Gaza Was Both a Bluff and a Green Light to Israel
The real news is what Ttrumo is doing. Not what he's mumbling about.
February 6, 2025
By Marc Cooper
Far be it from me to analyze or even guess what Donald Trump actually thinks. I have no personal experience inhabiting the impaired, addled brain of an incoherent sociopath.
That said, whatever is in his head—wittingly or otherwise—his statement the other day that he wants to “clean out” the Gaza Strip, disperse the 2 million Palestinians there, deploy U.S. troops and exert long-term U.S. ownership of the territory and turn it into “the Riviera of the Middle East” is a ridiculous bluff. But a very dangerous one.
You’ve heard enough about this insane idea over the last 48 hours, so there would be no value in rehearsing all the details.
Suffice it to say that it’s a madman theory, as no neighboring country or even the EU is willing to accept the Palestinians. The forceful removal of them by the U.S. or Israel would be an atrocity—mass ethnic cleansing and a black-and-white war crime moving even closer to genocide.
It would also be an escalation of the vicious war already ripping up Gaza, as there are still thousands of armed and organized Palestinians in Gaza, and U.S. troops would be immediately engaged in a bloody swamp of urban warfare.
There is almost no reality to this harebrained imperialist vow. Almost none. The New York Times reports that this idea can be traced back to Jared Kushner and Trump Middle East envoy and billionaire developer magnate Steve Witcoff.
These two vultures have apparently been talking about building beachside resorts in Gaza for months, along with Trump, but with no timeline and without any explicit call for a U.S. takeover. They assumed that one day, sooner or later, the war would come to an end, and the possibility of developing luxury resorts on the beaches of Gaza might be possible. Some day, like 15 years from now.
But it was Trump himself, on his own, and without even a discussion with Secretary of State Little Marco, who burped out the goal of sending U.S. troops to carry out the depopulation mission and to take ownership of Gaza as an American protectorate.
This is not going to happen. Period. The administration has already feebly walked back the use of American troops, and all of the U.S. allies in the region, most importantly Saudi Arabia, have firmly rejected the idea.
THE BLUFF
While I refuse to even guess how much of this hooey Trump actually believes, I do know that the mass media is guilty of taking the bait, polishing this latest shiny object, and playing with it around the clock for the last three days.
The result is one more distraction from the actual deep damage that is at the center of the Trump agenda: a full capture of the U.S. federal state, its haphazard downsizing, the beheading of its agencies, the shutdown of US AID and all foreign assistance, and its radical shrinking to a core of Trump MAGA diehard loyalists. Add to that his emasculation of the U.S. Congress, thanks in part to a supine and ass-kissing GOP complicit in its own destruction of one of the three branches of constitutional rule.
This is what Trump is DOING. Gaza, Greenland, and Panama are what he is babbling about. Our attention, and that of the media, should be intensely focused on his actions, not on the spurious oral eruptions from his twisted and incoherent brain.
THE DANGER
Yes, the media has covered his real actions in Washington, but not sufficiently. And every column inch and minute of airtime dedicated to the Gaza hallucination eats up news real estate for the more pressing issue of the dismantling of American democracy.
While pundits were jerking off about Gaza, Trump’s new FBI leadership turned over the identities of 5,000 FBI agents who were even tangentially involved in the arrest of the now pardoned 1,600 January 6 hooligans, insurrectionists, and extremist seditionists. Lists are compiled for a reason, and if it’s not a prelude to a mass purge, then you tell me what it is.
Then, the new CIA leadership, another ship of fools, complied with a White House request and sent a list of all CIA agents hired in the last few yeaars and those who had been in the process of being hired (now on hold) to the Oval Office. These sensitive names were sent by unclassified regular old email, making them easily hackable. And what is that list for? If the White House doesn’t answer you might ask Putin and Xi as they undoubtedly have a copy or two already.
There are plenty of historic reasons to not be enamored by the FBI and CIA. But there’s nothing good about sacrificing national security and watching these two agencies become Trump’s private security forces.
Simultaneously, Musk, with no objections from Trump or the disabled Congress, announced that the 65-year-old office of US AID is to be shuttered. AID has its own rocky history and was used by several administrations as a weapon in the Cold War, but it has also done more good than bad. George W. Bush’s anti-HIV program in Africa alone saved millions of lives and is now defunded.
And the latest target on the Trump-Musk hit list is the Department of Education, which will not exist within a year. Buyouts, defunding, and decapitation are already in the works.
Meanwhile, the wholly disqualified pro-Russian nominee for Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, who was in very deep water for confirmation, magically sailed through the procedural committee vote and will now be confirmed. It too just took Trump calling on Christopher Moltisanti to do some wall to wall counseling with them.
