World media lambasts Trump’s Gaza proposal, but News Corp praises idea as ‘worth

When news broke of new US president Donald Trump’s proposal to banish Palestinians from Gaza and turn it into the “riviera of the Middle East”, reactions from the world’s newsrooms were noticeably, well, varied.

The New York Times called it a “brazen plan” while Al Jazeera went a little stronger, declaring: “Trump is a mad man.” The takeover plan “faces global condemnation”, said the Guardian headline, and “UN chief warns of ethnic cleansing”.

The Sydney Morning Herald’s splash called it “outlandish”. The foreign affairs correspondent Matthew Knott said Trump was advocating ethnic cleansing and dressing it up as “a golden real estate opportunity” and referred to experts saying it would be a crime against humanity.

Unusually, News Corp pulled its punches a bit.

“Ultimate Gaza gambit,” The Australian headline read. “Trump stuns world with plan for ownership of war-torn strip.”

“Some method in the madness,” the headline on a piece by the foreign editor, Greg Sheridan, read. Sheridan wrote it was “the most astounding, outlandish, radical, gobsmackingly strange proposal”, but went on to say Trump’s view of the world was “inherently benign”.

Political editor Simon Benson called it Trump’s “latest crazy idea”, one which prime minister Anthony Albanese should definitely respond to.

Further back in the paper, Strategic Analysis Australia’s director, Peter Jennings’s opinion piece (which said the plan had “about as much chance as a snowball in Khan Younis”, but that a new approach was needed) was headlined: “Gaza takeover? It’s worth a try, nothing else is working.”

The Advertiser called it his “Club Med renovation rescue” while the Daily Telegraph went for “stars and strip” and “Trump in a stunning Gaza takeover”. “Two mate solution,” the Courier Mail ran.

“It’s just bananas,” the Cairns Post splashed with, but on closer inspection that was about the floods being responsible for supermarket shelves containing nothing but the yellow fruit.

The whole truth

Ten years ago, a tip arrived in the laps of young Nine newspaper reporters Nick Toscano and Beau Donelly, whispering that famed wellness icon Belle Gibson – who claimed to have healed her brain cancer solely through diet – was not telling the truth.

That whisper became one story which turned into many more, then a book (The Woman Who Fooled the World), which has now inspired a new Netflix drama, Apple Cider Vinegar, out on 6 February.

At first the reporters didn’t believe the tip, which came from a friend of Gibson. “I started that call feeling very critical, almost dismissive of her claims,” Donelly told the Age and SMH’s Morning Edition.

“But I came away from it absolutely fascinated by what she was saying.”

“She struck me as someone who was very intelligent, and who was just horrified, really, for the role she had played in supporting Belle Gibson, who she now believed was a cancer faker.”

“So Beau and I then thought: ‘Well, if she’s lying about this, then what else is she lying about?’,” Toscano told Morning Edition.

Their first story in 2015 revealed that the Instagram star had raised funds for charity from her followers, but did not donate the money. Gibson’s health claims – the foundation of her wellness business, cookbook (The Whole Pantry) and app – then came under increased scrutiny, and began to crumble.

But Donelly and Toscano told the Guardian in 2017 that researching their book was like pulling out teeth.

“Her name was poison,” Toscano said at the time. “I can’t think of another story I’ve covered that’s been so difficult to get people to speak to me.”

“We were shut down by dozens and dozens of people,” Donelly added. “We were threatened with lawsuits by others. It was incredibly difficult.”

Outfoxed

Rupert Murdoch appeared alongside Donald Trump in the White House’s Oval Office on Tuesday while the US president praised the Australian-born nonagenarian media tycoon as an “amazing guy” – though one, he said, that he often disagreed with.

The feeling is apparently mutual, with Murdoch reported to have described Trump as “a fucking idiot” over his immigration policy in 2018. Murdoch also called Trump’s actions on January 6 “pretty much a crime”, according to court documents, and tried to distance himself before returning to the fold after Trump emerged the clear leader in the Republican primaries.