I have to say, on this one I hope he IS just bluffing.

Trump is ‘not bluffing’ on Gaza takeover, will do ‘what it takes,’ sources close to prez say
WASHINGTON — President Trump’s threat to take over the Gaza Strip is not a “bluff,” sources close to the White House told The Post Thursday.

“The president is absolutely serious,” one White House official stressed.

The conversations have been in the works for months, meaning Trump was negotiating a solution for the Hamas-controlled land strip at war with Israel before his term began.

Steve Witkoff — Trump’s Middle East envoy — has played an influential part in the planning, a second source familiar with the internal discussions on the matter said, and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed.

Witkoff developed his longtime friendship with Trump making billions in real estate investing and development in New York City. He traveled to Israel to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the final days of the Biden administration, which the Trump administration says played a key part in securing a hostage release deal between Israel and Hamas.

“Absolutely” Trump would be willing to take US control of Gaza, the source said.

“If that’s what it takes. He’s also creating a sense of urgency to end the status quo. And if Gulf States don’t like his plan then they should come up with their own and take more ownership of the situation. But the fact is that the status quo is a disaster,” the source added.

It IS a disaster, has always BEEN a disaster, and, unless and until some Western leader somehow scrapes up the stones to say “enough already” and start in killing Paleosimian Mooselimbs in job lots, will always BE a disaster. In the wise words of Gen Curtis LeMay, albeit in a different context: “if you kill enough of them, they stop fighting.” Truer words were never spoken.

That said, no way can I see OMB’s proposal turning out to be anything but a YUUUUGE mistake and an enormous catastrophe for the US all around. All Trump really needs to do at this point is to just step back, keep his mouth shut, and let Netanyahu get on with the business at hand. The only thing Trump can conceivably accomplish by interjecting himself and his nation into “Palestine” will be to set the stage for an encoure of 1983’s Beirut Marine Barracks bombing, if not something even worse. I’m sure he means well, but this next bit underlines how hopelessly misguided Trump’s thinking is on this whole rotten deal.

Some Republicans have raised eyebrows at the possibility of getting entangled in a foreign conflict and putting American troops in harm’s way in the Middle East. Trump first said he would not rule out putting US boots on the ground, but then said, “no soldiers by the US would be needed.”

“The Gaza Strip would be turned over to the United States by Israel at the conclusion of fighting. The Palestinians, people like Chuck Schumer, would have already been resettled in far safer and more beautiful communities, with new and modern homes, in the region,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

“No soldiers by the US would be needed?” It is to laugh, sorry. By “in the region,” natch, Trump means Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia—all of whom have for decades now been steadfastly, flatly rejecting any notion of permitting those poor, put-upon Paleosimians to be “resettled” anywhere within their borders, in no uncertain terms. Which, y’know, they still are. Clearly, they and their fellow Arab Moslem nations want no part of them, haven’t the least intention of taking them in, and have never pussyfooted around about saying so, either.

Unless his plan involves a wing of A10 Thunderbolt IIs saturation-bombing the hellhole until not one brick is left standing on another, the best thing Trump can possibly offer is a shrug, a rueful smile, a palms-up hand gesture wordlessly expressing to one and all, “Hey, I tried, whatcha gonna do,” then a blanket endorsement for Netanyahu to finish the bloody job at long last. A final pertinent quote which spells out exactly what it is we’re dealing with here:

Judgement Day will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews. The Jews will hide behind the stones and the trees, and the stones and the trees will say, oh Muslim, oh servant of Allah, there is a Jew hiding behind me — come and kill him.

That, of course, is one of the more unpleasantly blood-curdling Hadiths culled from the Muzzrats’ hateful little murder-book, the subject of innumerable sermons in mosques scattered across the West, an uncompromisingly vicious mindset ubiquitous throughout not only “Palestine” but the Middle East entire. Which ought to tell any sentient being all he needs to know about this eternal conflict, and whence it really springs.

Just a bluff? A mere opening gambit to clear the decks for purposes of implementing a broader agenda, mayhap, to be cast aside with alacrity the instant its usefulness as a bargaining chip has expired? I pray that it is, but fear that it is not. If it isn’t, hopefully some trusted personage in Trump’s inner circle who has the Boss’s ear will step up and persuade the President that he needs to just quietly let this profoundly bad idea go by the wayside without further ado.

Update! A “pact with the devil,” John Hale calls the misbegotten ceasefire agreement with Hamas, and I couldn’t agree more.

THE world waited to see who would be the first three hostages Hamas released to Israel. Would they be alive, or already dead? Would they include the baby Kfir Bibas, whose second birthday was on Saturday, the day before the start of phase one of the ceasefire agreement and hostage/prisoner exchange?

Hamas are playing despicable and cruel mind games with the population of Israel in general, and the families of the hostages in particular – in how they release those poor abused souls who are still living, and the cold bodies of those they have murdered. And as the next six weeks of prolonged, drawn-out releases continue, the greater that psychological torture will be for the families still awaiting the release of their loved ones. It is expected that the living will be released first. My guess is that the Bibas family will be among the last, if not the last, hostages to be handed over.

The first hostages released were Emily Damari, Doron Steinbrecher and Romi Gonen, three young women who have spent a year and three months suffering in the dank, dark, suffocating terror tunnels beneath Gaza. Abused and assaulted, not knowing what their fate would be, clinging to life. Emily is British, yet the British government were barely interested in her plight as they were too concerned about appeasing the Muslim vote in the UK rather than being seen to support a Jew above the cause of the ‘Palestinian resistance’.

Hamas made a spectacle of the release. Heavily armed terrorists in full Hamas uniform kept the handover under control for the cameras while Palestinian civilians crowded in, shouting abuse and spitting at the young hostages.

After the six long weeks of phase one have elapsed, will there still be a ceasefire and further hostage releases possible, or will Hamas have violated the agreement forced on both Israel and Hamas by Donald Trump, eager to make a big impact on day one of his second presidency? Can a second phase be negotiated at all? There is much more work to be done before all hostages are released, and a permanent ceasefire attained.

The next phase of negotiations will take place during this phase one hostage release, where in exchange for 33 hostages of unknown status (dead or alive), Israel is to release nearly 2,000 terrorists and detainees, including more than 700 prisoners who between them are responsible for the murders of around 2,500 Israeli men, women and children.

In the meantime, rest assured that Hamas will keep pushing the boundaries of the current phase one agreement, flexing their propaganda muscles to keep their worldwide fan base enthused by their ‘resistance’. Just 12 hours before the ceasefire was supposed to begin, Hamas broke the terms of the agreement by not naming the first three hostages to be released. They did eventually give the names, well after the cut-off time, and after Benjamin Netanyahu halted the start of the agreement in response.

There are celebrations in Gaza and elsewhere, proclaiming this agreement as a victory for Hamas, and as a signal that murder and hostage-taking works and will be repeated. This deal is a pact with the Devil; any deal with Islamic terrorists is such. It encourages further terror, putting innocent people at risk worldwide – because this Islamic ‘struggle’ is for world domination, for a global Caliphate and the imposition of Islam and Sharia on every living soul.

Indeed so, right down the line. Again: I couldn’t agree more with Hale’s astute, clear-eyed evaluation of this patently raw deal.