How to Become an American Settler in Gaza: A Serious Guide for the Cynically Enlightened

Note: This is satire. If you find it offensive, that’s probably the point.

Step 1: Believe in the Myth of Blank Slates

First, convince yourself Gaza is empty. A wasteland. A tabula rasa waiting for the American touch—just like the “Wild West” was before the smallpox blankets and railway contracts. This is crucial. Settler colonialism runs on delusion, and the belief that what you see is not already someone else's home is the lifeblood of empire.

Step 2: Get Your Humanitarian Visa—Stamped with a Predator Drone

Declare your intentions “pure.” Call it a peace mission, a tech startup, or a freedom outpost. Tell the world you're here to rebuild, not occupy. Meanwhile, make sure your paperwork is expedited by the same government supplying white phosphorus to the air above. Call it bipartisan support.

Step 3: Import Infrastructure Like It’s a Freedom Franchise

Walmart, Starbucks, and data centers in the rubble. Offer desalination in exchange for allegiance. Install fiber internet so people can livestream their own erasure in HD. Frame it as aid. Always aid. Especially when the aid arrives wrapped in Kevlar and backed by mercenaries with body cams.

Step 4: Build Safe Zones—With Moats

Your new compound should have the feel of a gated community, minus the guilt. High walls, private security, drone surveillance. Market it as a "resilience hub." When locals walk too close, label them "unregistered hostiles." Remember: security is freedom, but only for you.

Step 5: Monetize the Rubble

Here's the magic trick: turn destruction into a startup opportunity. Launch apps to document “recovery.” Tokenize reconstruction. Sell NFTs of the before-and-after satellite shots. Partner with NGOs for impact metrics. Bonus: you might get featured in Wired or The Atlantic as a thought leader.

Step 6: Rebrand Their History as Your Future

Rename streets. Translate Arabic poetry into digestible motivational quotes. Rebuild a mosque as a co-working space. Teach the children your language, your constitution, your version of God. Tell them they’re lucky. That back in the States, no one gets this kind of freedom.

Step 7: Bring the Press—But Make Sure They’re Embedded

Control the narrative. Journalists should be armed with PR packets, not empathy. Make sure every story ends with hope, and every photo has an American smiling in the foreground, preferably holding a child or laying bricks. The ruins must be aesthetic. The blood washed clean by filters.

Step 8: When the Resistance Comes, Call It Terror

As the dispossessed begin to whisper, organize, and rage—frame it as an “insurgency.” Use terms like “clashes,” “extremism,” “retaliation.” Position yourself as the victim. After all, you came with good intentions. And nothing screams innocence louder than a foreign flag over occupied land.

Step 9: Lobby for Statehood—Yours, Not Theirs

Push for international recognition. Call it “New Hope.” Get senators on board. Establish a green zone embassy. Offer dual citizenship for investors. Create a flag, a constitution, maybe even a TikTok page. Be proud: you’ve finally brought the American Dream to Gaza—by paving over someone else’s nightmare.

Step 10: Sleep Soundly in Air-Conditioned Complicity

At night, while the city hums with power outages and grief, pour yourself a drink in your solar-powered villa. Remind yourself you are the future. Ignore the wailing. Scroll your likes. Whisper the settler's bedtime prayer:

“We didn’t start the fire… we just built condos on the ashes.”

Congratulations. You’re not just an American. You’re a pioneer. Again.