President Donald Trump hasn’t just shifted the Overton Window, the zone of what’s understood to be possible in politics; he’s blown it wide open. It’s now the Overton Vista. As the close Trump ally Marc Andreessen declared on January 25, “The last week has totally reset my conception of what’s possible.” Coming from a tech bro steeped in Schumpeterian disruption, that’s saying something. 

Bank on it: If the conventional wisdom thinks one thing, Trump thinks something else. Case in point: Gaza. In the wake of 15 months of carnage, the familiar assumption is that there will be some sort of “peace process,” as diplomats shuttle back and forth, securing a minimally worded agreement, to which the combatants are minimally adhered. Then comes the insertion of United Nations peacekeepers, and an international consortium of foreign-aiders, contractors, and perhaps even nation-builders. 

Such a scheme was never likely to work in Gaza. After all, in the wake of fighting far less primordially severe than in Gaza, U.N. troops dot the Middle East, the legacy of previous shuttle diplomacies. They accomplish nothing. 

Yet all this busybody peace-processing allows usual-suspect diplomats, activists, and financiers to do their international thing, gaining headlines, Foreign Affairs bylines—and oftentimes making good money from contracts and kickbacks.