‘Agent of Chaos’ Trump Boxes Bibi In
Feb. 6—It should be fairly clear by now that President Donald Trump plays by nobody’s rules except his own. He is an agent of change against the ways of an encrusted and evil Establishment which has rejected him as a “disturbance” and a “clown.” He confounds them because he is more than willing to throw aside all their assumptions, for what might be called “creative chaos,” where outcomes are uncertain, where only change is certain. Yet, as if to further confound his myriad of opponents, there is method in his madness.
Such was the case, when Feb. 5, during a joint press conference following his meeting in the White House, with the Butcher of Gaza, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a backdrop, Trump declared that the only end solution to the slaughter and destruction that Bibi has unleashed on Gaza and its mostly innocent civilian population, was to move the more than 2 million Gazans remaining alive, mostly homeless, and without any means of supporting their lives, to some other place, perhaps Jordan or Egypt, or both, or other places, so that Gaza can be rebuilt into something better, with industry and tourism, creating out of the “hellhole”—“a Riviera of the Middle East,” replete with five-star hotels on the coast, and, yes, casinos.
“The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip.... We’ll own it,” said the former real estate developer. “[The U.S.] will be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site. Level the site and get rid of the destroyed buildings. Level it out,” and turn Gaza into a Heaven on Earth. Trump promised: “[The U.S.] should go to other countries of interest with humanitarian hearts...and build various domains that will ultimately be occupied by the 1.8 million Palestinians living in Gaza, ending the death and destruction.... This can be paid for by neighboring countries of great wealth.... It could be numerous sites, or it could be one large site. But the people will be able to live in comfort and peace.”
Netanyahu rose to applaud Trump as a visionary, and, like all visionaries, has his ideas rejected, until, after the smoke clears, people start to reflect and say, “You know, he has a point there.” Bibi was trying to place himself under Trump’s all-encompassing political umbrella, no matter that the President had described in some passionate detail what he, Netanyahu, has done in the course of his bloody war that has killed several score thousand Palestinians and reduced their homeland into, as Trump calls it, “ a demolition site.” As Trump spoke, the Butcher of Gaza, sat smirking at his side.
As soon as Trump spoke, almost before his message had time to spread through the net, the critics were all up and down talking about Trump’s imperialist destruction of the hopes of the Palestinians and his proposal for an “illegal forced expulsion” of people from their homeland—an act of “ethnic cleansing.” Jordan and Egypt rejected the plan, as did Saudi Arabia, who claimed that there was no basis for Trump saying that it no longer made support for such ideas as well as normailization of relations withIsrael contingent on support for a Palestinian state.
And, then there were those who said that Trump had thrown in with the right-wing crazies of Bibi’s coalition, the radical religious racists like Finance Minister and leader of the National Religious Party—Religious Zionism, Bezalel Smotrich, and the settler movement, who has proposed expelling all Palestinians, either dead or alive, annexing of Gaza by Israel, and its re-settlement by Israeli citizens. But Trump has never said that. What he does say is that Gaza will never be part of Israel, and he does not want any Israeli settlements: “The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip, and we will do a job with it too. We’ll make sure that it’s done world-class. It’ll be wonderful for the people—Palestinians mostly, we’re talking about.”
What Did Trump Do?
But let’s look more closely at what Trump did. First, he spoke a truth: there is no way to do anything about Gaza in an efficient way, or really in any way, as long as there are two million people living in that rubble-heap. To do anything effective, these people will have to be moved somewhere else, or an untold number of them will die from the lack of water, sanitary facilities, and shelter. That latter outcome was Bibi’s intention all along: kill as many Palestinians as possible, first by bombardment and then by the known sequelae. When someone comes up with any real plan for Gaza, then Trump’s ideas will have to be considered.
Second, while there is much alarm and fury—and chaos—around Trump’s plan, it should not obscure the fact that Bibi did not get what he wanted from Trump. Instead, he was told by the President that he is expected to carry out all three phases of the ceasefire deal, and that Israel must proceed in good faith to work out the details of the second phase of the deal that involves the return of all living hostages, further prisoner exchanges, and most importantly, the withdrawal of Israel Defense Forces (IDF) from Gaza.
And while Trump said that he does not want to see Hamas terrorists involved in running Gaza, he did not give Bibi the right to restart the war after the conclusion of the ongoing first phase of the deal—something Bibi has promised Smotrich.
Nor did Netanyahu get any approval for a strike on Iranian nuclear facilities. Instead, the President told him he, Trump, would personally handle this, which he did by signing an executive order to increase pressure on Iran, should there be any signs from that quarter that Iran is developing an atomic weapon. As a result, there are now signs that Iran wants a deal with Trump.
