Trump Normalizes Ethnic Cleansing of Gaza

BAIER: Would the Palestinians have the right to return to Gaza?

TRUMP: No, they wouldn’t pic.twitter.com/kL8ZhWXMPa

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 10, 2025

When someone shows you who they are, believe them.  Donald Trump has shown the world that Gaza will be rid of Palestinians.  Believe him.  It may not happen the way he’s currently describing it. It’s hardly likely he will do any of the constructive things he’s promised about making it into a beautiful place, the Riviera of the Mediterranean.  He certainly will not “own” it.  But I fear that he will be true to his word in one way: he will facilitate the ethnic cleansing of Gaza.  There may be ways to stop it.  But I fear that no one who can, will do so.

Global media and Middle East experts have derided Trump’s “plan” to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from Gaza, reconstruct the enclave, and transform it into a Mediterranean Riviera. Bibi Netanyahu is besides himself at his good fortune.  Israel has never had a president who gave it carte blanche to commit genocide.  To show his appreciation, he told Trump: no need for you to dirty your hands, we’ll take care of things for you:

“A revolutionary, creative vision – and we are discussing it,” he was quoted as saying in an official readout of the meeting. “He [Trump] is very determined to carry it out. It also opens up many possibilities for us.”

Others call it “insane” or “ludicrous.” “Crazy,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal told reporters. “And you can quote me. I mean crazy, but very seriously, deeply dangerous.” Even Lindsay Graham, the dithering MAGA and true Profile in Courage, called it “problematic.”

On the other hand, it’s been called “audacious” by none other than the New York Times!  The Senate’s leading liberal light, John Fetterman, called it “provocative.”  So much for pandering media and the Democratic “opposition.”

Resist the Trump plan now, before it’s too late

The world is alternately enraged and benumbed.  But the rage means nothing if it does not lead to action.  There must be a robust opposition to the eliminatonist Gaza plan now before it may be implemented.  If it is, the world must prepare a stiff response. Israel must be sanctioned with meaningful punishment to give Israel pause.  Israel’s access to global markets and finance must be severed.  Its major exports must be boycotted.  If not, then all of the moaning, all of the outrage is nothing more than performative.  Something to assuage a guilty conscience, while the Gazans are loaded onto cattle cars bound for concenstration camps.

Even if Israel faced sanctions, Trump would not stand for it.  He would retaliate against any party or country which targeted Israeli crimes; just as he did in his Executive Order sanctioning the ICC and its staff.  It would take a brave country and political leader to lock horns with Trump.  I’m not sure there are many, or any.

The question isn’t will Trump do it, but when

Human rights officials call it a war crime: “Worse than ethnic cleansing,” a “crime against humanity,” etc. It’s understandable that level-headed, decent human beings would react this way.  But Donald Trump is the farthest thing from any of these qualities.  He is like no other leader the US has seen, perhaps in the entire history of the Republic.  We have had rule-breaking presidents who weren’t afraid of cracking heads and breaking rules (Andrew Jackson comes to mind).  But none come anywhere near Trump.

His political enemies have underestimated him since he announced his first run for president.  They wrote him off as a crank, a vanity candidate (which he certainly was).  He revels in it.  He celebrates his audaciousness and rubs his enemies’ face in it.  Americans have learned to their chagrin that Trump does what he wants, gets what he wants, and gets away with it.  No one stands in his way.  Those who do, he either crushes, or they find themselves with Pyrrhic victories in which they win a battle and lose the war.

He has brought the nation to its knees.  He threatens to ignore judicial rulings, the bedrock of the Republic. The entire principle of checks and balances on which the nation stands, is in doubt.  With Congress refusing to exercise its budgetary prerogatives and the courts enfeebled, we are at the brink.

Trump may not carry out his plan.  But we would be fools to believe he can’t or he won’t.  In the last three weeks, he has succeeded beyond his wildest dreams and done more damage to the nation that any event since the Civil War.  He is the political Colossus astride the globe.

Trump is a bomb-thrower. His latest is a threat that “all hell would break loose” unless Hamas released all the hostages by Saturday.  He added that he would cancel the ceasefire, but generously added that the decision was up to Israel.  Of course, the reason the ceasefire is threatened is Israel. Hamas has suspended any further hostage releases because Israel has engaged in multiple violations.  Even Israeli officials (though not Netanyahu, of course) and Arab mediators concede that this is the case:

The current standoff stems in part from Hamas’s accusation that Israel has not upheld its promises for the first phase of the cease-fire. Israel was required to send hundreds of thousands of tents into Gaza, a promise that Hamas says Israel has not kept.  Speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter, three Israeli officials and two mediators said that Hamas’s claims were accurate.

But such niceties mean nothing to Trump.  When the ceasefire does break down, as it surely will because that is in Netanyahu’s interest, it will give the US president and him cover for initiating the elimination operation.

