PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania — President Trump on Tuesday of last week rooted for the terrorists who launched the two-year war because they will “take out” armed groups that helped Israel. Some of those rival groups might have looted humanitarian aid from United Nations convoys.
On Thursday, our president promised to blow away the same instigators of the war that they started on Oct. 7, 2023, and then backtracked on his role in their destruction.
We can extend our appreciation to Trump for announcing a 22-point plan to rebuild Gaza and implicitly advance a two-state solution. However, he undermined his own program by basking in his newfound glory and facilitating yet another gory and warped chapter.
It all spells out a truism that should surprise nobody: Trump is too dangerous to trust to decide the Middle East’s fate or direct the implementation of his program. Millions of Americans can attest to Trump’s abuse of power and his habit of contradicting himself on a wide range of issues.
The Middle East quagmire is no political game. People there mean business. The slightest stumble could cost thousands of Arab and Israeli lives. Implementing Trump’s plan is no task for amateurs. Steady hands are required.
It is jolting that Trump’s flip-flopping followed a blood-soaked sequence in Gaza.
As The New York Times chronicled it, masked gunmen linked to Hamas – which led the Oct. 7 slaughter in southern Israel – executed eight captives in the middle of a crowded street on Monday in Gaza City. The article states, “They forced the men to bend over, leveled their rifles at them, and opened fire, leaving their bodies in the dirt.”
Hamas executed the victims to retaliate against the Doghmosh family, which killed several Hamas members prior to the cease-fire, sources told the Times. Internecine fighting last week left 10 Hamas members and 20 members of rival Arab groups dead, the Times reported.
Some Gaza clans coordinated with Israel in fighting Hamas during the war, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed four months ago that Israel was “using clans in Gaza,” including one operated by Yasser Abu Shabab in eastern Rafah.
The Times article states, “Mr. Abu Shabab was notorious for ransacking humanitarian aid from United Nations convoys earlier in the war, according to aid officials.” There is no suggestion that the Doghmosh family looted aid from the convoys.
Part of the cease-fire requires Hamas to disarm, which it refused to do in past negotiations and have yet to agree upon. Trump was asked Monday last week about the prospect of Hamas reasserting itself as a police force in Gaza and shooting enemies.
“They’ve been open about it, and we gave them approval for a period of time,” the president said.
The next day, Trump added that Hamas had “taken out a couple of gangs that were very bad. That didn’t bother me very much, to be honest.”
How “very bad” was the Doghmash family? Was he accusing them of raiding the convoys?
If he wants Hamas to disarm, how can he allow an exception? He is being inconsistent. In our world, when we say “no means no,” “no” does not necessarily mean “maybe.” In Trump’s world, it is his style to invent alternative meanings for “disarm.”
As the week approached its end, Trump toughened up on Hamas on Thursday in a social media post, saying, “If Hamas continues to kill people in Gaza, which was not the deal, we will have no choice but to go in and kill them.”
We? Who is we? Trump is President of the United States, not a nation in the Middle East. He has authority to deploy American troops, but nobody else.
“We” likewise has an alternative meaning.
“Somebody will go in,” he later clarified. “It’s not going to be us.”
More mayhem erupted over the weekend, and both Israel and Hamas accused the other of violating the cease-fire. Hamas terrorists killed two Israeli soldiers in southern Gaza, and Israel responded by halting the delivery of aid and carrying out deadly strikes throughout Gaza.
However, delivery of aid resumed on Monday as Trump’s envoys traveled to Israel to maintain the truce.
The President on Monday threatened to “eradicate” Hamas telling reporters at the White House: “We made a deal with Hamas that…they’re going to behave…and if they’re not, we’re going to go in, we’re going to eradicate them if we have to. They’ll be eradicated, they know that.”
Again, he clarified that foreign forces – not American troops – will do the eradicating.
Trump’s pattern of clarifying should be sufficient to alarm us about his ability to make peace a reality. Not to mention that he talks like a child, that he digresses into trivial subjects, that he proclaims “the war is over.”
If the war is over, what were gun battles between Hamas and rival groups supposed to mean?
His promise to “eradicate” Hamas is not plausible. Israel could not eradicate Hamas. How does he expect Israel or anyone else to do that?
Trump’s leadership in this process is a scary prospect. As an American citizen, I know what kind of leader he is. Not only is he deporting law-abiding migrants, but he operates by frightening the very people – all 340 million of us – that he was elected to serve.
He is even reverting America’s progress of nearly the last 250 years. He allowed the current government shutdown so he can degrade our health coverage, which is deficient as it stands. He blames Democratic mayors of runaway crime in their cities, yet he refuses to support gun-safety laws which would likely reduce gun violence.
And he still will not aid Ukraine sufficiently. If Ukraine is overtaken by Russia, that will leave the rest of Europe vulnerable to the same fate.
Maybe his Middle East envoys who are shaping the cease-fire will succeed despite his interference, but Trump has already inflicted harm on his own country. Must we wait out the damage he could cause for Israel?
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Bruce S. Ticker is a Philadelphia-based columnist.