Middle East Press On: Israel, DOGE, Musk, Netanyahu, Gaza: New Age Islam's Selection, 7 February 2025
By New Age Islam Edit Desk
7 February 2025
Israel Should Listen To Musk And Create A DOGE Of Its Own
Trump Support Can't Replace Focus On Israel's Internal Security
A Megalomaniac President Wins Wars, Netanyahu Just Survives Them
Trump’s Gaza Proposal: Right Concept, Wrong Plan
Does Trump See Gaza As A Business Opportunity Or A Dispossession Project?
The World Bears Responsibility For The Current Phase Of The US-Israeli Alliance
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Israel Should Listen To Musk And Create A DOGE Of Its Own
By Zvika Klein
February 7, 2025
It would appear as though no day goes by without another scandal or story hitting the headlines involving Elon Musk – the candid, colourful billionaire who has become the right-hand man to US President Donald Trump since the campaign trail. He disrupted the car industry, space travel, and even the way that people pay their bills online.
But imagine here that his next challenge is Israeli bureaucracy. I could envision Musk entering the Interior Ministry to get efficient service and digital handling. Instead, he finds long lines, reams of paper, and clerks who insist that his appointment never existed.
He would probably write something nasty about it on X/Twitter and, true to Musk fashion, propose a radical overhaul.
Well, that is just what Israel needs: DOGE, a Department of Government Efficiency.
Not the Shiba Inu Dogecoin cryptocurrency, but an actual project along the lines of the new US Department of Government Efficiency that Israel really needs: A body dedicated to finding, streamlining, and cutting fat in government – because if there is one thing Israel knows how to produce en masse, it is bureaucratic red tape.
What always surprises me is how we live in a country where start-ups build up and sell out quicker than one can say “exit strategy,” and the government is this anachronistic beast, still slow, inefficient, and resistant to modernization.
Of course, the IDF runs like a well-oiled machine when it needs to. The tech sector runs on agility and innovation. What about the government?
Israeli bureaucracy has become a Kafkaesque maze
Basic services are the prey of some Kafkaesque maze, bound in a stranglehold by old systems and unnecessary middlemen. According to a recent report by the Israel Democracy Institute, about 70% of public opinion in Israel is of the view that excessive bureaucracy is blocking economic growth.
In contrast, a parallel report from the Shoresh Institution for Socioeconomic Research evidences how an excess of regulations deters effective competition and retards urgent structural reforms.
A similar gloomy picture comes out of a report titled “Government at a Glance” by the OECD, in which Israel places among the lowest in digital public services in developed countries.
At the same time, administrative bottlenecks cost the economy billions annually.
“A typical business in Israel spends 235 hours per year dealing with regulatory compliance, compared with just 81 hours in Denmark,” the report reads. A Shoresh study found that the sheer complexity of Israeli bureaucracy forces businesses to employ “compliance consultants” just to navigate government paperwork, an absurdity that hampers small business growth.
We have all heard the horror stories – entrepreneurs waiting years for business licenses, hospitals drowning in paperwork, and digital systems that would seem to have been coded from the Windows 95 era.
According to a report by the IDI in 2023, “Government inefficiency and over-regulation are costing Israel nearly 10% of its GDP annually in lost productivity and wasted resources.” And let us not even get into the situation at the Interior Ministry, where renewing a passport can seem like an odyssey of almost a year – almost a year, maybe a bit less, but longer than many countries.
A DOGE for Israel wouldn’t just be a handy acronym; it would be a real game-changer. In contrast with the US, where the government can mask inefficiency behind a veneer of spin and PR, Israel’s small size and start-up mentality mean the problems are more overt.
This implies a department for the efficiency of government here would have to be ruthlessly results-driven. A 2022 Finance Ministry proposal, establishing a “Government Innovation Authority,” modeled on the success of the Israel Innovation Authority came to nothing – bottom line – an absence not of ideas, but rather of implementation.
The leading mantra behind any envisioned Israeli DOGE is essentially its mission and a way for transforming the very culture of doing work within the different government offices themselves.
