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The Trump Administration, in place for only a little over three weeks, has gone full speed ahead in its advocacy for Israel. Donald Trump’s invitation to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to visit him at the White House, the first foreign head of state to be honored in that fashion, set the stage for a whole series of actions intended to confirm the status of Israel as America’s “best friend and closest ally” as it is often celebrated by both government and the media. Trump also delighted his visitor by revealing a plan for the United States to completely remove the Palestinians from Gaza so that the US government could “buy” and “own” the strip in order to rebuild it in luxury style, with properties overlooking the Mediterranean Sea emulating the French Riviera that then would be sold to folks “in the area”, meaning presumably wealthy Jews, as Trump also made clear, no Gazans would be allowed to return to what was once their homes. Netanyahu meanwhile is ethnically cleansing the other remnant of Palestinians on the West Bank, meaning that what once was Palestine will before too long be free of Palestinians, and the three million plus new refugees will either be made dead or shipped off to parts unknow. Trump indicated that that issue, meaning the moves undertaken by Israel to depopulate and then annex the West Bank, is also under direct discussion with the Netanyahu government.
Trump also has cleared a shipment of 1800 devastating Mark-84 2000 pound bombs to “finish the job” on Gaza as needed and also, presumably, with Hezbollah neighbors to the north in Lebanon if they should again become uppity. Beyond that, $9 billions dollars worth of new slightly smaller bombs and artillery projectiles as well as armored Caterpillar bulldozers, useful for knocking down Palestinian houses and clearing debris and bodies for the construction of luxury villas, are also on the way.
To top it all off and in giving a special and personal gift to Netanyahu himself, Trump has also issued an executive order imposing comprehensive sanctions on the International Criminal Court (ICC) and its staff to punish it for having the nerve to accuse the Prime Minister of Israel and his Minister of Defense of war crimes in Gaza. Prime Minister Netanyahu’s office welcomed the move and he personally responded to Trump with “Thank you, President Trump, for your bold ICC Executive Order. It will defend America and Israel from the anti-American and antisemetic [sic] corrupt court that has no jurisdiction or basis to engage in lawfare against us… The ICC waged a ruthless campaign against Israel as a trial run for action against America. President Trump’s Executive Order protects the sovereignty of both countries and its brave soldiers. Thank you, President Trump.”
Nevertheless, Trump, whose ignorance about whom to blame for what has been happening in the Middle East during the past seventy-five years is profound, is nevertheless learning that not everything works out as he would like it to. There are already indications that the Gaza Riviera plan is unlikely to develop for a number of reasons, including unwillingness of Arab countries to take in millions of new refugees as well as who pays for it and provides security. There are also legal issues including the question of whom Trump intends to “buy” the land from as the Gazans are regarded by most of the world and also by the international courts as the owners, not Israel, which would presumably wind up as the default possessors through military occupation of the property. So the “deal of the millennium” is not likely to go through in quite the way that the US president described it.
To a certain extent, Trump is being allowed to get away with his overweening fondness for Israel because a Congress that has been corrupted by Jewish lobby money is, if anything, more pathetic and prone to crawling before Netanyahu than is the president. So there is virtually no check on his behavior when it comes to giving Israel even more than what it demands as tribute. Lest the reader be tempted to ask, there is more, much more, and some of it not only contrary to actual US interests, but actually damaging to the existing constitutional rights and liberties of each and every American citizen.
I rather think that some a recent move by Trump’s new Attorney General Pam Bondi, which was barely reported in the media, illustrates the absurdity of the positions being staked out by “Israel First” fanatics who have filled most of the top offices in the new cabinet. Prior to taking up her position, Bondi, echoing her new boss’s record for inane comments, urged in a Newsmax interview shortly after Hamas’ October 7th attack on Israel, that federal officials get tougher with pro-Palestinian protesters on college campuses. “Frankly, they need to be taken out of our country or the FBI needs to be interviewing them right away,” she said. She also called antisemitism “rampant” in the US and said it’s “heartbreaking to see what’s happening to all of our Jewish friends in this country.”
