Law of the Instrument or Maslow’s Hammer is a cognitive bias that dictates a tunnel vision as an overarching solution for everything. Attributed to American psychologist Abraham Maslow it states that if the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.
President Donald Trump, the fourth child of New York real estate tycoon Fred Trump, was reared in his father’s footsteps. In time, as casinos, hotels, condominiums, and golf courses started bearing his name, Maslow’s Hammer started to come into play increasingly. Once in the White House, President Trump was believed to view geopolitical relationships, foreign policy, and international crises as real estate opportunities.
Standing in the White House beside the genocidal Netanyahu, who has an ICC arrest warrant against him, President Trump proclaimed: “We will take over Gaza. We will own it.” He went on to refer to Gaza as the future Riviera of the Middle East. Secretary of State Marco Rubio termed this ethnic cleansing gambit as “a very generous move.”
Trump’s words mirrored those of his son-in-law Jared Kushner, who is a real estate investor. Speaking at Harvard University in March last year, he referred to Gaza as a “waterfront property” and advocated the removal of Palestinians to clean up the Gaza Strip. Kushner helped compile a report in 2020 citing Gaza and the West Bank as “rich potential tourism opportunities.” It elaborated that “over 40 kilometres of coastline in Gaza could become a modern beachfront city along the Mediterranean Sea.”
Into this milieu, we add Steve Witkoff, Trump’s golfing partner, friend, and yet another real estate magnate. He is Washington’s special envoy to the Middle East and is said to have delivered the Gaza ceasefire. In hindsight, it was not to allay the sufferings of the Palestinians but to create a stepping stone for Trump’s preposterous plan.
Not to be left behind we have Mike Huckabee who describes Hamas as “the worst level of evil that exists on our planet today.” Vehemently opposed to a two-nation solution, he says that there is no such thing as Palestine, an occupation, or a West Bank. He describes the latter as Judea and Samaria and is of the stated belief that Israel is a state given by God to the Jewish people. This man is Washington’s ambassador to Israel.
Journalists Peter Baker and Susan Glasser reveal in their meticulously researched memoir, “The Divider-Trump in the White House, 2017-2021,” that during the 2018 World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Trump called the Jordanian King. He said: “Abdullah, we have got a great deal for you. We are going to give you the West Bank.” The authors write that Trump then hung up (on a shell-shocked King Abdullah). Coercing acquiescence from Palestine’s Arab neighbors shall lead to major upheavals in the Middle East and beyond.
The Democrats gleefully backed Biden’s criminal financing and arming of Israel to perpetrate the Gaza genocide. Now, they find Trump’s plan “insane and extremely immoral.” It was the Biden Administration that set the course for this immoral insanity; the genocide was a precursor to what can be a holocaust.
Trump recognized Israel’s illegal control over the Golan Heights. In a 2019 meeting, Trump talked about the Israeli Government wanting to build a new settlement there. He bragged that, as a tribute to him, it would be called Trump Heights. During the G20 summit in Osaka the same year, when the POTUS tried to impress President Putin with the spiel, Putin quipped, “Maybe they should just name all of Israel after you, Donald.”
The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump told Ukraine’s President Zelensky that Odesa, known for its beaches, was a standout city for hotel investments. Thinking of war zones and human misery as lucrative investment opportunities is abhorrent.
During a 2018 Singapore summit, Trump showed North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Un, a video on an iPad with Miami condos overlooking the ocean. His pitch to Kim was that he was sitting on a “hidden jewel ripe for redevelopment” only if he would give up his nuclear weapons. Kim Jong, clever to the fate of Moammar Qaddafi, Saddam Hussein, and a host of others who had been in Washington’s crosshairs, opted for his cruise and ballistic missiles.
Needless to say, Trump, the self-acclaimed dealmaker, despite meeting the North Korean leader three times, failed to slow the development of his nuclear weapons program. In 2022 alone, North Korea test-fired 34 different missiles, some capable of carrying nuclear warheads and an intercontinental ballistic missile. This time around, North Korea welcomed Trump back in office by test-firing a hypersonic missile.
Despite his pro-Israel track record, Trump successfully wooed Arabs, Muslims, and pro-Palestine voters to land him the Oval Office. He was credited with the Gaza ceasefire, a crucial step towards defusing tensions in the Middle East. His bizarre claim of annexing Gaza and what could be the ethnic cleansing of 2.5 million Palestinians has undermined his own presidency. The international rejection of this temerity is also a setback to his much-touted MAGA claim, not to mention the 64% of Americans strongly opposed to it.
What could be a greater affront to the Palestinian people, with nearly 62,000 dead, including 17,492 children and 111,618 injured, than to hear the self-declared leader of the free world declaring to take away their land? It is dehumanizing. The people devastated by the Palisades Fire tragedy in Los Angeles will rebuild their homes. They would sacrifice everything if anyone dared deny them that inherent right.
Mr. Trump, your Palm Beach residence, Mar-a-Lago, is a prime beachfront property, too. Would you ever allow anyone to “take it over and occupy it?” Never, and because you can, you would unleash your favorite “hell to pay” doctrine. A realtor’s worldview notwithstanding, how then in the world do you think the Palestinians shall ever give up their homes and homeland sanctified through decades by the blood of their loved ones?
This article was first published in The News International.
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Mir Adnan Aziz is a freelance contributor.