U.S. concern about Iran developing nuclear weapons is not a complicated issue and can be resolved, given the opposition to weapons of mass destruction by Iran’s leadership, said Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi Feb. 4.
“I want Iran to be a great and successful country, but one that cannot have a Nuclear Weapon,” President Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Reports that the United States, working in conjunction with Israel, is going to blow Iran into smithereens ARE GREATLY EXAGGERATED. I would much prefer a Verified Nuclear Peace Agreement, which will let Iran peacefully grow and prosper.”
“If the main concern is that Iran should not pursue nuclear weapons, this is achievable and not a complicated issue,” Araghchi said. “Iran’s position is clear: it is a signer to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and the Supreme Leader’s fatwa has already clarified our stance [against weapons of mass destruction]. Maximum pressure [to influence Iran] is a failed experience and trying it again will lead to another failure.”
As Araghchi was saying these words, sources reported that there have already been some back-channel discussions between the U.S and Iran that could lead to an agreement in the near future.
Nothing Is Fixed in Trumpverse
“I had to laugh, seeing the jaws drop when Trump spoke about his plan for Gaza,” said a source. “He had hinted at this over the last ten days or so, but what sealed it was when {Trump’s Special Envoy to the Mideast and fellow real estate developer Steve] Witkoff came back from Gaza and told his boss that the devastation was worse than depicted by the media. 'You need to get the people out of the way to fix this,' he said. He also reported that the Israelis had no plans for a post war Gaza. Nothing. He told Trump that Bibi’s intention was to let the place plunge into chaos and then use the chaos to restart systematic killing of Palestinians. ‘Then I am going to cut his balls off,’ Trump said of Bibi. ‘We will take over this.’|”
The source cautioned that one shouldn’t take as fixed Trump’s so-called plan. “Nothing is fixed in Trumpverse,” said the source. “First he creates the chaos and uses it as a force to knock people off their blocks. Then he puts something together—a deal. Trump has come to realize that there is a real problem with what has been called a ‘Palestinian State.’ [As currently defined,] it just isn’t economically viable, and could not survive. Something better is going to have to be worked out. There is no agreement on what a Palestinian state would look like, anyway. Let’s see what comes out of all this. One thing, I think, is that we are nearing the end of Bibi. He can feed for a bit off Trump’s popularity in Israel. But that won’t save him for long.”
Bibi Boxed In
The astute Israeli analyst Alon Pinkas, writing in Haaretz Feb. 5 says of Trump and what he did to Bibi:
“Agents of chaos sow chaos. It’s that simple. They instill discordance, confusion, controversy, and uncertainty. That’s a modus operandi, not a tailored policy or crisis management technique. Agents of chaos and anarchy are, by definition, out to disrupt the status quo by floating outrageous ideas, based on a simple principle: Everyone viscerally understands the status quo has exhausted its usefulness. More-of-the-same doesn’t work anymore.
“As for the Israeli/Palestinian issue, the endless, irrelevant and incoherent mumbling about “the two-state solution” is just an exercise in futility. Trump only said what many are thinking, right?...
“Throughout his career, Benjamin Netanyahu always followed the sage advice of [former N.Y. Yankee Hall of Fame catcher, the late] Yogi Berra: ‘When you come to a fork in the road, take it.’ Years of solipsism, manipulation, deceit, duplicity, confabulation, interpolation, and retraction—all woven into a modus operandi that has provided him with success, so far.
“The indecision-maker [Netanyahu] would always come up with a speech, delivered with a tormented face and in a melodramatic baritone, describing the excruciating dilemmas he faced before making no decision. But not making a decision is a decision in and of itself, and he was good at it. Now Trump, for better or worse, is making decisions for him.
“Netanyahu’s jig is up. He was nothing more than a prop in the Trump White House show. Trump upended the playing field on Gaza, Iran, and everything else. It may not be sustainable, but as of today Netanyahu has to play by Trump’s rules.
“Before going to Washington and after his meeting with Trump, he was presented with a fork in the road, a binary choice: desert the hostages, resume a goalless war, and save his government in the immediate time frame. Or, adhere to the cease-fire agreement he signed, move on to Stage 2, and risk losing his ruling coalition.
“Sometimes, making contradictory promises and giving inconsistent assurances is impossible to square. Now Netanyahu will try to market a mirage, according to which he was in on Trump’s plans. Maybe he was.
“How does that change the future of Israeli Palestinian relations? It doesn’t. Can he now annex the West Bank? He cannot. Does it add stability and predictability to relations with the United States? It doesn’t.
“So, what did Netanyahu get out of his Washington trip? A few days reprieve for his coalition, during which he can persuade them that Trump proved he’ll allow Israel to resume the war. And did Trump do that? No.”