Pam Bondi is clearly following up on her concern about Israel’s security. Now that she is actually in office, one of her first official acts after being sworn in on Wednesday was to establish a joint task force dedicated to “investigating the perpetrators of the October 7th Hamas terror attacks and seeking justice for their victims.” Bondi elaborated on the need to address “the ongoing threat posed by Hamas and its affiliates, both domestically and abroad” suggesting that she thinks that she has jurisdiction in Gaza.
The agenda of Joint Task Force October 7 will apparently not be limited to investigating possible terrorist violence —it is also tasked with prosecuting “antisemitic civil rights violations” and “other federal crimes” committed by presumed “Hamas terrorism supporters” domestically, including on US college campuses. Predictably, Michael Masters, CEO of the Secure Community Network, which provides security guidance to Jewish institutions across the US, said of the task force that “This administration is taking the threats to our community very, very seriously, which we are grateful for.” Indeed, Masters likely knows well that “his community” is already taken well care of by the US government as more that 90% of all discretionary security grants made by the Department of Homeland Security goes to Jewish recipients. I wonder what your salary is Michael?
The creation of the October 7th task force suggests Bondi views Islamist terrorism as a major threat and urgent issue to address, which could easily be contested in the context of the United States. The task force, which will be supervised by the deputy attorney general, will be staffed with FBI agents experienced in terrorism investigations. Notably, it will also work in conjunction with counterparts in Israel which means that Israelis will be investigating American citizens and residents.
Interestingly enough, another directive from Bondi could result in a major shake-up of enforcement of laws meant to prohibit undue foreign interference in the American political system. She limited the ability of prosecutors to bring charges related to violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), a law that requires people engaged in promoting the interests of foreign governments to disclose their employer and their compensation. As no country in the world interferes in US politics more than Israel, it will limit the likelihood, now set at zero, that Israeli groups and agents will ever be required to register. One recalls that John F. Kenney was trying to compel the registry of one such group shortly before he was assassinated!
Not surprisingly, Bondi’s interest in the so-called perpetrators of October 7th, which she falsely regards as a threat against the United States, is shared by the Jewish dominated US media, which persists in including in nearly every article about Gaza a line about how Hamas “terrorists” attacked Israel and killed 1200 Israelis, described as the worst crime against Jews since the so-called holocaust. Unfortunately, the tale is bogus. Some 500 or more of those killed were murdered by the Israeli army when it used tanks and attack helicopters to kill anything moving on the site where the incident was taking place. Recently, the former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant admitted that the forces under his command had carried out the so-called Hannibal Directive to kill Israelis who might otherwise become hostages to avoid placing the Israeli government under pressure to take risks to free those captured.
Finally, as mentioned above, the concern for Israel has led the new administration to increase pressure on colleges and universities to suppress pro-Palestinian and/or anti-Israeli demonstrations on US campuses, threatening to cut federal funding for institutions that do not take firm steps to “protect Jewish students” (who already are the most privileged group of students at most large colleges). Even the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has found the action being demanded to be one-sided, observing that “The bill the ‘Anti-Semitism Awareness Act’ is part of a disturbing surge of government-led attempts to suppress the [free] speech of people on only one side of the Israel-Palestine debate. The trend manifests on college campuses, in state contracts, and even in bills to change federal criminal law, but the impact is the same: Those who seek to protest, boycott, or otherwise criticize the Israeli government are being silenced.” Those who are against the genocide are instead being singled out for administrative action, which includes banning from campus buildings up to and including expulsion from schools themselves and even deportation of those who are foreign by the federal government which is now moving to strip them of their student visas and send them home. A major case currently unfolding involves what should be done to Princeton University students who are being tried for offenses that reportedly occurred over a year ago.
So, the question one has to ask the Administration of Donald Trump is not “What else do we need to do for Israel?” but rather “When is it all going to stop?” When will Trump actually begin to deliver on “Making America Great Again?” Israel has been the recipient of more taxpayer money than any other country, which frees up the money from Jewish billionaires to bribe Congress and presidential candidates to make sure that the cash keeps flowing out of the pockets of ordinary Americans to fill the pockets of human trash like Benjamin Netanyahu. And the cash and weekly shipments of weapons together enable Israel to commit genocide on its neighbors, which most Americans disapprove of, but as usual in Washington, nobody is listening.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.