Trump recently floated the obviously insane idea that the United States should take over the Gaza Strip (and turn it into a "MAGA Strip") while removing all of the Palestinians to Egypt or Jordan (both of which will refuse to take them in). Has the Donald finally lost it? Even Netanyahu looked embarassed at that press conference! As far as I can tell, there may be three "rational" reasons for why Trump makes this kind of statement. All three are based on the assumption that he´s bluffing.
1. "Madman Strategy". Does Trump want to scare Hamas and/or Israel and/or the Arab states into compliance by pretending to be insane? It doesn´t seem to work on Hamas. Besides, the Madman Strategy only works if the president pretending to be mad actually *isn´t* mad, but rather extremely sly and cynical (read: Nixon).
2. Trump may want to throw out some red meat to the right-wing Zionists in Israel and the Christian Zionists in the United States, both of whom "should" be skeptical to the armistice and hostage deal with Hamas. After all, the deal looks like the policy favored by Joe Biden! By rhetorically pretending to be Meir Kahane, Trump can defuse the opposition. MPAI in action.
3. It´s a gigantic diversion from something else Trump wants really badly. Probably the approval of the Senate for his cabinet picks or DOGE´s purge of the administrative state. The YouTube clip above argues for this possibility. Note the bizarre fact that Trump makes his "proposal" during complicated peace talks between Israel and Hamas, a proposal that would make Hamas leave the negotiating table if they had taken it seriously.
Probably number three or a combination of two and three. I suppose we all have to wait and see...
Breitbart News pretends that "The MAGA Strip" is a serious and workable proposal. It´s really just a more hair-brained version of the old super-Zionist idea "Jordan is Palestine". And probably a typical Trumpite diversion of some kind...
Exclusive: Israel may propose moving Palestinians from Gaza to Indonesia
For some reason, some Mormon apologists are using a sensational find of gold plates in Saudi Arabia as an argument in favor of the Book of Mormon?!
Not sure how that even follows, but the Mormon apologist linked above doesn´t believe in it. It seems the gold plates aren´t even a genuine Arabian artifact, but a crude forgery.
But...
The critical apologist says that when we judge whether or not an artefact is genuine, we have to look at "the archeological context". But she never applies that principle to, you know, the Book of Mormon...
Sodom was such a filthy place that even the comets refused to crash there, I mean really!
Seriously though, it seems the recent archeological discovery that the ancient Biblical town of Sodom was destroyed by a comet impact is fake. The perps? Some kind of Christian fundamentalists. Their "university" is apparently located in a US strip mall next to a hash shop?! OK, it could have been worse, I mean, they could have been housed in a strip club...
At least if the linked articles are to be believed!
A Meteor Did Not Destroy Sodom
Sodom meteor strike claims should be taken with a pillar of salt
Varför säger både Aftonbladet och TV4 att USA och/eller Joe Biden "utlovat hämnd" för drönarattacken i Jordanien som dödade tre amerikanska soldater?
Joe Biden har nämligen inte alls utlovat hämnd. Han sa att USA tänker "svara" på drönarattackerna. Inte "hämnas". Det är två helt olika ord på engelska. Och det vet både AB och TV4.
Och nu har USA svarat, genom att bomba pro-iranska grupperingar i Irak och Syrien. Och mycket riktigt skriker Aftonbladet om "USA:s hämnd"...
Är svenska journalister fredsskadade, eller vad? Eller stödjer de faktiskt den iranska regimens kampgrupper?
Men okej, om ni insisterar. Nästa gång kanske Biden borde säga "revenge" istället för "response". För att visa var skåpet ska stå, så att säga.
Henry Kissinger´s last interview, in both summary and in full. Note, however, that the Breitbart editor distorts Kissinger´s remarks about Jordan and the West Bank. The old national security advisor isn´t saying that "Jordan is Palestine", he is saying that Jordan should take control of the West Bank - a very different concept!
The former idea would entail the overthrow of the Hashemite dynasty and turning Jordan (really Transjordan) into an actual Palestinian state - a crazy solution from anybody´s perspective - while the latter means that the Hashemites remain in power and simply retake the West Bank (the situation before 1967).
The main "take away" from the conversation seems to be that the United State must take a more active part in the Mideast conflict to balance the more radical stances of the Arab states, such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia. It´s not spelled out exactly what kind of engagement Kissinger may have in mind...
Note also that the centenarian still calls for a détente with China.
I assumed nobody to the left of, say, Meir Kahane claimed this today?
Will Jordan break diplomatic ties now, or what?
