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HERE & ABROAD
❧ DEEP DIVE:The plan to ethnically cleanse Gaza, revealed ❧
On Sunday, the Washington Post revealed in-depth information about the Trump administration’s plans to build a “Riviera of the Middle East” atop the rubble in Gaza. According to the slide deck shared by the Post, the plan consists of “voluntarily” relocating Palestinians, razing the 10 percent of Gaza’s homes that haven’t been bombed, and constructing an “AI-powered” city. What does an AI-powered city look like? We presume like Boston, only (somehow) more racist.
Now, before criticizing the plan (if it can even be called a plan), let’s first put our media criticism hats on and turn our attention to the slide deck itself, because this is the creme de la creme of slimy consultant work. For one thing, it’s sloppy. One slide is repeated for no reason. Typos are strewn about like IDF munitions. And it uses the same AI-generated image five times to pitch investors on the merits of a dozen bridges to nowhere. (Why would anyone ever reuse an AI-generated photo? The whole point is that the slop is basically infinite!)
A consultant got paid far too much to tell a robot to make this.
(Note what appear to be bridges for cars which lead directly onto railroad tracks.)
The pitch is reminiscent of the grotesque AI video Trump posted earlier this year, where a shirtless Netanyahu and yassified Elon Musk extolled the virtues of “Trump Gaza.” Except that video was targeted to a mass audience, part of the endless stream of low-quality content we’ve all grown accustomed to. This new presentation was tailored to decision makers in the administration. They must not care much about the quality of work they pay for. And the casual carelessness exhibited by the slides is reflected in the contents of the plan.
The Post reports that the proposal was developed by the same Israelis who developed the foundation currently distributing aid inside Gaza (with help from Tony Blair, who’s always sniffing around the Middle East.) The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation has been described by the State Department as “a tremendous success.” (They must think the aim of the GHF was to kill civilians—an easy mistake to make, given the astronomical death toll of people waiting in line for food.) Financial planning for the proposal was done by consultants employed by Boston Consulting Group. (BCG fired these partners over their work regarding Gaza, but only after invoicing $1 million a month for their exemplary slideshows.) These experts conclude that depopulating Gaza and replacing it with a (buzzword alert) Public-Private Partnership would create space for AI data centers and “Electric Vehicle Industrial Zones.” On what basis do they think private companies would invest in a plan despised by essentially all of the Arab world? None at all.
Tesla, Amazon… the gang’s all here.
The obvious point that bears restating is that even if Palestinians received cash payments, depopulating Gaza would still be ethnic cleansing—just like the cleansing Israel has been carrying out since the 1950s. It would also be ethnic cleansing if Palestinians received payments via a new form of cryptocurrency, as the plan prescribes. Let us assume that Israel and the U.S. actually would pay Palestinians (they likely won’t) or that the cryptocurrency wouldn’t be completely worthless (it would). The vast majority of money would go to foreign or Israeli construction and private security companies, with the promise of long-term economic growth for the Palestinians who would be allowed to eventually move back to the strip. (They would actually not be allowed back.) Y’know, like how American intervention has historically built up thriving democracies in the Middle East.
Seriously, though: this little slideshow is a window into depths of human evil we rarely see, all presented with a slick corporate sheen. These people have to be stopped, before their plans come to pass.
❧ In Other News ❧
❧ Utah has been ordered to un-gerrymander its congressional maps. To the dismay of crooked politicians everywhere, in 2018, Utahns passed a measure to create an independent, non-partisan commission to draw election maps. Thank goodness the Republican legislature quickly overruled those voters by changing the commission to a non-binding advisory committee and enacting this map:
What’s the point of elections if Republicans aren’t guaranteed victory?
You might notice that the map splits Salt Lake City between four districts—that’s so that people in the Democratic stronghold can’t subvert democracy by voting for a candidate of their choice. But last week, a judge ruled that undermining the independent commission violated the Utah constitution. Now the state must create new, competitive electoral maps before the 2026 elections.
❧ Indonesia has been rocked by protests. Last week, protests in Indonesia ballooned after a police car hit and killed a protesting motorcycle driver. People were initially protesting about politicians’ excessive pay (legislators receive a housing allowance of almost ten times Indonesia’s minimum wage, on top of their salaries). But since Thursday night’s killing, some protestors have set buildings on fire as they protest police abuse and government unaccountability. Fortunately, here in the U.S. our news media knows that Congress should be paid more, and says so loudly. What would we do without them?
❧ An election denier has been appointed to oversee elections. In 2024, ProPublica reported that right-wing activist Heather Honey played a key role in efforts to amend Georgia’s election certification system so that Trump could contest a loss in the upcoming election. Now, the outlet reports that Honey has been appointed as a deputy assistant secretary for elections integrity within the Department of Homeland Security. While states typically manage elections, DHS gives them additional resources. Or, in this administration, DHS might take away $28 million in anti-terrorism funds from states that refuse to comply with its “voting policy goals.” What a beautifully opaque phrase.
