MAGaza?

Interesting idea, but... no.

I am so glad that Donald Trump was elected President of the United States for the third time. Fun fact: he’s the first guy to do that since FDR.

He has a solid moral core. When he sees Israel, he doesn’t fall for the idiotic propaganda, because he’s a straightforward person. He can see that Israel is the good guy and that the so-called “Palestinians” are the bad guy.

(So can everyone in the world with the least bit of moral integrity, mind you. But it’s worth pointing it out specifically for President Trump. His refusal to play the kind of ugly mental gymnastics that leftists have to use to twist things the other way around is representative of everything they hate about him. And everything I love about him.)

And so of course he’s going to say that the Gazans should get the hell out of Gaza. For any number of reasons. We can go with what he said, which is that the place is uninhabitable right now, and will be for some time. And that having them living in Gaza guarantees war without end. I can only hope that he’ll come to see that letting them stay in Judea and Samaria will also guarantee endless war, and help us get them out of there as well.

But while I’m grateful to him for this, and I’m willing for there to be some sort of quid pro quo for this assistance, there are limits. And US hegemony over the Gaza Strip goes far beyond those limits.

The US can’t have Gaza. It’s not theirs. It’s ours. It is part of the Land of Israel. Gaza City was a thriving Jewish city even under the Muslim jackboots, long before the State of Israel was created. The zemer Kah Ribon Olam, which we sing on Shabbat, was written by Rabbi Yisrael Najara, who was a rabbi in Gaza and is buried there. There was a thriving Jewish community in Rafah for 300 years during the Middle Ages.

Baseless or based?

If we absolutely must, I can see allowing them to lease part of it for a base, but even that strikes me as a particularly awful idea. Remember, President Trump was president before. And then came Biden. I advise those Jews who are jumping up and down at the idea of the Trumpification of Gaza to consider that, and to ask themselves what a US occupied Gaza would be like under a Democrat president.

I’d like to think that what he said was mostly bluster. Chaff thrown up to distract the usual idiots from losing their minds at the thought of Israel retaking the Strip. I do hope that’s all it was. It’s the kind of thing he would do. But then, so is Trump Tower on the Med. So who really knows?

Déjà vu all over again

I couldn’t help being reminded of a strange passage in the first book of Kings. A non-Jewish king of Tyre named Hiram had been a great help to Solomon during the building of the Temple. In I Kings 9:11 (and make of that what you like), we’re told that Solomon gave 20 cities in the Galilee to Hiram as thanks for all of the gold and cypress wood and artisans he supplied for the building of the Temple. The Sages found this remarkable. How could King Solomon have given away part of the Land of Israel to Hiram the gentile?

Most commentators suggest that he didn’t give Hiram actual ownership of those cities, but only the right to farm and work the land of those cities in order to obtain the grain and wine and oil that Solomon had promised to pay Hiram. Hiram thought the land was worthless, and said so, and gave it back to Solomon, who set about demonstrating that the land was far more fruitful than Hiram had thought.

I don’t live that far from that land, which Hiram labeled as Cabul.

Given this episode in our history, allowing the Americans to have a base in the Gaza Strip might have some precedent. And if future administrations get frisky, we can tell them politely to leave.

But President Trump, if you want land here, I suggest you take the Sinai. It has oil, you know. Gobs of it.