Instead of automatically renewing the budgets for each ministry, DOGE would make departments justify their existence and prove their effectiveness.
Many government offices in Israel are still a mess from the 1990s, even in bureaucratic ways. The shift pushed by DOGE would translate into modern services: fully digital, AI-assisted, and user-friendly, similar to the Estonian e-government model.
What would a DOGE in Israel do?
A dedicated team would hunt and kill unnecessary steps in every government process – driver’s licenses, registering a business, or even birth certificates.
Every ministry would have to meet an efficiency target or face the consequences. A monthly “Bureaucratic Shame List” can hang the worst offenders out to dry. Public pressure works.
FOR THAT, we need visionary, no-nonsense business leaders who understand the meaning of efficiency and disruption.
In the US, Musk is often discussed as a model for shaking up outdated systems. Who could play that role in Israel? Several names come to mind.
Rami Levy is the supermarket king who shook up the country’s groceries by slicing consumer costs and smoothing out supply chains; his logistics and cost-cutting acumen could be utilized to make government procurement and public spending far more efficient.
Dovi Frances is a financial entrepreneur and investor who has made his name and money by increasing efficiency and disrupting markets; he would bring performance budgeting and private sector-style accountability into public administration.
American-Jewish billionaires Michael Dell and Larry Ellison, who respectively made their fortunes in enterprise software and cloud computing, would modernize Israel’s governmental IT infrastructure so it worked seamlessly.
Mark Zuckerberg of Meta, a trailblazer of digital connectivity, could integrate AI-powered platforms, enhancing citizen-government interaction.
Roman Abramovich has made strategic investments and is recognized for his financial acumen-he could help advise how to make such a model self-sustaining, by reinvesting savings into public services.
Mark Rowen, Bill Ackman, and Howard Schultz are some of the influential business strategists who could introduce efficiency audits and lean management systems, thus introducing a results-oriented culture into governance.
Sylvan Adams is a well-known philanthropist and entrepreneur deeply involved in pro-Israel advocacy, and huge sports events, who could restructure our outdated Foreign Ministry and become some sort of “Super Diplomat” advising Israel on creative and competent management of our foreign relations.
Given her experience in scaling operations at Facebook, Sheryl Sandberg could bring valuable insights into the efficient management of large-scale government projects.
Marius Nacht, cybersecurity and fintech expert, may help with strengthening digital government security while making sure digital reforms are safe and resilient.
Canadian wonder-men Ronnen Harary and Anton Rabie, co-founders of Spin Master, may help leverage knowledge on innovation and consumer engagement for a user-friendly government.
Morris Kahn, a pioneer of Israeli hi-tech, could play a role in fostering public-private partnerships to implement digital reforms at a faster pace.
Diaspora Jews have long played an important role in the development of the Jewish state.
An efficiency-oriented initiative like DOGE would be a new and significant way for Diaspora leaders to be involved in rebuilding the Jewish state, bringing their knowledge and business acumen to bear on strengthening governance and improving the daily lives of Israeli citizens.
The Diaspora Jews cannot vote in Israeli elections, for the simple reason that they do not live in Israel. Still, surely, as of October 7, they have been unrelenting about helping our country in various ways.
Walk into any hospital in Israel, and there are thousands of plaques on the walls, buildings, and benches.
Why not? Why not permit the most exceptional Jewish brains to advise the government or the prime minister?
Why not create an advisory body where these successful Jews advise our leaders in a kind of community service to help Israel get modernized and, at the same time, grow closer to Jewish communities worldwide to whom the country is so dear?
What would be the first step?
The first step would be the creation of a Government Efficiency Task Force. A committee comprising business leaders, economists, and tech experts might perform a six-month audit of the most inefficient government departments.
A fully digital system should be tested in one high-friction ministry – for instance, the Health or Interior ministries – and AI-powered customer service should be introduced to cut down response times.
The Knesset should pass a law enacting a “one-click” rule: any government process that requires more than three steps must be reviewed and simplified. A public platform needs to be created whereby the citizens can report government inefficiencies, delays, and bureaucratic nightmares.
