Jordan Agrees To Accept 2,000 Gazans
Plus, a Christian revival in Silicon Valley; Dershowitz on the “constitutional crisis”
President Trump’s plan to evacuate the residents of Gaza to Egypt, Jordan, and other countries got a modest boost today when the king of Jordan, Abdullah II, agreed to accept 2,000 children from Gaza.
“Fantastic, so beautiful, music to my ears,” Trump kvelled in a White House meeting with the king. “That’s really a beautiful gesture, and we’ll be working on the rest.” When Trump first announced the plan with Prime Minister Netanyahu a week ago he said there were 1.7 million or 1.8 million people in Gaza.
The mainstream press and its “experts” had initially described Trump’s plan for Gaza as a dead-on-arrival fantasy or as a mere negotiating ploy aimed at eliciting other offers. But the two-part plan—which involves the Gazan population leaving and being relocated elsewhere, and then having the U.S. taking over and turning the coastal strip between Israel and Egypt into a “Riviera”—appears to be moving forward, albeit, at least initially, on a smaller scale than Trump envisioned.
The Jordanian king withheld a more detailed response to the Trump plan until after he had a chance to consult with the Saudis and the Egyptians at a summit in Saudi Arabia.
Trump said the people now in Gaza “don’t want to be there,” and predicted that they would go to “a parcel of land in Jordan, a parcel of land in Egypt.”
“We’re moving them to a beautiful new location,” Trump said.
As for the future of Gaza itself , Trump offered a hopeful vision to contrast with what he said was the current “hell.”
“It could be a diamond,” he said. “It’s fronting on the sea.”
The Jordanian king said the Gazan children, some of whom have cancer, would be evacuated by helicopter in coordination with COGAT, the Israeli military authority responsible for Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories.
Silicon Valley’s Christian revival: On February 1 a friend posted to social media that “people in Silicon Valley seem more interested [in] Christianity than I’ve seen in the 20 years I’ve been here.” I considered assigning a piece or flying out to do one myself. It looks like the New York Times, of all places, has beaten me to it, with an article by Emma Goldberg reporting about a group called the ACTS 17 Collective — Acknowledging Christ in Technology and Society. The name also refers to a text from the Christian Bible. Acts 17 is already in San Francisco and the United Arab Emirates, and its website says it is “coming soon” to Los Angeles, New York, Washington and London.
The Times article mentions a church in San Francisco, Epic Church, that is “drawing roughly 1,000 people” every Sunday.
Key players named in the article include Peter Thiel, Garry Tan of Y Combinator, and Trae and Michelle Stephens.
We’ve written about indications of this coming for some time. See, for example, “Vice President J.D. Vance Could Spark a Religious Revival,” July 15, 2024, and “Joe Lieberman on Faith’s Answers to America’s Political Crisis,” December 25, 2024.
Dershowitz on the Constitutional crisis. Alan Dershowitz has some perspective. “The New York Times had a front-page story, major story, typically—all the law professors in the world, the entire academy, all the law professors think there’s a horrible constitutional crisis going on. Of course they interviewed three or four left-wing anti-Trump law professors. They didn't introduce anybody who would have a neutral view of the Constitution and they didn’t give their readers an honest assessment of the issue. There is no constitutional crisis. Take it from me. I’ve been studying the Constitution for close to 70 years now. I know a thing about the Constitution. …The Democrats are crying wolf. Schumer screaming out there like a mad person about a constitutional crisis. … No, no, no, no, no.”
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It would be interesting to know the details of how those being allowed out of Gaza are identified and approved.