In a Fox News interview, Trump appeared to have abandoned his “beautiful” plan to permanently expel 2-million Gazans and replace them with Riviera-style beachfront villas. After announcing it with great fanfare, he met a solid wall of Arab opposition, including a threatened declaration of war by Jordan should Israel attempt to dump the refugees in the Kingdom. Also, hundreds of thousands of Gazans flocked to their destroyed homes in northern Gaza. They weren’t about to abandon them, regardless of who offered them shiny new ones somewhere else in the Middle East.
Everyone who has any experience dealing with this huckster knows his claims, deals and offers aren’t worth a bucket of warm piss (to quote one of my favorite American political sayings). Ukraine: you may want to take notice when you negotiate access to your mineral rights with this scam artist. Before you sign on the dotted line, whatever he commits to must be cash-on-the barrelhead. If he offers F-16s, make him deliver before you allow him to dig out a single shovelful of your dirt. If the Ukrainians settle for anything less, they will be caught holding Trump’s empty bag.
Of course anyone with half a brain could see that Trump’s plan was a flash-in-the-pan. He knows nothing about Gaza, Palestinians or the Middle East. These ideas emerge from somewhere in the miasma of his brain. And they dissipate as quickly as they came. We are only lucky that Gaza has no rare earth minerals or anything else of value to Elon Musk, who has a brain that is far more operational and efficient, as we’ve seen to our consternation regarding his dismantling of the federal government.
We are lucky that so far the ceasefire negotiated by Biden and completed by Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, is holding. Today, Hamas handed over six living Israel hostages and Israel proceeded to free its share of Palestinian hostages. There are at least two living Israeli captives still held by the Palestinians.
There are approximately 70 deceased hostages in Gaza, and their families desperately want them returned. That can only happen in stage two of the ceasefire. Netanyahu has shown no interest in proceeding with it. Though neogitations were to have commenced several weeks ago, he never permitted his negotiators to proceed. His Judeo-Nazi coalition partners are adamantly opposed to any concessions to Hamas, regardless of getting the hostages returned. Their genocidal ideology is more important to them than their duty to the hostages and their families. This is a shameful betrayal of decency and national interest.
Will the Trump administration and Witkoff put pressure on Bibi to go forward? External pressure from Israel’s most important ally is the only path toward agreement.
Meanwhile, the sister of one of the deceased hostages railed against Netanyahu:
“My brother was abducted alive and could have returned alive,” Itay’s sister, Merav Svirsky, said in a rally for the release of hostages Saturday evening, adding that if Netanyahu’s government thwarts stage two of the Israel-Hamas cease-fire, it would be a death sentence to “the hostages that have been left behind.”
“Don’t dare thwart stage two and tamper with the agreement, the public will not forgive you,” she said.
Trump is easily bored or distracted once he decides something isn’t worth his time or in his interest. It’s hard to know what he will do regarding the second stage. But if he’s told that exchanging the remaining hostages, dead and alive, will bring relief to the surviving families and score political points at home, he may exert the pressure needed to seal the stage two part of the deal.
I wouldn’t bet on what the outcome will be. Trump doesn’t have a long memory as I wrote above. He may feel he’s done his duty and milked the deal as much as he could, and simply walk away. But Witkoff may be able to persaude him otherwise and keep the process alive.
Reality Haaretz headlines …
> In Light of Wavering Cease-fire With Hamas, IDF Bolsters Forces in Gaza Border Area
> In Light of Wavering Cease-fire With Hamas, IDF Bolsters Forces in Gaza Border Area
> U.S. Envoy Witkoff, About to Visit Mideast for Cease-fire Talks, Says Hamas Must Physically Leave Gaza
White House backs Israel’s decision to delay releasing Palestinian prisoners
END OF CEASEFIRE DEAL ⁉️
2nd headline should read …
> Netanyahu May Exploit Latest Israel-Hamas Hostage Crisis to Nix Cease-fire Deal
I think this article is built on a straw man. Trump never said ‘ethnic cleansing’ or ‘forced transfer’ of Palestinians.
The emigration will be voluntary, the Israeli officials said Israel will faciliate voluntary migration. Nothing wrong with that, the Ukrainians also had to do that. Trump is engaging in population transfer, like India/Pakistan did, even that didn’t happen without bloodshed.