“Baader-Meinhof:
Terrorismens årtionde” is a Swedish book by Jens Nordqvist, offering a
relatively popularized account of the Red Army Faction (RAF), the notorious
German terrorist group. I admit I´ve never been *that* interested in them before,
despite their status as ever-present boogey even today. And frankly, I probably
won´t pursue the matter further.
The Rote
Armee Fraktion was officially formed in 1970, but its roots go back to 1968-69.
The radical student movement in West Germany (the Federal Republic of Germany,
FRG or BRD), protesting against the Vietnam War and Nazi holdovers in West
German society, was further radicalized by the brutal response of the police.
One of the results was the formation of the RAF, known by its opponents as the Baader-Meinhof
Group or Baader-Meinhof Gang after two of its principal leaders, Andreas Baader
and Ulrike Meinhof.
The high
tide of this terrorist group was the period 1970-77. Shootouts with the
police, kidnappings, bank robberies and murders of high profile individuals
were part of its repertoire. In Germany, I assume the kidnapping and subsequent
murder of prominent industrialist Hans-Martin Schleyer in 1977 is considered
the most notorious action of the RAF. In Sweden, it’s the attack on the West
German embassy two years previously. There was also the quixotic almost-attempt
by one Norbert Kröcher to kidnap the Swedish government minister Anna-Greta Leijon
(who had swiftly extradited the RAF terrorists involved in the embassy drama to
West Germany).
RAF
cooperated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and received
weapons training from them at Palestinian refugee camps in Jordan. There must have
been cooperation with the Communist regime of East Germany (the German “Democratic”
Republic, GDR or DDR) at a relatively early stage, too, since the RAF members
trained in Jordan seem to have left by way of East Berlin. (The rumor that the
RAF met with one Vladimir Putin behind the Iron Curtain is not mentioned in the
book, I think.) After the fall of Communism, some RAF supporters were found in the
GDR, where they lived with assumed identities.
What struck
me most when reading Nordqvist´s account were two things. First, the strict Christian
upbringing of several RAF leaders. They seem to have been strong idealists – or
virtual “moral monsters” if you are more critical – and continued being so even
after leaving Christianity behind. This simply confirms my suspicions of this
kind of idealism, in which the world is seen in absolute black and white
categories. It seems to be a close neighbor to cynicism, the kind of cynicism
where you simply pursue the erstwhile “idealist” course to its bloody
conclusion, no matter what. There is another word for this phenomenon, of course:
fanaticism. This kind of moralistic idealism can be dangerous even when it
doesn´t lead to violence – witness the fanaticism of many of the Woke.
The second
thing that struck me even more forcefully was the complete futility of it all.
The Baader-Meinhof Gang started out as some kind of “armed resistance” against
the Federal Republic (no less!), but very soon, the “urban guerilla” became a
rearguard action, with most of the attacks having as their goal the release of
previously arrested comrades. While the Red Army Faction did do considerable
damage, they were objectively speaking losing almost from the start, their
downfall being all but inevitable. It would have taken a geopolitical earthquake
to make the Faction anything more than a mere gang – and geopolitical earthquakes
aren´t caused by small terrorist “focos” anyway. (Al-Qaeda was and is hardly a foco!)
Some of the RAF´s actions look almost tragicomic in retrospect, like the “Socialist
Patient Collective” – as if mental patients could be trusted to be members of a
clandestine guerilla…
More strict
Marxist-Leninists considered the Baader-Meinhof Group to be volatile petit
bourgeois, and there is absolutely some truth in that characterization. That
being said, there was certainly a context to the RAF and its activities. The
1970´s were “the decade of terrorism”. Stronger and potentially more influential
movements used tactics often considered terrorist to further their aims: the
PLO (including the PFLP) in Palestine and globally, the IRA on Northern Ireland
and in Britain, the ETA in Spain, and a few others. These movements could be
seen – and certainly were seen by sections of “their” communities – as national
liberation fighters, not “terrorists”. There were also smaller groups of
various degrees of seriousness all around the world which took to arms: the
Black Panther Party and the Weather Underground in the United States, the Red
Brigades in Italy, the Japanese Red Army, various Latin American urban guerillas,
and so on. Armed resistance may not have looked *that* unrealistic to Andreas
Baader, Ulrike Meinhof and their comrades back in the days. And yet, a sober
analysis of West Germany in 1970 should have made anyone with a political IQ above
85 realize that the Bundesrepublik wasn´t Northern Ireland…or even notoriously
chaotic Italy!
Will it
happen again? Of course it will. And it will probably fail again, unless that
seismic shift happens…
With that remark, I close this little review.
