An initiative that initiates nothing? This photograph announcing Ramat Trump recalls an “architectural folly,” defined by Wikipedia as “a building constructed primarily for decoration, but suggesting through its appearance some other purpose, or of such extravagant appearance that it transcends the range of garden ornaments usually associated with the class of buildings to which it belongs.” Or maybe I’m getting ahead of myself. More simple than anything as elaborate as an architectural folly, it’s more “ancient,” like a stele or stela, defined by Wikepedia as “an upright stone slab or column typically bearing a commemorative inscription or relief design, often serving as a gravestone.”

Apparently, the town that Netanyahu announced that he plans to build and name after President Trump in the Golan Heights might very well turn out to be “Fake News.” No plans, no budget: ‘Trump Heights’ inauguration slammed as a PR stunt” is the headline to this article in the Times of Israel, which you can read here.  The TOI informs us that “the cabinet decision calls for an ‘initiative to establish’ a new Golan Heights community, but does not actually declare the establishment of one. The only thing that’s not fake is the large sign surrounded by synthetic grass.

The entire stunt was shoddy from the start, and remains a callow mirror to the empty, destructive nothing that will follow in its wake. Even the font is ugly. One day, if and when this community is never built, I hope someone has the wisdom to preserve the sign in place out there in the middle of the nowhere of the beautiful countryside. Sitting out there an alone, it would memorialize the folly that is everything Trump and the tight embrace of him by the Jewish right in Israel and the United States. Hoping for better days in the future for those of us who have lived this experience, it would make for a lovely day trip.