Point taken. We’ll tweet “Hahahahahaha” next time.
Malik Rahim speaks to Current Affairs, 20 years after Katrina
❧ In More News ❧
❧ Republicans are targeting Wikipedia. Last week, two House Republicans— sent a letter to Wikipedia asking the platform to send them the personal information of editors and information on “patterns of manipulation or bias related to antisemitism.” As Current Affairs alumnus Stephen Prager reports in Common Dreams, this is far from the first time Wikipedia has been targeted by the right. The platform has consistently faced attacks when its volunteer editors create articles that are about deaths in Gaza… er, we mean “too deferential to leftism.”
Art by Harriet Burbeck from Current Affairs Magazine Vol. 5, Issue 6
❧ Major NBA brands have been tied to forced labor. China has more basketball fans than the U.S. has people, so it’s not surprising that the NBA and its stars do considerable business in the country. But that business relies on forced labor. As the Bureau of Investigative Journalism reported this week, major Chinese brands that work with the league—including Li-Ning, Anta and 361 Degrees—own factories where Uyghur Muslims and other minority groups are forced to work with no means of leaving. So any pair of sneakers or other merchandise made by those companies may very well have been made by modern-day slaves. Worse still, the Pelicans have yet to find a serviceable big man.
❧ Six workers have been killed by cow manure. The workers, one of whom was a high schooler, were all killed by toxic fumes at a Colorado dairy farm. The gas in question was hydrogen sulfide, which is a byproduct of cow manure and causes instant death in high concentrations. This tragedy underscores the risks of farm labor in the U.S. today. Even though dairy farming is one of the most dangerous jobs in the country, thanks to “agricultural exceptionalism” it is exempt from OSHA regulations that normally would protect workers’ lives. Clearly, that needs to change.
ROBE RAGE
This Week In The Courts:
Texas tries to punish out-of-state abortion care.
The Texas legislature is in the process of passing a law that would allow anyone in the state to sue abortion pill manufacturers and doctors who send abortion pills into Texas. People with no connection to someone seeking an abortion can collect at least $100,000 in damages, according to the New York Times. Abortion is already strictly criminalized in the state, but this is a measure meant to rally citizens as vigilantes, surveilling the activity of doctors out of state. And that’s what makes this law, like a similar one passed in Louisiana, so insidious.
To begin with, this law is not about preventing women in Texas from seeking abortions. Already, almost all abortions in Texas are outlawed, and this law would not apply to women in the state who seek medicine by mail. Nor would it apply to doctors in Texas, who already face up to life in prison for providing care. This law is about ensuring that doctors elsewhere don’t mail pills to Texas residents. (Doctors who, for what it’s worth, might not even know that a person is a Texas resident, if pills are sent to an address outside the state.) And crucially, these laws are not enforced by the state—they’re enforced by private parties who can sue doctors for damages.
By shifting the burdens of enforcement, these laws are designed to evade judicial review. The prime example of this is Texas’s earliest modern abortion ban: S.B. 8. In 2021, Texas passed a law which effectively banned abortion after six weeks by allowing private individuals to sue anyone who performs an abortion in the state. The “bounty law” immediately faced lawsuits by abortion care providers who argued that it violated the constitution by impeding the right to an abortion. (This was a year before Roe was overturned.) But, in a sad preview of what was to come, the Supreme Court ruled that because the law was enforced by private individuals, and not the state of Texas, these providers could not seek relief from the law in court.
Texas’ success has inspired other states. Louisiana, Idaho, and Oklahoma passed similar abortion restrictions. And states have also used this tactic on other culture war fronts. Tennessee allows people to sue for “emotional harm” caused by schools that let transgender students use bathrooms that match their gender identities, and Florida enforces its “Don’t Say Gay” law by authorizing private lawsuits.
Of course, Democrats could match fire with fire. Law professors Jon Michaels and David Knoll have floated the idea of states allowing private citizens to sue their neighbors who store guns unsafely, or encouraging private lawsuits against major political donors who distort elections. But, as they note, “this intensely politicized and extremely conservative Supreme Court is never going to allow such laws to take effect. It’s not the best use of Democrats’ time and energy to try.”
OVINE FACT OF THE WEEK
Sheep can recognize faces!
Have you ever run into your editor on the streets of New Orleans and forgotten that you’ve already met? Well, you might be dumber than a sheep. Scientists at the University of Cambridge have trained sheep to recognize photos of people, and sheep can even recognize photos of people they’ve only ever seen in real life. The researchers ran an experiment where they displayed two different photos on screens, and the sheep got a reward when they picked the photo of someone they’d previously met—which they soon mastered. Check out the video below:
Sheep can even recognize Barack Obama’s picture 80 percent of the time—that might be better than the median voter.
Writing and research by Grady Martin. Editing and additional material by Alex Skopic and Nathan J. Robinson. Header graphic by Cali Traina Blume. This news briefing is a product of Current Affairs Magazine. Subscribe to our gorgeous and informative print edition here, and our delightful podcast here.
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