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In Gaza, Shades of Nation-Building
(Times of Israel) Lazar Berman - "We are getting out of the nation-building business," Donald Trump said during his 2016 campaign, marking a shift from predecessors who tried to export American values to developing states. He said in May 2025, "The so-called 'nation-builders' wrecked far more nations than they built - and the interventionists were intervening in complex societies that they did not even understand themselves." Yet Trump seems to be committing American treasure to a project in Gaza that increasingly looks like the very thing he has so vociferously opposed. With the first phase of the Gaza plan nearing completion, the U.S. is now shifting its focus to the next phase, the creation of a prosperous, demilitarized Gaza free of Hamas rule. But to make that vision a reality, Trump looks to be following a path similar to those taken by the U.S. in Iraq and Afghanistan, where American missions to foster modern, competent statehood ultimately fell apart, now remembered as resource-wasting quagmires. Even if Trump stops short of a full nation-building program in Gaza, there are still relevant lessons that emerge from the costly U.S. experiments in Iraq and Afghanistan. Competent local security forces are notoriously difficult to create, especially when foreign peacekeepers head home. "Britain and France both tried" nation-building efforts, warned historian and former envoy to Washington Michael Oren. "They lost their nerve and they ran away. America is liable to do the same thing."