Trump’s endorsement of the expulsion of 2.5-million Gazans and Netanyahu’s pledge to carry it out, must be taken seriously.  Ever since Israel invaded Gaza after 10/7, the Israeli government has planned to expel Palestinians.  I’ve reported on several such plans.  Israel has bruited the Egyptian option almost from the start.  More recently, an unnamed Trump official suggest Indonesia should accept them.  Its government said no one had ever approached them about it and adamantly rejected it.

Trump and Netanyahu have suggested Jordan and Egypt could be options for what Israelis call “transfer”:

  “I think I could make a deal with Jordan. I think I could make a deal with Egypt,” Trump told Fox News’s Bret Baier. “We give them billions and billions of dollars a year.”

Both parties have vehemently rejected the proposals.  Jordan even went so far as to threaten war against Israel if it attempts to drive Palestinians into the country.  So far, Netanyahu has found no “takers.”  He may not find such a country now, but that doesn’t mean he won’t.  Nor does it mean that if this scenario fails, he won’t find an alternate one to accomplish his goal.

Israeli leaders who relish the thought of ridding Gaza of all its inhabitants, might want to consider what will happen wherever they are sent.  They will seek revenge. They will organize and train to make Israel pay the price for this crime.  They will also likely destabilize any country willing to accept them. How will the Shin Bet, currently tasked with counter-terrorism responsibilities in the West Bank and Gaza, perform these duties if the expellees are not living in territory under Israeli control?  Can they trust that the countries which take these refugees will prevent all-but-certain acts of armed resistance the latter will plan?

I asked an Israeli security source what Israeli intelligence thinks about the Trump-Netanyahu plan. He refused to comment; except to point me to an incidient in which the chief of army intelligence warned that a mass expulsion from Gaza will “enflame” the region.  He was denounced by the defense minister, who directed the chief of staff to repremand him.  This is what happens to Israeli officials who speak unpleasant truths.

Does Jordan, half of whose population are Palestinians expelled from Israel, and which fought a bloody war with Fatah called Black September, want another million Palestinians?  All of whom will be bent on avenging yet another catastrophe befalling them?  Egypt is fighting an Islamist insurgency in the Sinai, and its military junta killed thousands overthrowing the Muslim Brotherhood civilian government. Do they want another million Palestinians in their midst? There are already Palestinian refugee camps throughout the region: in Syria, Lebanon and Jordan.  Which country wants more of these?

Even if the president doesn’t follow through on his claim that the US will “own” Gaza and evict its inhabitants in order to rebuild it, merely raising the issues legitimizes ethnic cleansing. It enables Netanyahu to say to Trump: “you don’t need to do this, ‘we’ll do the job’ for you.”

This resonates regarding Gaza: Trump has normalized ethnic cleansing with his “plan” for the enclave.  This has legitimized Netanyahu’s goal of eliminating its inhabitants and given him permission to do it.  During the 1948 war, it expelled 1-million Israeli Palestinians to neighboring Arab states.  During the 1967 War it expelled another 300,000 West Bank Palestinians to Jordan.  Since then, Israelis have supported what they call “transfer,” a euphemism for ethnic cleansing.  But they have not been able put it into practice for political reasons–namely, regional and global opposition.

However, Trump’s statement has given Israel permission.  And Netanyahu’s interpretation of Trump gives him cover to enact it.  Therefore, the world must take this prospect seriously and make crystal clear (as Egypt and Jordan have done) that the plan amounts to genocide and will not be accepted by them if Netanyahu attempts to implement it.  As I wrote above, mere words will not be enough to deter either one.  I fear that is all the world will muster.

Holocausts and history don’t repeat themselves, but they rhyme

The ethnic cleansing plan echoes the initial Nazi plan to eliminate European Jews through voluntary emigration to Palestine.  From 1938 (when Eichmann visited Palestine and met with Zionist leaders) to 1942, the Nazis encouraged such a policy.  Both Zionist factions (Lehi and Labor) negotiated with them to increase emigration from Germany & other countries to Palestine.  The Haavara Agreement was another Zionist-Nazi program to facilitate this voluntary form of ethnic cleansing.  When the Nazis realized this policy would not rid Europe of Jews, it turned to extermination (via the 1942 Wansee Conference).

If Gaza is ethnically cleansed, Israel will be emboldened to do the same to Palestinians in the West Bank.  That would mean 4-million refugees forcibly expelled from their homeland.  Once this taboo is broken, there will be no restraints upon Israel.  Instead of the current genocide with several hundred thousand dead, that unthinkable toll could increase exponentially.  Israel may not kill every Palestinian just as the Nazis failed to kill every Jew, but it’s had remarkable “success” in its mass slaughter since 10/7. Who knows how much farther it can go?