Likewise, crackpot RFK Jr., whose own nomination for HHS Secretary was hanging by a thread, also got committee approval after two Republican skeptics, including an M.D. who was one of the few to vote guilty in Trump’s impeachment, were flattened out by the president’s strong-arm lobbying and flipped their votes to affirm RFK—who will now be easily confirmed locked and loaded with his quackery..
And behind this all is co-President and ketamine addict Elon Musk, who, with his crew of a half dozen twenty-somethings, has seized control of the government’s digital command network through which all federal funding, including social services, must pass. There is already evidence that the Muskovites have been rewriting the code of the network. And if Trump gives the signal or if Musk has a ketamine episode, funding to virtually any federally financed agency, grant, or program can be canceled with a click. And with no participation of congress.
Smarter analysts than me have described this as a blatant “coup,” and it should be blaring headlines and top breaking news, as it means that with White House and congressional complicity, a Musk-led junta of a half dozen gearheads holds the fate of the federal government in their 21-year-old hands.
This is what Trump is doing…solidifying a coup and a presidential dictatorship. Everything else is a distraction.
THE GREEN LIGHT TO ISRAEL
Trump’s headless statements on occupying Gaza were made during a joint press conference following a private meeting with Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu. While Trump rattled off his “plan,” Netanyahu stood at a podium a few feet away, displaying the smile of the Cheshire Cat.
I do not pretend to know what was said in that private meeting, but piecing together the fragments of evidence, I assume that during the meeting, the idea of “clearing out” Gaza and scattering the Palestinians was agreed upon—probably without including U.S. troops or occupation. Depopulating Gaza has been a goal often mentioned by Israeli leadership. And you can bet your bottom crypto coin that Trump told Bibi, "You will have my full support when you make the move." I also assume that Trump promised he would twist the reluctant arms of leaders in Egypt and Jordan to eventually take in the ethnically cleansed Gazan Palestinians.
It’s almost certain that Trump also signed off on Israel’s current but unstated campaign to annex Palestinian areas of the West Bank. This would forever erase whatever slim possibility there was for an independent Palestinian state.
The shtick Trump pulled in front of the cameras about U.S. troops and occupation was no doubt improvised by his unhinged mind. Bibi’s smile throughout meant he knew the actual truth behind the blustering, and as a fellow serial liar, he figured out what was real and what was bullshit.
The Trump administration, with almost no media notice, lifted the sanctions that Biden had imposed on the Israeli extremist vigilantes rampaging through the West Bank. It also renewed the shipment of 2000-pound blockbuster bombs to Israel that Biden had suspended.
On Thursday morning, the Israeli defense minister ordered a troop mobilization for the “departure” of Palestinians from Gaza but offered no details on what that would look like or where the Palestinians would “depart” to.
In short, Trump’s threats against Gaza were a two-pronged measure: to distract from his dismantling of the American government and to flash a green light to Israel to wipe out Gaza.
In the meantime, Trump’s mere words about Gaza have further destabilized the region and endangered the already shaky ceasefire with Hamas, Israel, and Lebanon.
I have tried to refrain from commenting, but alas, I can’t help but mention the absolute absurdity of young Americans who refused to vote for “Genocide Joe” without giving a moment’s thought to how much worse it would be with Trump in office. Biden bears great responsibility for the mass murder and war crimes committed with U.S. support for Israel. Demonstrations against the war were wholly justified. 45,000 dead is a mountain of corpses. But it was not genocide. It could easily be seen as a precursor or predicate for genocide, but not more. Genocide is the erasure of a people. There are still 7 million Palestinians living inside Israel, the occupied territories, and nearby states.
The ethnic “cleansing” of Gaza and annexation of the West Bank would be two giant steps toward the erasure of the Palestinian people. That is the dire threat now posed by Trump, but it was not maturely evaluated by many during the presidential campaign. I doubt the lesson has been learned because nobody likes to admit mistakes. But this is something I felt compelled to say. You are free to dissent in the comments section.
BITS AND PIECES
—The Guardian reports that ICE has been gaming Google on mass deportations. It flooded Google with years of old images and press releases about previous deportations and dated them all as being post Trump inauguration. The obvious goal is to create a false impression that true mass deportation is really underway. Turns out that the number of ICE detentions daily are at about the same level as under the Obama administration. Earlier this week, ICE had to release 400 detainees from custody as there was no space available to hold them.
— Tesla sales are tanking, Due to his extremist politics and a few Nazi salutes here and there, Elmo’s popularity is plummeting and so are sales of his Tesla brand. Tesla sales are down 12% in the U.S. But in Europe they are crashing. New Tesla sales are down more than 60% in France and Germany and are also taking hits in the UK and Scandinavia. ++
I have been in Chile, supposedly on vacation, for the last month, but have kept up a rapid pace with The Coop Scoop. I return home next week and intend to maintain this pace as the national crisis demands. But I need your material support to continue. Please become a free subscriber or, even better, a paid one. I can foresee no let up in forthcoming content.
Thanks, as always, Marc, for seeing and sharing reality.