Life with President Trump certainly isn’t boring. Should we talk about Greenland or Gaza? Pam Bondi or RFK Jr.? DOGE or the Department of Education? Will the information be current when this Musing goes out or will it read like an analysis of ancient history? These days, at least I wear a smile on my face after reading the morning news, a welcome change from the last sixteen years.
For various reasons, I have a personal interest in each of the areas I mentioned above. Yet, emotionally, my heart beats in step with Israel. Like so many hearts, it is torn in two watching the release of the hostages. Soaring joy at individuals reunited with family and plummeting despair at the release of murderous killers, many of whom will probably murder again. Israel had no good option. Having failed to keep its people safe on October 7th, 2023, Israel is paying a steep price.
Is President Trump’s vision of emptying Gaza and starting over viable? What iterations will it undergo? No one knows. I am reminded that in the late 1700s both before and after the Revolutionary War and well as early in the 1800s, America dealt with the Barbary Pirates in that region of the world. Based out of North Africa, they were capturing British and American ships and enslaving and torturing their seamen. Over a period of decades, diplomacy was attempted, and bribes (tribute) and ransom money were paid. Eventually, under Presidents Jefferson and Madison, the relatively new country of the United States sent troops into battle, ending the threat against their country. A number of years later, France took control of the region, bringing that chapter of piracy to a close.
The president’s brash Gaza proclamation is not entirely without precedent. In 1898 America acquired the Philippines from Spain after the Spanish-American War. After World War II, America took over the administration of Japan and Germany and rebuilt both countries in ways that made them entirely different from how they existed a mere seven years earlier. After World War II, America established major military bases in Greenland and seventy-five years ago accepted the obligation to defend the island.
Today’s Middle East is not an exactly parallel situation for many reasons. Yet, the necessity for thinking out of the box rather than repeatedly pursuing failed ideas is as needed now as it was then. President Trump excels at leaving people speechless at the audacity of his ideas. As the United States confronts the natural trend of moving off the world stage to stand in the curtains with other past great empires (see our program Tower of Power if you don’t understand the analogy) and as Israel continues to battle one existential threat after another, both countries need boldness and norm-shattering actions to break out of damaging cycles. It is not a time for boredom.
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