Although the president had been talking about the idea for weeks, there had been no meetings on the subject, and senior members of his government were taken by surprise.

When President Trump announced his proposal for the United States to take ownership of Gaza on Tuesday, he shocked even senior members of his own White House and government.

. . .

It wasn’t only the Americans who were scrambling; the announcement came as just as much of a surprise to Mr. Trump’s Israeli visitors. Soon before they walked out for their joint news conference on Tuesday, Mr. Trump surprised Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel by telling him he planned to announce the Gaza ownership idea, according to two people briefed on their interactions.

Inside the U.S. government, there had been no meetings with the State Department or Pentagon, as would normally occur for any serious foreign policy proposal, let alone one of such magnitude. There had been no working groups. The Defense Department had produced no estimates of the troop numbers required, or cost estimates, or even an outline of how it might work.

There was little beyond an idea inside the president’s head.

MBFC
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  • supersquirrelEnglish
    13·
    13 hours ago

    Fascism is the theater of manufactured crises brought into such stark relief that all other meaning breaks down into bigotry.

    Either shock or overwhelmed stunned disengagement is fundamentally an act of compliance to the performance of public violence.