If everyone’s determined that everything Donald Trump says should be taken seriously just because he’s “crazy enough to do it,” or crazy enough to try it — that all his ideas, no matter how laughably impracticable or even objectively infeasible, demand earnest deliberation simply because the colocation of an uneven disposition and the US presidency in theory opens the door to a much wider distribution of outcomes than would be the case in any other administration — then everyone’s condemned to spend every second of every day for the next four years debating whatever Trump said the previous day.

Of course, that’s the whole point. Or it might be. As discussed here earlier this week, that’s part and parcel of this administration’s strategy, assuming you believe Trump has a strategy, which I frankly don’t on most days.

That’s the lens through which I viewed Trump’s surprise announcement that the US “will take over the Gaza Strip.” Not only will America take it over, the US will “do a job with it too,” Trump said, laying out his plan for the decimated coastal mini-statelet during a joint press conference with Benjamin Netanyahu, whose signature sardonic sneer pretzeled into something like nervous, bewildered amusement as Trump spoke.

“We’ll own it,” Trump insisted, referring to Gaza, adding that the US will “be responsible for disposing of the dangerous unexploded bombs, get rid of all the destroyed buildings, level it out and create an economic development that will supply unlimited numbers of jobs and housing for the people of the area.”

First thing’s first. The US isn’t going to do any of that. That’s pure fantasy. I could (and definitely should) stop there, but due to the sheer quantum of media coverage Trump’s “plan” received in the 18 or so hours after he floated it, I’ll make a few more points, all of which should be obvious to everyone possessed even of a passing familiarity with the region.

This was Trump unwittingly calling for a second Nakba, and not for the first time. Late last month, when asked about Gaza’s post-war future, Trump described the enclave (not inaccurately) as “literally a demolition site.” His idea: “Just clean out that whole thing,” then force Egypt and Jordan to absorb Gaza’s displaced population. His choice of words left something to be desired. Trump called, out loud, for an ethnic cleansing of Palestinians… using the word “clean.”

As I wrote in the January 26 Daily, Trump’s a guy who probably thinks “Nakba” is a falafel dish, and as such, he doesn’t have any real conception of just how offensive his suggestion would be if it emanated from someone who should be expected to know better. No one expects that of him. Not even Hamas, which gave him the benefit of the doubt last month, calling his comments “seemingly well-intentioned” but nevertheless unacceptable.

Trump won’t get a pass for this week’s remarks, though. He went too far. Far too far. Note that when he spoke Tuesday of “supply[ing] unlimited numbers of jobs and housing for the people of the area,” he didn’t mean Palestinians who, under his plan, would be given a new place to live — “a good, fresh, beautiful piece of land,” as he put it. Presumably, that’ll be land in Egypt or Jordan. Certainly not in, say, Texas. (But maybe in California or some other blue state Trump has it in for.)

He went on to suggest that in a scenario where Palestinians are relocated en masse, it wouldn’t be long before they forget all about Gaza, so enamored will they be with the “good, fresh, beautiful piece of land” that no one’s going to give them. “They would be thrilled,” Trump said. “We could do something really nice — really good — where they wouldn’t want to return.”

Netanyahu praised Trump for his out-of-the-box thinking. “You see things others refuse to see,” Netanyahu gushed. “And after the jaws drop, people scratch their heads and they say, ‘You know what? He’s right.'”

That’s — how should I put this? — unequivocally not what traditionally happens after Trump press conferences. Almost never, in fact, does everyone go home and, after sober reflection, come away thinking Trump’s right. If anything, people go home, think about what he said, sleep on it, then wake up the next day convinced he’s even crazier than everyone imagined.

On this particularly issue, exactly no one other than Israeli hardliners thinks Trump’s right that the best way forward in Gaza is to forcibly remove two million people from the tiny sliver of land they were crowded into decades ago to make way for the Israeli state. The whole problem here in the first place was (and still is) forced displacement. Now Trump wants to solve it with — wait for it — another forced displacement.

Plainly — and contrary to what Trump said Tuesday when queried on the point — a majority of Gazans wouldn’t just pack up and leave, even if you managed to secure for them Trump’s mythical land of plenty. Gaza’s their home, after all, and even if it’s “hell,” as Trump delicately described it, they feel obligated to stay and rebuild their lives as proud Gazans. 

That’s one issue. Another’s that the place is still heavily militarized. The Al-Qassam Brigades as they existed under Mohammed Deif don’t exist anymore, but the remnants of Hamas’s military arm (with help from whatever’s left of Islamic Jihad) will stage a rolling, armed insurgency against anyone who tries to occupy Gaza, including and especially the US Marines.

On Wednesday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said that somehow, Trump’s plan wouldn’t involve American boots on the ground. As if, after all these decades, solving this problem will turn out to be as simple as a reality TV show host politely asking Gazans to walk away. She also said the plan wouldn’t cost American taxpayers a dime. (I guess Mexico and Canada are going to pay for it through tariffs, maybe. Or perhaps Qatar. Because if you can’t trust Qatar, who can you trust?)

Trump’s had a lot of bad ideas, and I’m loath to declare a winner, but here it goes: The notion that the US will dive head first into the world’s most intractable geopolitical dispute by spearheading an effort to forcibly remove two million Palestinians from a still-active warzone in Gaza isn’t just the worst idea Trump’s ever had, it may be the worst idea anyone’s ever had. About anything.

For someone so openly opposed to US nation-building and “forever wars,” Trump seems oblivious to just how bad the optics of this “plan” really are and, more to the point, what those bad optics presage for any US presence in Gaza.

Leavitt’s denials aside, Trump appears to be talking about committing the US military to what would count as one of the largest coordinated mass displacement campaigns in human history, in the single-most contentious region on Earth, on the single-most contested piece of Holy ground, then leveling the place and rebuilding it as Mideast Miami.

If the US were to try that, it would be history’s loudest call to jihad. Every man, woman and child who’s ever entertained the idea of taking up arms against “Great Satan” and the infidels will be there, and it’d be an inter-sectarian effort. You’d be able to hear the collective “Allahu Akbar!” shriek from space. Trump’s “Riviera” would be Fallujah, Syria and Vietnam rolled into one.

Saudi Arabia tried to be polite, calling Trump’s idea “an infringement on the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people.” It is that. But it’s all the stupidest f–king thing anybody’s ever heard which, believe me, is what everyone would’ve said if Trump weren’t President of the United States.