‘Make America Mafia Again’: Gaza and Trump’s anti-intellectual imperialism

By S.L. Kanthan

The most dangerous form of evil is one that is reframed as something innocuous or even logical. The ethnic cleansing and blatant genocide that has been happening since October 7, 2023, in the besieged Gaza Strip should shock everyone’s conscience.

The genocidal intent of Israel is obvious when listening to the dehumanizing language of Israeli regime politicians, military generals, and even settlers – for example, referring to Palestinian men, women, and children as “human animals,” “monsters” and “Amalek.”

However, there is President Donald Trump – the real estate mogul and former TV celebrity – who has the gift of making the most absurd logic and colonialist evil sound blasé.

Welcome to the golden age of hyper-imperialism.

Have you seen videos of American shops where people come in, take whatever they want – clothes, luxury bags, iPhones – and then casually walk away without paying for them? That’s the official American foreign policy under Trump now.

From Greenland and Canada to Panama to Gaza, Trump thinks he has the right to annex anything he likes. While allegedly fighting fraud and abuse in the US government, Trump just gave the green light to US corporations to bribe foreign officials (in order to win lucrative deals).

Disregarding the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the free-trade treaties that he signed in his first term, Mr. Stable Genius just imposed tariffs on China, Canada, Mexico and others.

Trump’s new slogan should be MAFA – Make America Mafia Again.

While his economic coercion is shocking, his attitude towards Gaza is truly revolting. For example, a few days ago, he glibly said that the US will buy and rebuild Gaza.

However, the respectable journalists in the land of Pulitzer Prizes did not bother to ask who he is buying Gaza from. Who is selling Gaza? And how much is the US paying for Gaza?

Simple questions that any 10-year-old in a capitalist country should think of.

What Trump is not discussing, for obvious reasons, are the immense oil and natural gas reserves around Gaza and in the occupied Golan Heights. Trillions of dollars of wealth are being stolen by neo-colonialists.

A couple of days earlier, Trump said that he would turn Gaza into the “Riviera of the Middle East” after resettling the (sic) 1.8 million Gazans in Jordan and Egypt.

What international laws allow him to do this inhumane and forced displacement of an entire people or a country, if you take into the fact that 146 countries recognize Palestine as a state?

This is Nakba 2.0 framed as an easy and obvious solution.

Moreover, Trump makes unilateral decrees without consulting other nations. Jordan, Egypt, and every other Arab country in the region oppose Trump’s proposals for Gaza, but he does not care about their opinions. He is callous, cruel, and ignorant about the West Asia regional politics and the ramifications.

Trump is bought and paid for by pro-Israel lobbies and Jewish oligarchs like Miriam Adelson, but he hides this subservience with bravado and bluster.

As American professor Jeffrey Sachs bluntly put it, “US foreign politics regarding the Middle East (West Asia) is controlled by Israel.”

Many obvious truths about Israel and Zionists remain hidden from the public conscience because lobby groups like AIPAC and ADL command US politicians to pass all sorts of censorship laws.

All inconvenient facts about Israel are “antisemitic.” Holocaust survivor (Jewish) Dr. Hajo Meyer said it best: “An antisemite used to be a person who disliked Jews. Now, it is a person who Jews dislike.”

When war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu visited the White House a few days ago, Trump said that there is “death and destruction” in Gaza and thus people cannot live there.

How much more Orwellian can it get when it was Netanyahu who brought death and destruction to Gaza? The US loves the International Criminal Court (ICC) and International Court of Justice (ICC) when these courts indict and arrest African leaders, but quickly demonize and sanction the ICC when it finds Israel guilty of the obvious genocide.

Not satisfied with the carnage and theft of Gaza, Israeli ministers are talking about how “Judea and Samaria” – that is the occupied West Bank for normal people – will face the same fate as Gaza.

As Jewish American Norman Finkelstein said, Israel is “satanic” and it is not a hyperbole.

When Abby Martin went to Tel Aviv and interviewed regular Israelis on the street, many bluntly talked about “killing the Arabs” and even laughed. Consider that only 3 percent of Israeli settlers feel that the bombing of Gaza and the killing of tens of thousands of children and women are morally wrong.

Miko Peled, son of a famous Israeli military general, did not hold back when he said, “Israel is the most racist, genocidal state that has existed in a long time.”

Ione Belarra is one of the rare European politicians not afraid to speak the truth about Israel. She recently wrote on X: “Netanyahu is a genocidal perpetrator, but by supporting him, Trump is too.”

The only way that Israel is managing to maintain support in the US and Europe is through oppressive censorship. American social media and mainstream media censor people and ideas.

One cannot even say “Free Palestine” without being canceled. In Europe, journalists are accused of terrorism for simply reporting on the truth about the Israeli genocide in Gaza.

So, what is really happening? Let’s look at the big picture.

The American Century is coming to an end. The extraordinary status that the US acquired after World War II – thanks to Europeans destroying themselves – has run out of steam.

Like all the empires before it—the British, Portuguese, Spanish, French, Roman, and Ottoman—the US Empire has fallen into the same traps: colossal hubris, an overextended military, endless wars, unsustainable debt, shocking poverty, and enormous inequality.

Moreover, the US economy has been de-industrialized over the last 40 years, thanks to the predatory financial capitalism of Wall Street.

This historical trend cannot be reversed now. There is no way Trump can make America great again – i.e., revert to the 1950s. The unipolar moment that America enjoyed after the fall of the Soviet Union is disappearing rapidly. China is catching up and surpassing the US in numerous areas – manufacturing, trade, technology, military, diplomacy and so on.

In a multipolar world that is emerging, Palestine will be recognized as a sovereign state, and the Zionists will be forced to accept it.

Thus, regardless of what salesman Trump says, Israeli leaders understand that they cannot rely on the US for too long. The dream of Greater Israel – Lebensraum with Israeli characteristics – must be achieved as much as possible now or never.

Hence the Israeli brutality we are witnessing in Gaza.

As for Trump, there are some good things about him – like his desire to end the Ukraine war or his seeking a peaceful solution with Iran. However, he is also a shallow and unintellectual leader living by soundbites. Can the global south stand up to Trump and save Palestine?

S. L. Kanthan is a geopolitical analyst, columnist, blogger, author and podcaster based in India.

(The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of Press TV.

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