Still from The Three Stooges.

Fascism was not simply a conspiracy—although it was that—but it was something that came to life in the course of a powerful social development. Language provides it with a refuge. Within this refuge, a smoldering evil expresses itself as though it were salvation.

– Theodor Adorno

Peter Matthiessen’s final novel, In Paradise, was a searing critique of “Holocaust tourism,” which seems to be Trump’s plan for Gaza, once the bodies are extracted from the rubble and the remaining Palestinians rounded up and shipped off to desert encampments in the Sinai in a new Trail of Tears, just like his hero Old Hickory. He wants to turn the Strip into the Monte Carlo of the Middle East, with sparkingly coastal pleasure palaces and casinos for international jet set–but scrubbed of any troubling reference to the genocide that just took place there.

Reporter: “Would Palestinians have the right to return to Gaza, if they left during the rebuilding?”

Trump: “It would be my hope that we could do something really nice, really good, where they wouldn’t want to return, the place has been hell.”

A reporter yells: “It’s their home, sir!”

Trump: “We can build a really good quality town, like someplace where they could live and not die because Gaza is a guarantee that they’re gonna die, the same thing is gonna happen again. Who would wanna go back? They’ve experienced nothing but death and destruction.”

The sinister, “can-you-believe-this” smirk on the face of Netanyahu tells you everything you need to know about the direction things are heading…

Earlier this week, Trump referred to Gaza as a “demolition site” and then he rolled out the red carpet at the White House to welcome the man (referred to in a White House press release as “His Excellency”) who has been indicted for demolishing it and lavished him with gifts, including a billion-dollar shipment of new bombs, shells and military hardware, a pledge to take over Gaza off his hands and forcibly evict the 1.9 million Palestinians who survived the demolition by US-made weapons previously gifted to Israel by Biden, reconstruct it into a seaside resort and, in a few weeks, give him the green light to annex the entire West Bank.

Trump: “ Palestinians have no alternative but to leave Gaza.”

Holocaust denialism took root and spread in part because the Nazis burned many of the records of their crimes and often spoke obliquely about their genocidal plans. That’s not the case here, where ethnic cleansing is openly and vividly described as if it were a real estate pitch.

Reporter: You are talking tonight about the US taking over a sovereign territory. What authority would allow you to do that? Are you talking about a permanent occupation?

Trump: “I do see a long-term ownership position of Gaza after Palestinians are moved elsewhere. This is not a decision made lightly. Everybody I’ve spoken to loves the idea of the United States owning that piece of land.”

Trump seems to believe that if he describes the crime he plans to commit before he commits it and no one stops him, it’s no longer a crime. And, I suppose, experience has proved him right.

The lack of revulsion at the prospect of US troops being sent to Gaza (to replace the US mercenaries just sent there) is a sign of the general senescence of a country that seems to have forgotten not only the quagmire of Iraq but why Reagan pulled the Marines out of Lebanon.

The nice blonde Christian lady who doubles as White House press secretary said on Wednesday that “the US would not pay for the reconstruction of Gaza,” which means this is a typical Trump real estate swindle, where he wants to own something without paying for it.

This assertion seems in conflict with Marco Rubio’s attempt to clean up Trump’s mess when he characterized the ethnic cleansing to create a Riviera in the Middle East as an act of generosity: “What President Trump announced yesterday is the offer, the willingness of the United States to become responsible for the reconstruction of that area…it’s an enormous undertaking…It was not meant as a hostile move. It was meant as a very generous move.”

I tend to believe the lovely Christian lady. She wouldn’t lie, would she?

Some enterprising White House correspondent should ask her, Who’s the boss? Trump, Elon or Bibi? Or is there some kind of power-sharing arrangement?

We’ve reached that terminal point of imperial decay when the highest ambition of most members of Congress is to be a sycophant (though few of them could spell or define the word without consulting ChatGTP). It’s rather bracing to........

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