Incentives need to be created for government workers who would come up with ways of efficiency improvement and propose their implementation.
Israel is the country that goes into space, has the best cybersecurity in the world, is a leader in medical innovation – and can’t issue a passport in less than six months.
What’s wrong isn’t the brains, the technology, or the drive. It’s a system of government that is stuck to the past, refusing to make a change.
Creating an Israeli Department of Government Efficiency with its make-up comprising Israeli and Diaspora leaders is not a dream or a joke.
The government needs to be managed with the insight of a start-up: agile, digital transformation, citizen-first services.
We are the State of the Start-Up Nation and need to act like it.
Will that be easy? No. But if there’s any country in the world that can make chaos work efficiently, it is Israel.
All the Start-Up Nation needs to do is to apply its magic to its government.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-841046
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Trump Support Can't Replace Focus On Israel's Internal Security
By Jpost Editorial
February 7, 2025
If US President Donald Trump’s grand statements of a plan to transfer 1.8 million Palestinians from the uninhabitable Gaza Strip hadn’t been said this week, public discourse would have focused much more than it had on a terrifying number: Seven.
Six Arab Israelis were killed in criminal violence incidents in the span of 24 hours between Sunday and Monday this week, with one more on Tuesday in what police suspect was a revenge hit.
Israel Police said last week that it was launching what it called a “large-scale” operation to combat crime in the sector; these seven deaths came one week later.
This is not to say police aren’t trying, but with 2023 and 2024 numbering the largest casualty count in the sector by far over the past nine years, it is either that what is being done isn’t enough or a more creative solution is required.
According to data from Israel’s Police compiled by the Abraham Initiatives on Arab sector deaths over the past nine years, in 2023, there were 244 deaths, with 230 in 2024.
In this calendar year so far, 30 people were killed in such circumstances, 23 from gunshots. At this time last year, there were 12 such casualties, and in 2015, there were 58. The Arab sector numbers about 2 million people.
Israel must lower its staggering crime rate
The past two years have not been restful by any means, and there are limited resources – but these numbers cannot continue to rise.
One of this week’s victims was Dr. Abdullah Awad, who was shot at a clinic in Kafr Yasif near Abu Snan – where three of the other victims were killed. As of the time of writing, there has been no apprehension of the killers, who shot Awad in front of his patients.
The health system shut down for two hours on Tuesday in a show of solidarity.
The Israel Medical Association said the murder “shocked us all, and follows five other Arab sector killings in 24 hours. It cannot be that a doctor performing his duties, at a place that is supposed to be safe, falls victim to such brutal, unstoppable violence.”
At a ceremony honoring him, and to demonstrate against the violence, Dr. Tsvi Sheleg, deputy director general of the Galilee Medical Center where Awad interned, said, “50 years ago, Dr. Gideon Manelis was murdered at the hospital as he examined a patient in the emergency room. 50 years have passed, and nothing has changed.” At the time, 6,000 physicians went on strike.
The Israel Democracy Institute presented research in November that showed that trust in police among Jewish Israelis is declining, after a spike to 59% after October 7.
It fell to 39%. Among Arab Israelis, it did not spike as high after October 7 but fell as well – to 25% – “less than half of what it was two decades ago,” said the IDI.
There are those who make the argument that gang violence is just a part of Arab culture. That argument falls apart in the face of a democratic state with a publicly funded police.
Something must be done
Anyone with eyes saw the drainage of power to Israel Police over the last two years. Casualty rates like these, or higher, are what await us if nothing is done.
Only 14.8% of cases were solved in 2024, out of 209 incidents.
Raed Daka, the mayor of Baka al-Gharbiya, wrote a recent op-ed where he highlighted the growing violence within Arab society in Israel as a “national crisis.” He argued that systemic neglect has enabled crime syndicates to thrive, leading to a surge in violent crime and creating a parallel economic system based on extortion and arms trafficking.
“The violent crime in Arab society has become a national epidemic that threatens governance, economy, and society as a whole,” Daka wrote.
“When the state decides that it truly cares, we will be there to support it,” he concluded, stressing that addressing this issue is not just about restoring security in Arab communities but is essential for strengthening governance and stability across Israel.
