Real Clear
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Real Clear
Part 1. Trump's Gaza Proposal, Israel/Middle East Future
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The episode explores the feasibility of President Trump's controversial proposal to reshape Gaza through potential relocation of its residents. With insights from Hank Kopel, the discussion centers on the historical ideologies fueling the conflict, the necessity of de-radicalization, and the complex international dynamics involved in the peace process.
Whether we have lost our minds as a society through the following topics:
• Discussion of Trump's Gaza proposal and its implications
• Exploration of historical Palestinian radicalism and indoctrination through an alliance with Hitler (literally)
• Importance of de-radicalization and education reform in Gaza
• Consideration of legal aspects related to temporary relocation
• Examination of governance challenges in transitional phases
• Analysis of how Arab financial influences shape narratives in media and academia
All good yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, I am pleased to be joined again by my friend and returning guest, hank Capel. Hank is a former federal prosecutor, he's a published author and we're here to talk about his perspective on what's happening in the Middle East, namely President Trump's idea, so stated, to take over Gaza or at least do something radically different with Gaza than most people have considered in the past, and we'll be referencing Hank's article entitled To Win the Gaza Peace, destroy Hamas and Keep Out UNRWA and the PA, which was published through Doc Emmett Productions and link in the show notes. Hank, welcome back. How are you?
Speaker 1:Thank you, Lucas Great to be here.
Speaker 2:Good to have you. And so President Trump really made headlines, as he does on a daily basis, this past week, by saying that we're going to take over Gaza. Those were his words, and I watched his Oval Office explanation for that position and he said who would want to go back to a demolition site. He said it's just going to perpetuate the problem by having the terrorist infrastructure and organizations return, and we ought to do something different with the funding of the wealthy Middle East countries by having some other plot of land, or several plots, where the Palestinian people can live in various neighboring countries, including, but not limited to, yemen I think he said Yemen, syria and Egypt and of course, this set off a firestorm of reactions and I'd like to get your take on this, hank. What do you make of the president's statement and what can you tell us as to how feasible something like that is?
Speaker 1:Sure thanks. And you hit the nail on the head, because I've been contemplating this as well, mostly in two frameworks. One is the question of the feasibility of the implementation of this proposal and then second and I think it'd be good to talk about a little later the effectiveness, to the extent it has it of, as being a solution to these Middle East perpetual war problems. So, as far as feasibility, I think this is really interesting in the sense that for this to happen, I think the most clear, observable point is that it requires buy-in from whoever will be the receiving countries. At first, I think President Trump emphasized Jordan, and Egypt is taking in a lot of the Gazans and, as you say, he's mentioned other countries, both local and somewhat far from the Middle East, publicly and we only have the public record because no one really knows outside the highest councils of state what's being said privately, outside of public exposure, and we know that, especially in the Middle East, as often the public statements may be one thing and the private deals might be something else. So, going just from the public record, we've seen that Egypt and Jordan have both publicly denounced the plan and, in addition, the other probable large key player at the table for this is Saudi Arabia because, as we know, the Trump administration and Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel are very much hoping to bring Saudi Arabia into the Abraham Accords, which would be and we can discuss that in a bit an apocryphal change in global geopolitics and a very positive development for Middle East prospects for peace. So for that reason, the Saudis definitely have what you might call leverage or skin in the game here, given the desire of Israel and America to get them in the Abraham Accords.
Speaker 1:All three of those countries the Saudis, the Egyptians and the Jordanians have said publicly no countries the Saudis, the Egyptians and the Jordanians and said publicly no.
Speaker 1:Turkey Al-Faisal, the former intelligence minister and active prince in the regime leadership, just said yes and again no. This is not happening. So it makes a question. First of all, we don't know what may be being said under the table between these countries in America and Israel and I can't speculate on that. But what I was wondering and seeing this and hearing this, was how much this may be part of President Trump's very frequent pattern of negotiation art of the deal. He puts a very forward-leaning position out at first and thereby gives his opposing parties to the negotiation an opportunity to bargain him down and claim victory in all signs and have the perception of a win-win. And what I wonder is whether he and his team actually intend to clear out Gaza's population or view this as a first glove on the table to say we need to change things fundamentally in Gaza, which I believe is true, and that gets into the second question fundamentally in Gaza, which I believe is true, and that gets into the second question how effectiveness?
Speaker 2:is all this as a solution? What are the if nothing like that happened? So if the glove on the table doesn't happen, what happens as an alternative? Say, if things were going per usual, how would the re-entry into Gaza, the reestablishment of Gaza, how would that unfold, say over a 10 and then 20 year span?
