Genocidal Fantasies

How Trump's statement about the "Middle East Riviera" announced the end of the "two-state" peace solution

"New architecture" and "new urbanism" were announced long ago before the eyes of a sleeping world in Bosnia and Herzegovina with the construction of luxury hotels, museums, monuments... on the bones of murdered Bosniaks or, from the screams of the raped, expelled, erased from history.

By: Fuad Đidić

In his vision of the world, it is just another business idea. But, the truth is much more brutal.
Donald Trump announced that he wants to take over the Gaza Strip and build the "Middle East Riviera" on its foundations. In doing so, he would relocate the tormented and devastated residents of former Gaza to Jordan and Egypt, based on an unprecedented dictate to these countries. After 480 days of destroying Gaza, this is the final phase of genocide that we can call a "genocidal fantasy".

When Trump announced this horrific idea the other day, we recognized in it a sinister announcement from his inaugural speech on January 20, 2025. He already spoke then about Gaza's "phenomenal location" on whose foundations a "brave new world" is being built. Luxury settlements for wealthy clientele would extend across the land where 80,000 Palestinians were killed, where tens of thousands more lie unidentified in the ruins of Gaza.

Trump goes over corpses to reach his goal. Resorts with all the luxury demanded by the dissolute wealthy clientele of the West would be built on the bones of genocide. As if this American president did not see rivers of expelled and utterly impoverished residents of Gaza returning on horse-drawn carts to where their homes once were last week. He did not actually focus on the people and their right to return. He looked to the left. To the beach! The sea!

With this announcement, the narcissistic Trump not only showed a desire to trample and erase the victims of genocide. He showed the same cynicism as the fascists from the aggression against Bosnia and Herzegovina, who mockingly ridiculed or cursed the victims of genocide in this country. That cynicism, and that mockery of the victim, is the final phase of every genocide, which includes ridicule and, ultimately, the erasure of the victim.

Trump announced – falsely feigning concern before the world – that when America takes over Gaza, it will dismantle unexploded ordnance, clear the land, and supposedly create new jobs. Thus, "America," Trump imagines, while regaining its "greatness" on the bones of the murdered, will create a "new architecture," build a construction complex that will inspire admiration and attract the glory and money of the wealthiest. And with all this, he will write a new, revised picture of history, burying all prospects for any peace solution in that part of the world.

This move by Trump is not much different from what we have already witnessed in several examples of "new urbanism" in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The two most famous are: one from Mostar, and the other from Višegrad, where on the bones of the murdered, neighboring countries invest in the construction of the HVO museum or the construction of tourist facilities at the Vilina Vlas hotel near Višegrad.

In all post-genocide societies, urbanism and spatial planning, new planning of cities, roads, and gas pipelines, has always been the most important and significant branch, but also the task of the new government or "new electoral winners" for whom a new, revised world was to be depicted. Only "new architecture" that, with its modern aesthetics, "fascinates" Western or domestic wealthy clientele justifies any ideology of expulsion and ethnic cleansing and convinces that in the end, everything paid off and nothing was in vain.

With the announcement of the "riviera," which has caused an unprecedented wave of resistance and condemnation worldwide, that Gaza will be repopulated by cosmopolitan citizens who will live happily in glass towers with a beautiful view of the sea, Trump is actually announcing a happy and idyllic life intended only for one – the "white, superior race." In his vision of the new world, Gaza is a place where Palestinians should not have lived, where they had the historical misfortune to be in that very spot, just as, according to him, Srebrenica would have been a place where Bosniaks should not have lived.

Let's listen to these words of Trump, which will remain a historically unsurpassed example of cynicism and mockery. They contain a summary of all world visions that are built on the bones of murdered and unburied victims.

"I heard Gaza wasn't lucky for them. They live like in hell. Gaza is not a place where people should live, and the only reason they want to return – and I firmly believe this – is because they have no alternative."

In such a civilization that is emerging and which draws much of its inspiration from the genocide in Bosnia, no one mentions the Palestinians' right to return to their homes, nor does anyone at the highest level mention the Geneva Convention or violations of international laws on mass displacement of populations. Genocide ends with the erasure of the "Others" and their mocking ridicule. The land where they lived was not lucky for them.

The solution for Bosnia, and Trump's solution for Gaza, did not stem from a vision of rebuilding the country, but from the vision of real estate investors or, as in the case of Bosnia – the vision of hegemonism and colonization of its territory.

Trump does not hide that he treats Netanyahu as a close friend. Their closeness goes so far that Trump, in an unprecedented scene, like a hotel lackey, adjusts Netanyahu's chair. With these images, Trump changes the earlier diplomatic paradigm of the American president as the most important leader of the Western world. With this momentous scene, all prospects for rebuilding the world based on the principle of "pax americana" descend from the historical stage and give way to a new vision of "pax israelica".

As a close accomplice of Netanyahu, who is accused of genocide before the ICC, Trump could not offer a real vision, a true program, let alone a concept as a peace solution, but could only reach a "genocidal fantasy," which consists of ridicule and mockery of the victim.

This is the fever that is shaking this world.