As things move in the international arena and Israelis continue to deal with the aftermath of the horrors of October 7, it is important not to take the eye off the goal of internal security; it will be very hard to fight for our defense without it.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-841053
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A Megalomaniac President Wins Wars, Netanyahu Just Survives Them
By Moshe Klughaft
February 6, 2025
A nation is just a grown-up person, complete with a body, a soul, and a full package of psychological complexities.Thomas Hobbes already laid it out 374 years ago in Leviathan: "Sovereignty is the soul, officials are the joints, the law enforcement agencies are the nerves, advisors are the memory, national unity is health, rebellion is disease, and civil war is death."
I would add that if nations are like little people, then their leaders are, in effect, oversized states. The United States and Israel, with a combined population of 350 million, are concentrated in the bodies of two men in their late seventies—Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu.
To understand their minds is to save our own.
Trump’s secret: vulnerability as strength
Throughout his career, Trump has been dismissed as someone who never built himself from scratch. "He’s not a brilliant businessman. He was just born into wealth and got millions from his father," the US media sneered. Instead of denying it, Trump turned it into leverage. He spun the story, claiming he took a "small loan" of a million dollars from his father and transformed it into a multibillion-dollar empire.
He flipped the narrative: instead of being the rich kid handed everything on a silver spoon, he cast himself as the self-made mogul who took a moderate sum and built an international business. His supposed weakness became his success.
The ridicule of his 2016 presidential bid was unprecedented. Barack Obama, in his characteristic condescension, dismissed him, saying, "The presidency of the United States is not entertainment and not a reality show." So Trump decided to become president—and turn the job into the most-watched reality show, with higher ratings than ever.
"You’re a loser," his niece Mary Trump taunted him, pressing on what she assumed was a raw nerve. His father, Fred Trump, a ruthless real estate mogul, had raised him to be relentlessly competitive, sending him to military school at age 13 to "toughen him up." Instead of breaking, Trump transformed this tough upbringing into his driving force. He became a fighter who refuses to give up, even when everyone around him assumes all is lost. He turned humiliation into power.
If you want to sum it up in one image, look no further than the most iconic moment in modern politics: moments after surviving an assassination attempt in Pennsylvania, blood still dripping down his face, Trump seized the moment to create an instant symbol of resilience—his now-famous fist-pumping "Fight. Fight. Fight."
Trump still seeks validation from his father, even today. He craves the image of a winner as much as he craves air. He wants to return from military school with a Nobel Prize in his backpack.
Owning his flaws, weaponizing his strengths
Here’s Trump’s distilled genius: he doesn’t hide it. "Everyone gets a Nobel Prize. I’ve done more than all of them, so why haven’t I gotten one?" he asks, openly, bluntly.
In a presidential debate, Kamala Harris mocked him, saying people leave his rallies early "out of exhaustion and boredom." Instead of masking his emotions, he didn’t even try to hide his offense.
"To be human is to feel a sense of inferiority, and that feeling becomes the drive to achieve," said Alfred Adler, the founder of individual psychology. At 78, Trump is done pretending. He’s a megalomaniac, and he’s totally fine with it.
That’s how we arrived at the historic moment we witnessed this week. When you’re a megalomaniac out of the closet, you have no reason to hold back. If your weaknesses are on the table, you expect everyone else’s to be as well. You simply blurt out what seems logical to you, no filters included.
And here’s Trump’s logic, as transparent as Bianca Censori’s dress at the Grammys:
"If there’s a ruined land, with a barbaric population incapable—mentally and intellectually—of rebuilding itself, and instead, like an alcoholic, pours every dollar it receives into murdering its neighbor, it simply shouldn’t be there. If their land looks like a prime real estate opportunity on the beach, we’ll turn it into a tourist paradise."
And then Trump adds: "5.5 million refugees have left Syria since the war began. They moved to Turkey, Egypt, Lebanon, Iraq, and even Germany. What’s another 2 million Gazans?"
And from this supposed weakness, we benefit.
