[News] Trump’s Gaza Plan: A Green Light for Ethnic Cleansing?

[Anti-Imperialist News]

counterpunch.org
<https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/02/19/trumps-gaza-plan-a-green-light-for-ethnic-cleansing/>
Trump’s Gaza Plan: A Green Light for Ethnic Cleansing?
Ramzy Baroud
February 19, 2025
------------------------------

Image by Cuttersnap.

Let’s be clear: the forced displacement of Palestinians is not a new idea.
US President Donald Trump’s latest proposal
<https://www.bbc.com/news/live/cvg4zwwez9et> to take “long-term ownership”
of Gaza, to “clean out” the “mess”, and to turn it into a “Riviera of the
Middle East” is just the latest iteration of efforts aimed at ethnically
cleansing Palestinians from their homeland.

What makes Trump’s comments dangerous is not the immediate threat of US
military intervention in Gaza followed by the expulsion of its 2.2 million
residents. The real danger lies elsewhere.

First, Israel may interpret Trump’s words as a green light to push
Palestinians out of Gaza or the West Bank. Second, the US could tacitly
endorse another Israeli offensive under the guise of fulfilling the
president’s wishes. Third, Trump’s remarks suggest his foreign policy on
Palestine will remain largely unchanged from his predecessor’s.

Some Democrats have seized this moment to criticize
<https://www.cbsnews.com/news/arab-american-voters-trump-dearborn-michigan-israel-biden-harris/>
Arab and Palestinian Americans who voted
<https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/some-arab-americans-who-voted-for-trump-say-they-are-concerned-about-his-picks-for-key-positions>
for Trump or abstained from supporting Democratic presidential nominee
Kamala Harris in the last elections. However, the idea of ethnic cleansing
was already being floated during the Biden administration.

While then-Secretary of State Antony Blinken reiterated that “Palestinian
civilians… must not be pressed to leave Gaza,” Biden created the conditions
for displacement through unconditional military support for Israel. This
allowed one of the most devastating wars in modern Middle Eastern history
to unfold.

Just days into the war, on October 13, 2023, Jordan’s King Abdullah II
warned
<https://www.axios.com/2023/10/13/hamas-israel-war-jordan-abdullah-warning-abbas-displacement>
Blinken in Amman against any Israeli attempt to “forcibly displace
Palestinians from all Palestinian territories or cause their internal
displacement.”

The latter displacement became a reality as most of northern Gaza’s
population was crammed
<https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/overcrowded-shelters-in-gaza-fuel-spread-of-diseases-warns-un-agency/3236466>
into overcrowded refugee encampments in central and southern Gaza, where
conditions have been and remain inhumane for over 16 months.

At the same time, another displacement campaign is underway in the West
Bank, particularly in its northern regions, accelerating in recent weeks.
Thousands of Palestinian families have already been displaced
<https://www.unocha.org/publications/report/occupied-palestinian-territory/humanitarian-situation-update-260-west-bank-enar>
in the Jenin governorate and other areas.

Despite this, the Biden administration has done little to pressure Israel
to stop.

Arab concerns over Palestinian expulsion were real from the war’s outset.
Almost every Arab leader raised the alarm, often repeatedly.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi addressed the issue multiple times,
warning of Israeli efforts—and possibly US involvement—in a “population
transfer” scheme.

“What is happening now in Gaza is an attempt to force civilian residents to
seek refuge and migrate to Egypt,” Sisi stated
<https://www.reuters.com/world/egypt-rejects-any-displacement-palestinians-into-sinai-says-sisi-2023-10-18/>,
insisting that such an outcome “should not be accepted.”

Fifteen months later, under Trump, he repeated
<https://www.reuters.com/world/sisi-says-egypt-will-not-participate-act-injustice-displacing-palestinians-2025-01-29/>
his rejection, vowing that Egypt would not participate in this “act of
injustice.”

The Saudi statement was issued almost immediately after Trump doubled down
on the idea during a joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu on February 4. The Saudi foreign ministry went further
than rejecting Trump’s ‘ownership’ of Gaza but articulated a political
discourse that summarized Riyad’s, in fact, the Arab League’s position on
Palestine.

“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs affirms that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s
position on the establishment of a Palestinian state is firm and
unwavering,” the statement said
<https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/saudi-arabia-denies-trump-s-claim-says-no-normalization-with-israel-without-palestinian-state/3472052>,
adding that the Kingdom “also reaffirms its unequivocal rejection of any
infringement on the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people, whether
through Israeli settlement policies, land annexation, or attempts to
displace the Palestinian people from their land”.

The new US administration, however, seems oblivious to Palestinian history.
Given the mass displacement <https://www.un.org/unispal/about-the-nakba/>
of Palestinians in 1948, no Arab government—let alone the Palestinian
leadership—would support another Israeli-US effort to ethnically cleanse
millions into neighboring states.

Beyond the immorality of expelling an indigenous population, history has
shown that such actions destabilize the region for generations. The 1948
Nakba, which saw the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, ignited the
Arab-Israeli conflict, whose repercussions continue today.

History also teaches us that the Nakba was not an isolated event. Israel
has repeatedly attempted ethnic cleansing, starting with its intense attacks
<https://www.un.org/unispal/document/auto-insert-176158/#:~:text=On%20the%20night%20of%2011,the%20inhabitants%20and%20destroying%20dwellings.>
on Palestinian refugee camps in Gaza in the early 1950s, and ever since.

The 1967 war, known as the Naksa or “Setback,” led
<https://english.wafa.ps/Pages/Details/129536> to the ethnic cleansing of
hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, both internally and externally. In
the years that followed, various US-Israeli initiatives throughout the
1970s sought to relocate the Palestinian population to the Sinai desert.
However, these efforts failed due to the steadfastness and collective
resistance of the people of Gaza.

Trump’s so-called ‘humanitarian’ ethnic cleansing proposal will similarly
go down in history as another failed attempt, particularly as Arab and
international solidarity with the steadfast Palestinian people is stronger
than it has been in years.

The key question now is whether Arabs and other supporters of Palestine
worldwide will go beyond merely rejecting such sinister proposals and take
the initiative to push for the restoration of the Palestinian homeland.
This requires a justice-based international campaign, rooted in
international law and driven by the aspirations of the Palestinian people
themselves.

*Ramzy Baroud is a journalist and the Editor of The Palestine Chronicle. He
is the author of five books. His latest is “**These Chains Will Be Broken*
<https://www.amazon.com/These-Chains-Will-Broken-Palestinian/dp/1949762092>*:
Palestinian Stories of Struggle and Defiance in Israeli Prisons” (Clarity
Press, Atlanta). Dr. Baroud is a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the
Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA), Istanbul Zaim University (IZU).
His website is **www.ramzybaroud.net* <http://www.ramzybaroud.net/>
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