This afternoon, in a joint press conference with Israel PM Bibi Netanyahu, Mango Mussolini dropped the ultimate F-U Bomb on the displaced and suffering people of Gaza. He advanced the idea of the US taking “ownership” of Gaza after its surviving 2 million people have been permanently “resettled” elsewhere and rebuilding it as a “Middle Eastern Riviera.” (Isn’t that what Beirut, Lebanon was before it was half-destroyed in the 1975-1990 Lebanese War?) He mentioned Jordan and Egypt as potential resettlement locations for displaced Gaza Palestinians, but both countries’ governments quickly shot down this idea.
You may remember that in March 2024, son-in-law Jared Kushner extolled the economic benefits of beachfront property development in an ethnically cleansed Gaza. He had previously received a $2 billion grubstake from the Saudi Arabian government’s sovereign wealth fund in April 2022 for his private equity firm.
I bet Mango Mussolini’s favorite puppet master Vladimir didn’t have this imperialist trial balloon on his bingo card. I also doubt that Senate Majority Leader Thune had it on his card as well.
If Mannish Boy gets serious and tries to put US soldiers in Gaza, everyone except (maybe) Netanyahu will raise hell about it. No US-allied nation will send troops there to back up the US because no other member of the UN Security Council or General Assembly would support unilateral US “ownership” of Gaza. Putin may not criticize tRump publicly but having a major US military force so close to Russia’s borders is not something that he wants. Russia would probably prod Iran and the terrorist militias under its influence—including what’s left of Hezbollah and Hamas—into staging guerrilla assaults against any US forces stationed in Gaza or offshore. We’ve all seen this movie before in Iraq and Afghanistan, only this time it might spark a hot regional shooting war that would likely spiral out of control.
If tRump tries to mount a military occupation of Gaza, Senate and House Dems must bring business in both Houses of Congress to a halt by any legal and/or nonviolent means necessary. They must demand that no US military force be sent to Gaza without the approval of Congress. If necessary, they must sponsor resolutions censuring the president for his reckless endangerment of civilian and military lives. Congressional Dems might get unexpected support from a number of Republican congress members because most red-state voters are no more willing to risk their lives in Gaza for Jared and tRump’s beachfront development dreams than blue-state voters. Nor does either group of voters want to see their relatives and friends in uniform forced to risk their lives in a war of tRump’s choice. If the hue and cry from blue and red states is loud enough, House Dems might gain Republican support for articles of impeachment (not that I’m holding my breath).
Senior US military commanders are likely to defy any illegal order that would needlessly put their soldiers’ lives at risk. Retired veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars would likely support them—especially veterans like Senator Tammy Duckworth who lost both legs in battle in Iraq.
Finally, this president’s Gaza cray-cray must be the trigger for us who choose peace and democracy over militaristic theofascism to join with like-minded people around the world to mount a massive anti-war movement that includes general strikes and boycotts of defense and other corporations that supported tRump’s rise to office—including Tesla and Amazon.
This may all sound like a tall order. But that’s why we all have smart phones. The Black Lives Matter protests began with a 17-year-old sister who recorded the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police in 2020 despite being wrongly threatened with arrest.
Mighty oaks from little acorns grow.
GOTV in 2026 and 2028. Aluta Continua!