The paradox of Netanyahu: A strong weak leader
Now, to the second character of the week—strange to say, but Benjamin Netanyahu.
Netanyahu grew up alongside his brother Yoni, who was groomed by their father to be the leader of the family. Their father, historian Benzion Netanyahu, once remarked that Bibi was "more suited to be foreign minister than prime minister." Netanyahu’s political career was launched in Yoni’s shadow and in his memory. He convened the first-ever global terrorism conference in 1979 and published Fighting Terrorism: How Democracies Can Defeat Domestic and International Terrorism. He never shied away from acknowledging it: Netanyahu is here because of Yoni.
But even breaking David Ben-Gurion’s record as Israel’s longest-serving prime minister isn’t enough—he still wants to prove to his father that he can be the greatest leader in Israel’s history.
There’s one difference between him and Trump, though: Netanyahu will never admit it.
Netanyahu does not expose his weaknesses—not mental, not physical. He is always healthy. He is always strong. He never takes responsibility. He never shares his mistakes.
The result? He walks on eggshells. He survives. He takes risks by avoiding risks—whether against Hamas’s tunnels in 2014, Iran’s nuclear program, or even after the worst massacre in Israeli history. He still refuses to take the obvious response every other leader in the world would take—treat the enemy the way the Allies treated the Nazis.
And Netanyahu, the historian, knows exactly what that means.
At the end of World War II, more than 12 million Germans were expelled in the largest population transfer in history. Netanyahu has never dared to utter such an idea to this day. For the record, no humanitarian aid trucks for Nazis are documented in the historical records, either.
If Netanyahu had the courage to be weak, he could be strong
If Netanyahu had the courage to expose his weaknesses, he could become truly strong.
For now, fortunately, he has Trump.
This is his last chance to take what Trump is offering and deliver a total victory—so that our children are not slaughtered in their beds again.
A strong weak leader and a weak strong leader stood together in the Oval Office and decided to change history.
But really, it was two nations with chronic illnesses standing there.
It’s time to heal.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-841030
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Trump’s Gaza Proposal: Right Concept, Wrong Plan
By Mark Lavie / The Media Line
February 7, 2025
US President Donald Trump’s plan to take over Gaza, move the Palestinians out, and transform the enclave into a tourist haven won’t work. But that doesn’t make the proposal meaningless.
Critics are mistaken to dismiss it out of hand. Backers are just as mistaken to clamor for it to start right away.
First, let’s clear up some misconceptions: Not all the Israeli backers are West Bank settlers and hardline right-wingers. Jordan and Egypt cannot take in Gaza’s Palestinians. And Trump’s plan should not be examined line by line or word by word as if it’s an actual blueprint for the future. It’s not that—it’s a starting point for a new approach.
The trauma of the Hamas pogrom of October 7, 2023, when thousands of armed terrorists swept across the Gaza border into Israel, murdering, burning, and raping more than 1,200 Israelis and hauling 240 others into cruel captivity in Gaza tunnels, is reflected in Israeli reactions to Trump’s proposal.
Predictably, the most vocal supporters of removing Palestinians from Gaza are hardline right-wingers like ex-Cabinet minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, a follower of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane, a racist ultranationalist who advocated removing all Palestinians from Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza. But Ben-Gvir is far from alone.
Snap polls of Israelis by local news media show support for Trump’s idea of moving Palestinians out of Gaza at about 70%. An internet survey among the members of a large, moderate grassroots activist group produced these shocking results:
● Good idea, when do we start?—56%
● Good idea but impractical—23%
● Don’t celebrate yet; there might be hidden clauses—13%
● It’s an immoral plan—6%
So 94% of these mostly centrist respondents do not oppose the Trump plan in principle, even though it calls for ethnic cleansing and violates the Geneva Conventions ban on transferring populations, among other troubling issues. You might have thought that the results would be the opposite—6% of Israelis, about equal to the portion of West Bank settlers, would back Trump’s plan. But no.
