Photograph Source: U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Michael Ito – Public Domain

Donald Trump may be able to claim credit for opening the Rafah crossing from Gaza into Egypt – thus allowing potentially thousands of Palestinians desperately seeking medical care to leave to get it – but if he wants kudos for his Gaza policies, this is not enough. When the crossing opened February2, Israel only allowed five – count ‘em, five! – of the thousands of sick an injured to leave for Egypt via Rafah. What kind of “opening” is that? Whatever it is, it’s something more focused on bureaucratic control and restrictions of Palestinians than a good faith effort to observe Trump’s so-called peace plan. Any honest observation of that plan’s implied pledge would have seen the full 22,000 patients who need care evacuated to hospitals abroad.

Then the next day, 135 injured Palestinians tried to exit – these pitiful numbers contrast sharply with the over 529 Gazans killed by Israel since the ceasefire began in October. If Trump doesn’t want his signature truce to continue to be derided as a sick joke, the white house better make it plain to Jerusalem that abiding by the agreement’s letter is long past due. The problem of course is that the Likud fanatics running Israel still dream of ethnically cleansing Gaza. So I guess, not letting very sick people leave to see a doctor, fits with this goal of making life in Gaza as unbearable as possible.

So where to look for help in this ghastly situation? I’ll tell you where: Abu Dhabi and whatever locale comes next, for Russian president Vladimir Putin’s team who were recently negotiating an end to the Ukraine War, and making demands of the U.S. like, “Release Nicolas Maduro!” It wouldn’t take much for the Russians to insist on help for the Palestinians; in fact, when first invited to join Trump’s “Board of Peace,” Putin offered – before even accepting – to donate $1 billion for Gaza reconstruction from the Russian assets frozen by the lunatic west. He also suggested, again, that creating a Palestinian state was the only exit from the current impasse. It’s just possible that the formerly Soviet nation that endured the barbaric Nazi blockade and siege of Leningrad, which murdered or starved to death 1 million residents, and where the starvation was so bad, the people ate rats, that that nation’s empathy for the mercilessly starved, besieged and blockaded Gaza Strip, might lead to some action for the Palestinians. It’s a hope, and not such a slender one, because Trump, unlike most uni-party cretins, sometimes listens to the leaders of peer competitors like China and Russia. And it’s otherwise very hard to tell who Trump listens to on Gaza – Miriam Adelson? Well, her $100 million can’t compete with Putin’s $1 billion, if that goes through.

Meanwhile, in a brutally cold winter, no prefabricated homes and few new tents pass through the checkpoints from Israel to Gaza’s two million hungry, destitute, homeless inhabitants. Just as dreadful is Israel’s bureaucratic blockade against medical aid into Gaza. On February 1, Jerusalem announced it would end Doctors Without Borders’ (MSF) work in Gaza, because MSF wouldn’t hand over a list of its Palestinian staff. For MSF, this ruling is a “pretext to obstruct humanitarian assistance” to Gaza, now needed more than ever. According to The New Arab, February 1, a full 50 percent of Gazan kidney patients die in Israel’s ongoing siege. The closure of the Rafah crossing “over the past year and a half has caused a humanitarian catastrophe…with essential medical supplies being blocked.” Not improving this disaster is the fact that Israel basically bombed all the hospitals in Gaza, so that now there are precisely zero fully functioning ones left and less than 14 of the previous 36 operate partially amid crushing shortages. Israel claimed those hospitals sheltered Hamas (ho! ho!), thus supposedly justifying obliterating them. If Trump wants praise as a humanitarian, Nobel Prize or no, he will shotgun Israel into rescinding its ban on 37 medical and food aid orgs, which goes into effect March 1.

There are other steps that Trump in some alternate universe could take to win approval for his otherwise useless Gaza policies. He could condemn Israel for terrorist acts like bombing and destroying the Morag Water Station in Rafah February 3. This supplied water to approximately “one-third of the city’s residents before the war,” reports Drop-Site News. Better yet, he could green light the use of that $1 billion of frozen Russian funds to repair ALL the Israeli-busted water stations in Gaza. And there are lots – hundreds. Or he could twist Israel’s arms to allow in the 600 daily aid trucks required by the “ceasefire” and which they have so far not provided (not even close).

Instead, the “ceasefire” has meant that the genocide continues in slow motion. Since the truce started, 1462 Palestinians have been injured by Israel, while even the IDF concedes that the Gaza Health Ministry’s overall death toll, over 71,803, is accurate, “and acknowledged that it doesn’t include Palestinians presumed dead under the rubble. Several studies have concluded that the real violent death toll is likely near or over 100,000,” reported Dave DeCamp for Antiwar.com on February 3.

Trumps’ quickest route to acclaim is to take Putin up on his offer at once for that $1 billion, allow Moscow to dictate what reconstruction it’s used for and then leave the matter in Russian hands. He could also use some of the forthcoming $20 billion in fees paid by other countries that joined his “Board of Peace” for the same purpose: Gaza reconstruction to benefit Palestinians. He may find this more problematic, as those nations, unlike Russia, may not have specified that the funds should go to improve life for Palestinians. At least with the Kremlin’s money, he could claim to his contingent of Israel First backers that “well, what could I do? Those were the strings Moscow attached.”

As we all know, Trump dislikes the UN, even created his “Board of Peace” deliberately to undercut it, to say nothing of serving as a deep pocket for billions of dollars in entrance fees. So here’s his chance to show what he can do – because without reconstruction for the Palestinians, that so-called Board of Peace flops and all Trump will ever get noted for is being the U.S. president who destroyed the UN, an org that, despite his antipathy, is renowned for great work globally since its founding. That will be a black mark – much like his rash withdrawal from the Iranian nuclear pact in his first term, which has caused a continuously unfolding Mideast train-wreck ever since and one for which one man gets blamed; and the man is, you guessed it, Donald Trump. You’d think he’d want to avoid a repeat of such a stain for demolishing the UN. You’d think; but unless he avails himself of the Kremlin’s generous offer, and pronto, you’d be wrong.

This whole Israel/Gaza fiasco has been going on for almost two and a half years. Palestinians have suffered grotesquely, Isreal has become a pariah nation and, guilt by association. U.S. elites are widely regarded as a pariah class. Trump has a choice: he can perpetuate this mess or he can start to remediate it. In the Arab Gulf state echo chamber, where most of his Mideast policy resides, this choice is drowned out by yes-men and their flattery. But there it is: the choice remains; quite stark and, whether he likes it or not, quite liable to determine his legacy, just as it did Genocide Joe Biden’s.

So Trump now can boast two ceasefires under his belt. But unless he pushes forward and reaches stage two for the latest one, both will have been sabotaged by Israel. That next stage is massive aid to the Palestinians, and nothing would be more of a breath of fresh air than a break with the status quo and for that stage two actually to happen. He ditched the UN, he’s got $1 billion commitments from over 20 nations to join his “Board of Peace,” he can either go for the appalling Gaza Rivera, built on the blood and bones of 100,000 Palestinians, or fulfill the implied promise of his ceasefire. If he’s worried about money, Putin has made an offer. The door stands open.

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