Rachel Marsden

PARIS — When it comes to Gaza, the Trump administration’s level of tone-deafness is on par with that of a leaf blower at a meditation retreat.

Palestinians are now starving, and while Trump acknowledges it, he then flicks it off like Big Mac crumbs, blaming Hamas.

Trump campaigned on avoiding foreign wars. Fair enough. But conveniently opting out of a crisis that you helped escalate isn’t the same thing as having completely butted out from the get-go. Trump’s policies have significantly contributed to the current catastrophe.

Gaza’s starvation stems directly from aid blockades, bureaucratic hurdles and reportedly widespread looting. Israel blames Hamas for taking the food, just like it blamed them when supposedly precise Israeli bombs reduced civilian homes to rubble in the name of targeting Hamas — a now routine deflection.

This crisis needs a dispassionate, neutral referee. Unfortunately, Trump lost the moral authority to make any such calls in the Middle East way back in his first term when he insisted on sticking his nose into the issue of moving the Israeli capital from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, in a heavily symbolic rejection of Palestinian claims to East Jerusalem.

Then Team Trump spearheaded the Abraham Accords for Israeli-Arab cooperation, while sidelining Palestine like a footnote.

And for those not into blaming Hamas for starving their own people, Israel also presents the option of blaming the United Nations. “Unfortunately, the UN has failed so far to collect and distribute the large amount of aid trucks that are stored in designated areas inside of the Gaza Strip. Now it is expected of the UN to collect and distribute the large quantities of aid, without any further delay or excuses,” the Israeli foreign ministry wrote online.

Hold up.

Earlier this year, Israel passed legislation prohibiting the United Nations Relief and Works Agency from operating inside Gaza and designating it as a terror group. So how’s the food supposed to get in? By slingshot?

It’s Israel that has Gaza under siege. You block it, you buy it. And you’re fully responsible for it — not the United Nations. The UN may be notoriously incompetent, but it didn’t design this disaster. Don’t try looking for any independent thought on the part of Team Trump, though. It’s like they’re getting their talking points straight from the Israeli press office.

“UN is a tool of Hamas! … UN food is either looted by Hamas or rots in the sun!” wrote U.S. ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee.

Is that really the hill you want to die on? No interest in at least erring on the side of caution when dealing with the same folks who’ve tried to convince America for the last few decades that Iran has always been about five minutes away from having nukes?

Are you absolutely certain those aren’t just starving civilians doing the looting? Starving civilians steal food — even if it means being labeled Hamas by an overfed crony settled into an ergonomic chair in an air-conditioned embassy.

“Israel rejects the false accusations of ‘starvation’ propaganda initiated by Hamas which manipulates pictures of children suffering from terminal diseases. It is shameful,” Israel added. “Oh, our bad,” says the entire rest of the world. Clearly everyone in Gaza is well fed and you’re making sure of that, right?

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has mused about the need to clear out Gaza, for other countries to take those people off his hands, and gave civilians a cursory heads-up before leveling the place in the name of targeting

Hamas — but we’re to believe that he draws the line at starving them?

Meanwhile, Team Trump is passing around blame like a hot potato: to Hamas, the UN, French President Emmanuel Macron — anyone but themselves, or their proxy, Israel.

Macron’s plan to recognize Palestine at the UN later this year was dubbed “reckless” by U.S. Secretary of State Rubio, who has also received hundreds of thousands of dollars from pro-Israel donors, according to official campaign financing records. So Macron trying to break up a geopolitical bar fight now counts as setting back peace?

“Macron’s unilateral ‘declaration’ of a ‘Palestinian’ state didn’t say WHERE it would be. I can now exclusively disclose that France will offer the “French Riviera,” Huckabee joked.

Or how about Arkansas, since this former governor of the state has previously brought up the idea, in an interview earlier this year, of displacing millions of Palestinians out of Israel’s way. “Does it need to be somewhere different? Does it need to be an opportunity for people to have a true place that is completely their own?” Huckabee said, according to the Times of Israel.

“France’s decision to recognize a Palestinian state is a gift to Hamas and a blow to peace. I’ve just arrived, and I’m deeply disappointed,” wrote new U.S. ambassador to France, Charles Kushner (and father of Trump son-in-law, Jared).

If Macron handed out croissants in Gaza City, would that just be called a Hamas bakery franchise?

Apparently, all of these guys who are supposed to comprise America’s face to the world figured that it would be a good look to put on a Team Israel jersey and gang up on the underdog. But Gaza’s fate is a litmus test for whether human rights actually mean anything to the Western world. Trump and his cronies aren’t neutral. If he can’t rein in Netanyahu after emboldening him, then Gaza’s starvation will be the fine print beneath his fantasies of Abraham Accords riches.

Rachel Marsden is a columnist, political strategist and host of independently produced talk shows in French and English. Her website can be found at www.rachelmarsden.com.