That illustrates how fed up Israelis are with the worn-out “two-state solution” mantra, not only because of the Hamas pogrom of October 7 but also because of the Palestinian leadership’s repeated rejection of Israeli offers of a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza, and parts of Jerusalem. As recently as two years ago, about half the Israeli electorate said it could live with the creation of a Palestinian state under the right conditions. But as I wrote here, just a month after the October 7 atrocities, Hamas killed the two-state solution along with all its Israeli victims.
The main part of Trump’s proposal is resettling the Gaza Strip’s Palestinians, at least temporarily. Seen from afar, it looks like Jordan and Egypt, the enclave’s nearest neighbors, are the logical recipients of 2 million Palestinians. From here, though, it’s untenable.
Egypt, Israel’s neighbor and peace treaty partner, has been fighting a war against militants in the style of the Islamic State group in the Sinai Desert for many years. It doesn’t get much attention because, well, desert. The Islamist infestation always threatens to cross into Egypt proper.
Also getting little attention is Israel’s constant aid to Egypt in fighting the heavily armed Islamists.
The most publicized incident occurred in 2012. Islamists attacked an Egyptian border post near Israel and killed 15 Egyptian police officers. Then, the militants hopped into two Egyptian army vehicles and crossed into Israel, apparently planning to continue their killing spree. They didn’t get far before Israeli forces killed them.
That was publicized because it involved Israel. It’s far from the only such incident. Clashes happen almost every day. The bottom line—Egypt cannot take in large numbers of Palestinians who have been living under Hamas rule for the better part of two decades. Undoubtedly, some or many of them share the violent Hamas Islamist ideology. Such an influx could destabilize Egypt, which is already facing critical problems in other areas, primarily economic.
Jordan’s situation is even more serious. The small kingdom’s population is at least half Palestinian (exact figures are a closely guarded Jordanian secret). King Abdullah II faces constant challenges from Islamist elements in his own parliament, not to mention threats from outside, especially Iran. There are periodic reports of his regime teetering under these challenges. An influx of a million or even half a million Palestinians from Gaza would likely topple the king’s regime sooner rather than later.
Would sending the Palestinians to Jordan be good for Israel?
It’s a mantra among Israel’s right that “Jordan is Palestine.” Technically, that is correct—Jordan was part of what was British Mandatory Palestine. That doesn’t mean that sending more Palestinians to Jordan would be good for Israel.
Trump’s relocation of 2 million Palestinians to Egypt and Jordan would be disastrous. Instead of facing Gaza, a Hamas-run enclave hemmed in by Egypt, Israel, and the Mediterranean Sea, Israel could face two full-fledged Hamas-influenced nations on its borders. The first casualties would be Israel’s peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan, and it goes downhill from there.
So, if Trump’s plan is not only a nonstarter but also dangerous, what good can it bring?
Even discussing the plan moves the “two-state solution” formula to the back burner. Then, the focus can move to Saudi Arabia and the chance of normalizing its relations with Israel. Of course, the Saudis insist that the formation of a Palestinian state be an element in this, but Saudi pronouncements over the past few years have indicated that the actual creation of such a state (which the Palestinians themselves don’t want) is no longer a precondition to ties with Israel. Just starting Israeli-Palestinian negotiations yet again would be enough, even with the assumption that as in the past, they will go nowhere.
Involving the Saudis is the key to a different Middle East. They are the strongest Sunni Muslim element in the region, the only one that can build a regional coalition to take on Shiite Muslim Iran. That is clearly in the interests of Israel and the US.
And one day, that coalition could impose a solution on Israel and the Palestinians, drawing a border and enforcing it. Israel, as a member of the coalition, could have some input there, but however it turned out, an international force would be in place—not the toothless, biased, worthless United Nations and its tin soldiers who specialize in looking the other way.
Trump’s proposal could change the focus of Mideast diplomacy, looking at the region as a whole and not just focusing on a conflict between two of its smallest parties—Israel and the Palestinians.
In fact, that’s already happening.
Mark Lavie has been covering the Middle East for major news outlets since 1972. His second book, Why Are We Still Afraid?, which follows his five-decade career and comes to a surprising conclusion, is available on Amazon.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-841083
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Does Trump See Gaza As A Business Opportunity Or A Dispossession Project?
