blood,” Paul declared in a Wednesday post on X.
This is not only a bad idea; it is potentially a lethal idea. My worst (or “worser”) fear is that it would increase terrorism against American targets, as well as Jewish targets. In the world of terror, this would be a “twofer.”
President Trump’s idea is bad for Israel, and by extension, the Jewish people. Israel’s total surrender to the most extreme right-wing ideologies — of Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich — would doom Zionism. Moreover, such Gaza takeover talk could doom the hostage talks. It would be a reckless sacrifice of the moral capital that Israel has strenuously sought to build, maintain and interpret.
So, let us unfold the many layers of intolerable.
Intolerable for American foreign policy.
Intolerable for the people of Gaza.
Intolerable for Israel.
Intolerable for the Jewish people. We, the quintessential refugee people — who are even now reading the accounts of the Exodus from Egypt in synagogue — would shudder and we would gulp.
Intolerable, as well, for the next generation of Jews. The Book of Exodus puts it this way about Pesach: “And when your children ask you, ‘What does this service mean to you?’” But they are increasingly asking, “What does Israel mean to you — and to me?” The ties between Israel and the next generation of American Jews are already quite tender. I am afraid they will break.
Some are saying: Don’t pay attention to President Trump, he is merely playing with ideas. He is merely throwing stuff out there. Perhaps there is another plan in the offing. Perhaps there is a Marshall Plan — America and the Saudis — to rebuild Gaza, not as a Middle Eastern Miami Beach, but for its residents. Perhaps the deal calls for a Hamas-less Gaza. Perhaps there is a plan that would call for the ultimate creation of true Palestinian sovereignty.
Perhaps.
If President Trump can bring true peace, security and dignity to all peoples of that region, I will be among the first to rise to applaud him.
But, this plan, this idea, this notion?
No.
