A Gaza Strip Plan: Bait or Bravado?

Our current Commander-in-Chief isn’t a military veteran but he damn sure understands the OODA Loop. In fact, I’m now convinced that using Air Force Colonel John Boyd’s famous decision-making tool is one of his primary weapons in handling difficult domestic and international challenges. Like one of the fighter jocks for whom Boyd originally developed his theory, President Trump observes, orients, decides, and acts at mach speed, keeping his opponents and critics off balance and dizzy.

The man doesn’t just think outside the box, he redraws it. When the President encounters a big square representing status quo, he promptly bends it into a tetrahedron or some other shape that gives starchy bureaucrats and conventional plodders a case of the staggering vapors. Maybe it’s just schadenfreude, watching people who have been a major pain in the ass get their comeuppance, but I love this stuff. It’s a treat to watch the Washington wonks do an outraged pee-pee dance every time President Trump tosses another stink-bomb into their rarified atmosphere. It usually happens so fast that they can’t react much beyond outraged blather. He’s inside the bureaucratic OODA Loop and loving it.

Take his recently announced plan for reconstructing and revitalizing the bombed-out wasteland that was once the Gaza Strip for example. Standing next to a grinning Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, our Disruptor-in-Chief proposed a plan for America to take over that area, relocate refugees, and rebuild it into a livable, viable area. It sounded to me like a veteran real estate broker and property developer drumming up financial support from a crowd of cautious investors. It figures, I guess. The President was one of those long before he became a politician, but it caught flustered media mavens and opposition pols flat-footed.

President Trump may or may not actually have a plan to turn the area into a pink-neon Mar-a-Gaza style development. Could be he’s just tossed yet another stink-bomb at pro-Palestinian countries like Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, Quatar, UAE, and Saudi Arabia. He might be saying something like here’s my plan, guys. If you don’t like it, propose something better. It’s your neighborhood that got wrecked after Palestinian radicals started a devastating war following the bloodbath on 7 October last year. Shooting has mostly stopped. If you don’t want it to start up again, help relocate the innocents and repair the damages. Or we will.

And there’s that OODA Loop working again. By the time I got this written, Egypt has affirmed a commitment to rebuild in the Gaza Strip. I’m betting it won’t be long before other Middle East countries follow suit. Sometimes you’ve just got to toss the bait out into the water and see what happens. Of course, there’s still the possibility that the US could bite off a big chunk of Gaza Strip rebuilding efforts. Given the devastation and persistent security threats, it’s going to be a long, expensive, and involved process.

If we do commit to helping in the Gaza Strip, we need to first flush out the United Nations Refugee and Works Administration (UNRWA). I’m delighted to learn that the President has recently cut all funding to that treacherous outfit, the UN wardens who have kept Palestinians in refugee camps since that little piece of ocean side land was parceled out by Egypt in 1949 following an Arab Israeli War. Nominally, UNRWA was tasked with providing shelter, sustenance, schooling, and medical care for people living cheek-by-jowl in the Gaza Strip until they could be relocated. In reality, UNRWA facilities rapidly morphed into cesspools where weary refugees were radicalized by jihadis sworn to wipe Israel off the map.

Whatever develops with American involvement in the Gaza Strip, I’d urge caution. As a veteran of service in the Middle East (Beirut 1982-83), I’m painfully familiar with the disgruntled Palestinian problem. Many view themselves as the eternal downtrodden, mistreated, and disrespected people of the Middle East. It’s manifest in anger that always boils near the surface and spills over violently when rabble-rousers turn up the heat in places like the Gaza Strip. I saw it in refugee camps like Sabra and Shatila. I know what happens when you start forcing people from a place they see as their rightful homeland even when that homeland doesn’t exist except in some romantic notion of ancient history. Any plan to relocate Palestinians from Gaza, no matter how well-intentioned, can result in outbursts of violence and mayhem. Just ask the Israelis about that. We’ll see what we’ll see regarding American efforts in the parking lot that used to be the Gaza Strip. Meanwhile, I’m tuned in for more of the President’s shock-and-awe carpet bombing of bloated governmental bureaucracy. Taking a meat clever to Federal fiefdoms and stagnant beltway sinecures is desperately needed and long overdue. Let the dark knights of DOGE hack away at USAID and other taxpayer funded ATMs. I’ll be over here cheering from the Amen Corner.

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