By Jamal Kanj
February 6, 2025
A friend texted to ask if I had watched the joint press conference held by Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu. “Fortunately, I did not watch it live,” I wrote back. It took me nearly 24 hours to be in the right state of mind to endure watching two narcissists standing on stage, lavishing praise upon each other.
As I listened carefully to Trump’s opening remarks, I also caught Netanyahu’s sneaky eye movements at key points. With a smug expression on his face, he repeatedly cast stealthy glances at Ron Dermer, Israel’s Strategic Affairs Minister, as if silently acknowledging him for crafting Trump’s words. It was evident that Trump’s speech bore the unmistakable imprint of the Israeli minister.
Their interactions were not just awkward; they were profoundly revealing. Netanyahu’s effusive praise was a calculated move, designed to keep Trump firmly in his corner and ensure continued support for Israel’s policies.
Trump, for his part, appeared more focused on basking in the admiration than grappling with the complex realities of Israel’s destruction of Gaza and the lives of more than two million human beings. When he spoke, his sentences were often disjointed, filled with rambling phrases and devoid of substantive insight, highlighting his preoccupation with self-praise.
From the moment Trump entered the political arena, Netanyahu recognised an opportunity to cultivate a relationship that would serve Israel’s interests over and above those of the US. Trump’s personality — marked by a craving for admiration, a fragile ego and an insatiable desire for validation — made him uniquely susceptible to flattery. Netanyahu, a seasoned con artist, tailored his approach adeptly to appeal to Trump’s vanity.
Netanyahu’s comments at the press conference were particularly telling. While he spoke at length about the importance of US support for Israel, he made no mention of the Palestinian people or their rights. This erasure was not accidental; it was a deliberate attempt to sidestep Israel’s brutal military occupation, displacement and genocide.
While he expressed vague sympathy for the suffering, he never mentioned the Palestinian right to self-determination, freedom or equality. He never does. The omission is not accidental; it is a calculated move to delegitimise Palestinian aspirations and reinforce the narrative that their plight is merely a humanitarian issue rather than a political one rooted in decades of occupation and systemic injustice.
What was most striking about the news conference was its lack of substance. While the dire situation in Gaza and the West Bank grows increasingly grim, neither Trump nor Netanyahu offered any coherent response. Instead, they spent most of their time recounting past “achievements” and reiterating their commitment to a relationship that has increasingly come to symbolise one-sided support for Israeli policies.
One of Trump’s most grotesque proposals was his so-called vision for Gaza’s future. He spoke of creating jobs from the very destruction that Israel has inflicted upon the besieged territory with US-made and -supplied bombs.
Would anyone have dared to suggest that the destruction of European cities at the hands of the “old Nazis” was a job creation opportunity? How about the opportunity for redeveloping the concentration camps in Poland? Would the survivors have accepted that narrative? Yet Trump wants the world to believe that the genocide of Gaza should be celebrated as a chance to “build back better”, albeit without the very people whose homeland it is.
Rather than holding Israel accountable for its destruction, Trump wants to reward it. His proposal was not about rebuilding Gaza for the sake of its people, but about finishing the job that Israel was unable to finish. After all, what better way to disguise forced displacement than by dressing it up as “urban renewal”?
Trump views Gaza not as a humanitarian catastrophe, but as a gentrification project, like a rundown building in New York City awaiting developers to swoop in and transform it for their own benefit. The difference, of course, is that this is not about real estate; this is about the systematic destruction of a people, their history and their right to exist.
The Netanyahu-Trump press conference was more than just an embarrassing spectacle; it was also a lesson in what happens when leadership is all about self-interest and performative politics. Both individuals have long been known for their narcissism and their willingness to prioritise personal benefits over the public good, and this event was a perfect encapsulation of those flaws.
Gaza is not an economic development project. This is the final phase of a slow-motion genocide wrapped up in the language of business and diplomacy.