While meeting with Trump, Bibi was forced to dispatch Israeli negotiators to Doha [Qatar] to start the delayed Phase 2 discussion. Leading the Israeli team is Bibi’s right-hand man, Ron Dermer, who had been with him in D.C. Witkoff had demanded that he head the team, replacing Mossad chief David Barnea, so that talks would have “direct input from Bibi sitting at the table, so delays and confusion could be avoided. Netanyahu can’t be too happy being forced to take orders from Witkoff,” said the source. “Not very happy at all.”
Busting Up the Axioms
“Trump fully expected the global backlash against what he was saying—as well as Bibi’s fawning over him,” said the source. “He had wanted to shake things up in what, even with the ceasefire, was a seemingly endless conflict with no end in sight. He is forcing people to face the reality of the situation in Gaza: two million people living—or rather dying—there, from starvation and disease, from a lack of even basic necessities and services, and from a lack of shelter. With over 90% of their homes damaged or destroyed, they are huddled in vermin-infested makeshift shelters and tents, with sewage and human waste everywhere, in overcrowded refugee camps, and now also, as people return to the destruction in the north, in the rubble heaps that once were their homes, with buildings still standing about to collapse. In the rubble is more than 30,000 unexploded munitions and thousands of the bodies of their missing family members. This is what the Butcher of Gaza has done—and Trump knows who is responsible, no matter how sweetly they smile together. This is an emergency situation, which if not corrected quickly will result in further mass deaths—even if Israel doesn’t restart the attacks and withdraws the IDF.
“Trump has said the obvious,” the source continued. “These people need to move to safety, and to human living conditions. Were this a natural disaster, that is what would be done with and for them. In their current sick and wounded condition, the Palestinians cannot rebuild Gaza by themselves. Sure, some will be able to help—those who are strong enough to do so. But you will need to move in hundreds of thousands of workers to accomplish reconstruction in a timely manner. Factories will have to be built on site to supply the construction materials. Temporary housing for those workers will also be needed.
“Trump says the U.S. will 'take charge' of this project and enlist the world’s help—including Israel. But first you need to move people to safety, to some place where they can live, while this work proceeds. Let me tell you a secret, which should not be a secret. Trump does not want to permanently kick the Palestinians out; when it is all done, or even parts are ready for occupancy, he wants to give them the choice to come back to the new Gaza—a new homeland for the Palestinians. And he sees those who return benefiting from the newly established economy in the former rubble field, including from tourism. He sees the U.S. running the project and turning it over to the Palestinians. Those who wish him to fail in this humanitarian enterprise, say that he won’t let go of it. But keeping Palestine won’t work, and is not what he wants. A bold initiating role for the U.S., yes, but Trump is not engaging in some land grab.
“As for the future of a Palestinian state,” said the source. “People keep talking about the idea, but what is the viability of such a state economically, based on its current status as Israeli occupied territory? It has none. It is a failed state, from the get-go. So, let’s come up with a plan to make all those things required of a viable sovereign state happen. What Trump is doing is creating that possibility, whether Bibi or anyone else likes it or not. Trump is doing more for the creation of a real and viable Palestinian state than anyone ever has, including Palestine's misleaders."
Time for the Oasis Plan
“To do the kind of reconstruction proposed here,” the source continued, ”you are going to need massive amounts of fresh water and power to run the factories, and create livable conditions for construction workers and residents alike, as well as for the people who are moved to other locations. Trump’s plan folds nicely into a larger plan for regional development that is now making the rounds in policy circles, the Oasis Plan, that pivots on the creation of vast amounts of fresh water from Mediterranean seawater using desalination plants and treated wastewater powered by modern small nuclear reactors, to support industry, agriculture, and for personal use. Those nuclear reactors will also be a major source of electrical power, generally.
“This Oasis Plan, developed by the late American statesman and physical economist Lyndon LaRouche, was originally commissioned by a faction in Israel that correctly believed that the only pathway to durable peace is cooperative economic development, regionwide" the source concluded. "Now promoted by the Schiller Institute, founded by LaRouche’s widow, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, the Oasis Plan is a project whose time has come. Opening the door for such far ranging plans and ideas, which might otherwise, while necessary, seem impractical based on entrenched ideologies which are manipulated to keep people in conflict rather than in collaboration, requires someone to bust up axioms. Enter Donald J. Trump, agent of chaos.”
This and other sources report that there will soon be a conference on the Trump plan, and other plans for reconstruction and development in Gaza. The Oasis Plan should be put on the top of the agenda for such a conference.
Meanwhile, Trump intends to lobby for its concepts, even as they are being refined, with various leaders in the region, starting with Jordan’s King Abdoullah II, who he has invited to the White House February 11.