‘The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip, and we will do a job with it too,” said President Trump. Are you ready for a little adventurism? The president continued, “We’ll own it,” meaning Gaza. The United States will “create an economic development that will supply unlimited numbers of jobs.”

I’m not sure this is what MAGA signed up for — dramatic U.S. intervention in the Middle East. But I don’t hear many objections from MAGA. I wonder what would happen if Trump changed his mind about immigration and proposed open borders . . .

In any case, I thought of Shimon Peres, the late Israeli leader. Twenty years ago, he was speaking to a group of us journalists in Davos. He was talking about the coming Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. The Palestinians would have wonderful opportunities, because Gaza has “43 kilometers of the most beautiful beaches in the Mediterranean.” Israeli settlements could be converted into resorts, he said.

Yes, they could have. Autonomy in Gaza was a fabulous opportunity for Palestinians. But . . .

Yes, “but.” (I wrote about this matter here.)

• Last month, I wrote a piece called “Gone, the Assads” (here). Let me quote a paragraph:

It was on December 8, 2024, that the House of Assad fell. The White Helmets got to work trying to dig people out of prisons, some of which have a labyrinth of cells underground. There are whole secret prisons, not yet discovered. Syrians are aware of their existence, but their locations need to be pinpointed. (Russia, too, has secret prisons. That’s why it is impossible to get a firm count of Putin’s political prisoners.)

A report from the Associated Press, dated January 28, is headed “The discovery of brutal mass graves in Syria reveals Assad’s legacy of horror.” I will quote just a portion:

Members of Syria’s White Helmets, a volunteer civil defense group, exhumed the fragmented, weathered skeletal remains from the basement of two properties in the town of Sbeneh, southwest of the capital. Wearing hazmat suits . . .

Etc.

Over the years, some people have asked me, “To whom would you award the Nobel Peace Prize, if you could?” (I wrote a history of the prize.) I suggest the Ladies in White in Cuba and the White Helmets in Syria, among other groups and individuals.

• In my piece last month, I wrote of Raed Fares, a Syrian journalist and dissident, unbelievably brave, who was killed in 2018.

I met him at the Oslo Freedom Forum in 2017. Describing life in Syria, he cited Orwell: Animal Farm and 1984. Many dissidents do, in every corner of the globe. That English novelist, who died in 1950, somehow captures their situation, in whatever totalitarian state they live in.

Here is a report from the Guardian, about banned books, now returning to Syrian shelves. It quotes Wahid Taja, who works in publishing. My eyes widened at this:

One book that was never banned was George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, despite the glaring parallels with the Assad regime’s totalitarian security apparatus. Taja’s own theory as to why the novel was allowed to be sold was simple: “They wanted us to imagine that they had the same capabilities, to watch us wherever we went.”

• The National Endowment for Democracy is a jewel in the American crown. It was founded in 1983 at the instigation of President Reagan. He gave the fundamentals in his famous Westminster speech the year before. I wrote about this — and democracy in general — in a 2023 essay, here.

Obviously, NED has always had its foes, on left and right. Democracy has always had its foes. NED is now in the crosshairs of Elon Musk and his crew. “NED is a SCAM,” Musk wrote.

Today’s Republicans like to say, “This is not your father’s GOP, you know.” So true. Musk is a fellow who disdains the National Endowment for Democracy and hails the AfD in Germany.

The reversal of values, principles, and ideals has been convulsive.

• Speaking of which: Secretary of State Marco Rubio has named Darren Beattie our undersecretary of state for public diplomacy. That’s a big job. Here is Beattie:

Beattie has used five “greater than” symbols. But doesn’t Putin merit a sixth, or seventh? Isn’t he that much greater than NATO?

More Beattie:

More:

The State Department has designated the Chinese government’s persecution of the Uyghur people a “genocide.” Is that no longer State’s position? Did the Uyghurs have it coming? Are they uppity?

More Beattie (from January 6, 2021, when a mob attacked the U.S. Congress):

Kay James is, of course, a black American. Are we still doing “know your place” in the 2020s?

More Beattie:

There is a lot more where those came from.

In my view, Darren Beattie is grotesquely unfit to represent the United States. But that ship, generally speaking, has sailed.

• This is awfully telling:

• About the Trump administration’s freezing of foreign aid, many dictatorships are thrilled.

Wrapped into the billions the U.S. spends annually on foreign aid — more than any other nation — are hundreds of grants for grassroots groups dedicated to fighting for democracy in authoritarian countries around the world.

That is a sentence from an AP report. The report further says,

Among the groups that won’t be receiving critical funding is an organization that trained poll workers to detect fraud in Venezuela’s recent presidential vote, pro-democracy activists in Cuba and China, and a group of Belarusian exiles behind a campaign to block the country’s strongman from winning a sham election.

Here is a taste of dictatorships’ reaction: “In Nicaragua, a TV network owned by President Daniel Ortega’s sons declared that ‘Trump turned off the faucet’ for the ‘terrorists.’” By “terrorists,” the Sandinistas mean “democrats.” “Media outlets aligned with the Islamic leadership in Iran joked that the U.S. was treating its allies like ‘disposable tissues.’”

In Venezuela, a democracy activist said, “Trump is doing the work that Maduro could never accomplish: suffocating civil society.”

All of this means a great deal to some of us.

• At this point in my column, I’d like to do some language. When I was growing up, I understood a “contrarian” to be someone who likes to take the opposite view just for the sake of it. He opposes out of instinct. If you were “contrarian” (to take the adjective), you were reflexively against.

“Spring is the best season,” someone says. “No,” says the contrarian, “it’s winter!” Someone else says, “You know, winter is the best season.” “Harrumph,” says that same contrarian — “ever heard of spring?”

But people use “contrarian” to mean “against the prevailing view,” or simply “against.” I received a note from a publicist about a new book, offering a “contrarian argument.”

I will have to rethink “contrarian” (although my original understanding is lodged in my noggin).

• A speck of music? For a review of a chamber concert, featuring Pinchas Zukerman as both violinist and violist, go here.

• “Paul Plishka, whose Metropolitan Opera career spanned 51 years, dies at age 83.” That article is here. I’d like to tell a story.

Some years ago, I covered a New Year’s Eve concert by the New York Philharmonic. The printed program was over. I made for the exits. But there would be an encore — “Auld Lang Syne.” The audience was invited to sing. I stood at the back, next to Paul Plishka (who had apparently made to leave as well). Neither one of us sang a note.

When it was over, I turned to him and said, “I didn’t dare sing with you standing there.” He pinched my cheeks and said, “Awww.”

• Show you a New York scene, maybe?

Have a good day, everyone. Appreciate you. See you soon.

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