His suggestion for new opportunities following a war of destruction, would be like scavenging for crumbs in a landfill and calling it a feast. The idea that the Gaza genocide should be reframed as an economic opportunity is not just obscene; it is the final project of the dispossession and displacement of a whole society.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20250206-does-trump-see-gaza-as-a-business-opportunity-or-a-dispossession-project/
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The World Bears Responsibility For The Current Phase Of The Us-Israeli Alliance
February 6, 2025
US President Donald Trump’s plan to take over Gaza is the latest example of how much the international community has done nothing for Palestinians since Israel’s establishment in Palestine in 1948. Rhetorical outrage means nothing, except for the fact that several leaders are now worried that forced expulsion of Palestinians to their countries would translate to an immigration and possibly security burden. If world leaders were truly concerned that forcibly displacing Palestinians violates international law, they would have worked seriously to dismantle Israel at its earliest stages and allowed for the legitimate right of return of Palestinian refugees to be exercised.
Palestinians, said Trump, have no alternative but to leave “the big pile of rubble”, which is how he described Gaza. Countries with “humanitarian hearts” should take in Palestinians. Steve Witkoff, Trump’s Middle East Envoy, explained further the deranged train of thought. “A better life is not necessarily tied to the physical space that you are in today,” Witkoff told Fox News. “A better life is about better opportunity, better financial conditions, better aspirations for you and your family. That doesn’t occur because you get to pitch a tent in the Gaza Strip and you’re surrounded by 30,000 munitions that could go off at any moment.”
Does being forced into external displacement carry with it a guarantee of a better life? Does Witkoff think that Palestinian refugees in overcrowded refugee camps in Jordan and Lebanon are content that they have a “better life” because they are not in Gaza or anywhere else in occupied Palestine, their homeland? Does he think that Palestinian construction is equivalent to a pitched tent?
The hypocrisy of feigning concern for Palestinians living amid unexploded munitions rings hollow, given that the US remained Israel’s main weapons supplier throughout the genocide and participated first hand in the wiping out of entire generations of Palestinian families. Indeed, the US supplied the munitions that turned Gaza into a “big pile of rubble”, probably in violation of its own federal laws.
You have to learn from history, Trump said during the press conference. What has Trump learnt? That colonialism is profitable and genocide reaps huge profits for the perpetrators? How about another lesson from history? A lesson that teaches the international community that decolonisation was always an option and, in fact, it still is. And that by legitimising Israel’s existence, they have legitimised all forms of violence against Palestinians, including the latest US proposal which seemed to have satisfied Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu immensely and which he described as “a remarkable idea”. That indicted war criminal can’t sink any lower, surely.
Annexation is looking far different than that which the world envisaged during Trump’s first presidency, when the focus was on the occupied West Bank. The world bided its time even though Palestinians could not afford to. The result was genocide under the Biden administration, which was the supposed better alternative to Trump, and annexation is now back on the table with Gaza purportedly to become the “Riviera of the Middle East”, a slice of prime real estate beachfront property which, in reality, is home to over two million Palestinians, most of them refugees from elsewhere in their occupied land.
The Israeli military has now been given the order to prepare for “voluntary” transfer, even as the White House backtracked on Trump’s comments.
According to Israel’s Defence Minister Israel Katz, “Gaza’s residents should be allowed the freedom to exit and emigrate, as is the practice anywhere around the world.” On a one-way ticket, he might have added. Less than a month ago, remember, Israel had all Palestinians in Gaza besieged in overpopulated areas, all the better to kill them during its genocide. Where was their right of free movement then? Moreover, in the decades before the genocide started in earnest, the occupation regime had no qualms about preventing Palestinians from travelling freely. It still doesn’t.
Palestinians have already rejected Trump’s plan, as have many governments, in theory at least. Instead of bleating incessantly about international law while doing nothing, though, world leaders need to indulge in one particular lesson from history that they have avoided since the 1947 Partition Plan: listen to the Palestinians; decolonise the land; end the occupation; free Palestine.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20250206-the-world-bears-responsibility-for-the-current-phase-of-the-us-israeli-alliance/
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URL: https://www.newageislam.com/middle-east-press/israel-doge-musk-netanyahu-gaza-/d/134541
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