Trump’s Folly

by Sha’i ben-Tekoa

The Procession of the Trojan Horse in Troy by Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo (cropped). Photo by Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo – Unknown source, Public Domain, Wikipedia

In her 1984 book, The March of Folly, historian Barbara Tuchman chose four foolish decisions made by world leaders that resulted in major pivot points in history.

 “Folly” is an interesting word. In French, la folie means, insanity, and in English it is the origin of the word “fool.” In the Middle Ages, before the very concept emerged of mental illness requiring mental hospitals, communities would isolate the insane on a vessel anchored in the middle of a river nicknamed the “ship of fools.”

 Tuchman’s examples of folly included the Trojan War — letting that fake horse into the city — the breakup of the Holy See provoked by the Renaissance popes, the loss of the American colonies by Britain’s King George III, and the United States’ own persistent mistakes in Vietnam in her own lifetime.

 And I would add to this (so far) Trump’s Folly, the president’s fantasy for the future of the Gaza Strip.

 On the JNS site, on 24 December, Yaakov Lappin interviewed an unidentified IDF “official” and former National Security Advisor (2017-2021) Meir Ben Shabbat for a progress report on really no progress at all on Donald Trump’s messianic 20-point peace plan.

 The reality in Gaza is about what one would expect on the basis of the President’s foolish stopping the war to install his own, unrealistic prescription for an ISF (International Stabilization Force) to replace the IDF, and his baseless, wishful thinking that although Hamas had nominally assented to his 20-points, they never had any intention of disarming; and, so far, the number of nations willing to risk the lives of their soldiers in Gaza for peace between Israel and Hamas has been zero.

 Trump seems to have believed many countries (just like him) want peace between Gaza and Israel; he believed even Hamas guys would be willing to surrender their weapons in exchange for amnesty and/or freedom to leave the country. In compensation, Israel would retreat from the 53% of the Strip it has conquered, this beach-front real estate some 25 miles long and 5 to 8 miles wide after two years of war, after the loss of some 1,000 soldiers, more than a thousand Jews butchered, hundreds tortured, and at tremendous national economic cost.

 Israel is now in control behind the new “yellow line,” but the Muslims a.k.a. Hamas are constantly probing, who challenge and threaten Israeli soldiers who then have to ‘neutralize” them, they and our pilots.

 Hamas is not only not disarming, Hamas is rearming by manufacturing new weapons, training new recruits, continuing to exercise power as a police force demanding taxes and still confiscating humanitarian aid. Hamas is alive and kicking because Donald Trump thinks his 20-point plan is the way to go, instead of letting Israel finish the job.

 Meir Ben Shabbat got it right. He said that Israel, instead of rehabilitating parts of Rafiah Mawasi and Khan Yunis as necessary for the installation of the ISF, he suggested a “lack of reconstruction is preferable to a flawed and doomed solution. From Israel’s perspective, it is preferable to leave the Gaza Strip in ruins, without a future, without hope, and without rehabilitation, then to compromise on solutions for the sake of appearances, regarding the issue of weapons and demilitarization.”

 Amen. The pioneering Zionists of the Left aspired to “return the Jewish people to history.” Shimon Peres once said the purpose of Zionism was the “normalization” of the Jewish people, and even from the other side of the secular Zionist political spectrum, no less than Benjamin Netanyahu also wants A Place Among the Nations, the title of his 1993 book; and nothing in history is more normal than wars that end with a victor taking land away from the losers, which is especially satisfying when the victors had been the victims of the losers’ aggression.

 Gaza today looks like Berlin in 1945, miles of ruined buildings in every direction whose clean-up Israel is not responsible for.  The Muslims there brought this war down on themselves and it is for the Muslims of the world to support these people. Israel’s firm policy should be persuading the world to transfer out at least half of the Muslims in the Strip on the UNRWA dole who are nothing but the greatest welfare cheats in human history. These people are neither Palestinian nor refugees.

 And as for the virtue of Trump’s fantasy of reconstructing the Strip for the Muslims there? Is this the way to respond to what they did on October 7 and for two years of torture, not only of the Jews and others in their fiendish clutches but their families and other loved ones?

 Donald Trump imagines a community of nations ready to participate in “stabilizing” the Gaza Strip without ever revealing to the public the basis for this belief, such as any discussions he might have had with foreign powers agreeing to his fantasy before he went public with it.  I don’t recall any reports on him discussing his wish for an international force with any of them, let alone their willingness to take part.

 His plan also reflects an ignorance of Arab culture when it comes to weapons. The historical record in Israel among the security forces contains stacks of photographs of suicide bombers that they took of themselves, lovingly hugging a long gun, before they go out to murder Jews and commit suicide at the same time.

 In 1982, at the conclusion of Israel’s so-called First Lebanon War, the last stumbling block was the Fatah and related terror cult gangsters who refused to surrender their  weapons. They  insisted that each terrorist would not have to humiliatingly hand over his personal weapon before boarding a ship to leave the country.  They said they would rather be killed in Beirut by the IDF as martyrs than suffer that indignity.

 Overall, this progress report on the situation in Gaza was of no progress on Trump’s Folly, a word whose linguistic track record includes its use in the history of architecture:

“A folly is a building constructed primarily for decoration, but suggesting through its appearance some other purpose, or of such extravagant appearance.”

 Remember Meir Ben Shabbat’s comment: “From Israel’s perspective, it is preferable to leave the Gaza Strip in ruins, without a future, without hope, and without rehabilitation, then to compromise on solutions for the sake of appearances, regarding the issue of weapons and demilitarization.”

 Israel these days is burdened with Donald Trump’s egomania. He owns a private airliner; his name TRUMP is painted on its fuselage in gigantic white letters on a black background.

 He built Trump Tower. And now he wants to be the author of a world–historic Trump Peace Deal for the Middle East. He has set himself up as the chairman of Board of Peace or something.

 He wouldn’t let Israel finish the job, finish off Hamas because he wanted to be the star.

 To repeat the classical architectural definition, “A folly is a building constructed primarily for decoration.

 Sha’i ben-Tekoa’s PHANTOM NATION: Inventing the “Palestinians” as the Obstacle to Peace is available at Amazon.com in hard cover or a Kindle ebook. His podcasts can be heard on www.phantom-nation.com.