So the question is this: IF PALESTINIANS ARE OFFERED COMPENSATION TO BUILD A LIFE IN ANOTHER COUNTRY AND THOSE THAT ACCEPT LEAVE, WOULD YOU OPPOSE THAT?
I know at least 3 Palestinian families who seek help to relocate out of Gaza.
Also, the ARab states ethnically cleansed their Jews, so those states taking back Palestinians would be a population transfer. Why hasn’t Trump suggested that? The Mizrachi Jews had to leave their land, wealth and assets behind in Egypt, Iraq, Syria and the other Arab/Muslim countries they left.
Once settled, they may reenter as legit citizens in the future if they choose to or stay where they are, like most refugees, they settle where they build and live. Like the Mizrachim Jews did.
By the way, Richard, why aren’t Mizrachi Jews who were forced to go to Israel asking for the right of return to Arab countries they left? More to the point, why aren’t you accusing their expellers of ethnic cleansing? Genuine question, not to antagonise you but to learn your views. I would appreciate a reply.
Thank you.
@ Hasina:
And Hitler never said the words “death camp” or genocide. Does that mean he didn’t commit it?
Trump’s plan is dead. So why are you writing as if it isn’t? There will be no ethnic cleansing, voluntary or otherwise. The Arab plan explicitly rejects this option.
But even if it didn’t, there is no such think as voluntary emigration. Palestinians do not want to leave. THey will refuse to leave. Even at the muzzle of a gun, if it comes to that.
Indeed, the Haganah & Irgun “facilitated voluntary migration” from Deir Yassin and 400 Palestinian villages which were destroyed during the Nakba.
YOu made your own point without intending to. Of course ethnic cleansing doesn’t happen without bloodshed. That’s why it isn’t & can’t be voluntary. You think MUslims wanted to abandon their homes in India or Hindus wanted to abandon their in Pakistan? But they were forced to by mobs & thugs who terrorized them into fleeing.
No one is offering Palestinians anything. Trump’s plan is bullshit. He isn’t about the pay Palestinians. His pipedream and Israel’s is that someone else will pay. He volunteered the European and Gulf States to pay for his plan. He’s a charlatan. If you believe a single word out of his mouth, you’re a fool.
Holy moly!! You know THREE families out of hundreds of thousands who “want help” (whatever that means) to “relocate.”
Please don’t try to bullshit someone who knows far more Israeli and Zionist history than you ever will. And stop offering hasbara memes.
No, it wouldn’t. Arab states took in 1-million expelled indigenous Palestinians. Israel committed the crime of ethnic cleasning & was responsible for them. Yet the Arab states took them in. They have absolutely no obligation to enable Israel’s ongoing crimes by taking in expelled Palestinians.
More ignorant rigamarole. More half-baked history.
I didn’t realize you are part of the negotiating team for Trump’s plan. Have you decided what its parameters will be? Or are you just blathering?
Again, no. Mizrahi and Separdic Jews went to many places: France, the US, Israel, etc.
C’mon, you’re so transparent. You don’t care what my views are. You’re just hear to peddle hasbara nonsense. That’s why you have published your one comment in this thread. Do not publish anything further in the thread. If you wish you may publish a single comment in any other thread.
“I think this article is built on a straw man”
Ok, thinking something doesn’t mean it’s a fact though.
“Trump never said ‘ethnic cleansing’ or ‘forced transfer’ of Palestinians”
Like Richard said, Hitler never said “death camp”. People could still feel coerced into leaving, as if there’s a threat of violence, and considering Gazans have just had a year of that, we can’t blame them.
“Also, the ARab states ethnically cleansed their Jews, so those states taking back Palestinians would be a population transfer”
Why should Palestinians pay the price of what other Arab states did years ago ?
“Mizrachi Jews had to leave their land, wealth and assets behind in Egypt, Iraq, Syria and the other Arab/Muslim countries they left”
Arab Jews have had a hard time of it and should be able to return to their countries of origin if they so chose. Either way, Ashkenazi Jews need to stay out of that conversation, unless it’s to promote peace. Seems one minute they think they’re saving them from other Arabs, but the next, making Arab Jews be an underclass in Israeli society, and pitting them against their non-Jewish brothers.