Speaker 1:Right, and again, I confess to being purely speculative here, based on what, at least for me, is a sense of following, watching, studying Middle Eastern dynamics for several years. But at best it is at least perhaps educated guesswork. And I think I have to shift to the issue of what would be effective as a solution if your goal is to reduce terrorism, fighting and conflict in the Middle East and get to a point of states living alongside each other in peace, that being the goal. And in that sense it may or may not be effective to relocate Gazans, either temporarily or permanently, but what I maintain and this is a part of much of my writing of recent years the key to the Middle East is de-radicalizing the radicalized populations. And while every country has its smattering of radicals and moderates and so forth, when it comes to the Middle East the key obstacle to an Israeli-Palestinian peace, which generally has been the obstacle to a more broader peacemaking in the region, is, I maintain, and I think with a great deal of empirical support, palestinian radicalism. And I know we've talked about this in prior podcasts. So, just to be very brief, a kind of nutshell summary it's little known outside Middle East history, as it were, that the Palestinian national movement was actually founded and then led for 30 years by an Arab Nazi, a fellow by the name of Hajimeen al-Husseini, who was first appointed as the key spiritual leader for Palestinian Arabs in the early 1920s, back when the British were the so-called mandate power over that region of the world. And Husseini was a vicious anti-Semite. And he quickly reached out to Hitler in 1933 to form an alliance which finally came together in 1941, when Al-Husseini and Hitler in Berlin publicly agreed to an Arab-Nazi alliance, one major goal of which was to conquer the Middle East for Hitler and then exterminate all the Jews. They were going to build a second Auschwitz in Palestine. This is all documented by historians and archives etc. The sad and tragic thing is Haj Amin al-Husseini's Nazification of Palestinian society, which he aggressively did with Nazi-style propaganda throughout the Middle East in the pay of Nazi Germany, with radio stations paid for by the Nazis etc. They, unlike Germany, never went to be Nazified. He's still viewed as sort of the George Washington figure of the Palestinian National Movement.
Speaker 1:Now I am not saying that all or most Palestinians are Nazis by any means. I think a lot of Palestinians have been utterly victimized by their terrible governance structure above them, which is dictatorial and very brutal, but unfortunately, as I and others have documented in several publications, the Palestinian media, schools, mosques and government institutions and civic architecture are all a virtual replay of Hitler's Nazi propaganda against Israel and the Jews. This is why, since 1937, when the first of six formal two-state solutions that were offered to the Palestinians, all endorsed by the Israeli leadership, were summarily rejected by the Palestinians and soon after followed by a resumed terror war by the Palestinian leadership against the Israelis. And it's because they've been so marinated in this Nazi kill the Jews propaganda. So that's why I go in this somewhat digression factually to say that is the thing that needs to be reversed in Gaza to end the repetition of horrors like October 7th 2023. The Gazan people have been marinated in this ideology and, by the way, shockingly, america has helped finance that indoctrination. Why? Because we give hundreds of millions to UNRWA, united Nations Works and Relief Agency, which runs nearly all the schools in Gaza and the West Bank. Unrwa uses the Palestinian Authority textbooks which are full of this Hitlerian ideology Kill the Jews, be a martyr, blow yourself up for Palestine that's the highest aspiration. This is literally what's in Palestinian textbooks. So this gets to the answer to your question.
Speaker 1:So what should be done? Well, either if Gazans are temporarily relocated, say to the Sinai Desert, where they could set up refugee camps, health facilities, dining facilities etc. And start it's a tremendous triumph in the Middle East. Get them in to train and orient the imams and the mosques to an ecumenical spirit, which the UAE has done extensively. Have the Saudis help fund this, because they're doing a lot of de-radicalization within their borders. Or you have the Gazans stay in Gaza, which in some parts will have to relocate internally while major construction's being done wholesale, and do the same thing there, where the United States, israel, the UAE and the Saudis are probably collectively the best equipped to begin a de-radicalization program with vetting.
Speaker 1:You want to be part of the new Gazan governance? If you're a Hamas member and you don't renounce Hamas and you're part of that, kill the Jews mentality. You're not getting the job. You're not going to rise in that society. The people we need to elevate in that society are folks who say you know what? I may not be the most favorably disposed to Israel, but let's get along for the sake of peace. That's what I think needs to be done.
Speaker 2:Very comprehensive. Now, hank, I have two reactions. Listen to the rest of this full episode and all others by joining RealClearPlus at realclearpodcastcom. Just click the link in the show notes below or go to realclearpodcastcom. In the rest of the episode, hank and I discuss whether America is through the looking glass. We talk about the infiltration of radical Middle East politics into American training institutes and journalistic standards, as well as the absence of common sense across topics that have never been up for debate in the past, such as men competing with women in sports and how those sorts of weird shifts in our social discourse may represent our inability to bring our minds to bear reasonably on very important international matters like the Israel-Gaza conflict. So stay engaged, go to realclearpodcastcom and listen directly.
