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For the Gazans, a concentration camp, then ethnic cleansing. For Trump, a beach resort? [1]
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Date: 2025-07-10
This commentary is cross-posted from The Journal of Uncharted Blue Places.
Palestinians could soon see the chance of a homeland foreclosed forever. They could be scattered to whatever countries Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu can talk into accepting them. He claims that agreements to do so are close at hand. The plan seems to be, first, oust the Gazans. Then, almost certainly given the continued expansion of Israeli settlements on the West Bank, evict the Palestinians from that land as well.
This is no peacenik’s conspiracy theory. This is happening. Nothing ambiguous. Ethnic cleansing in plain sight. An incipient war crime and crime against humanity was explained deadpan to reporters Monday by Israel Katz as if he were talking about dinner. He’s the Israeli defense minister, who, like fellow Likudnik Netanyahu, rejects any “two-state solution” for the 77-year-old ongoing clash between Palestinians and Israelis over who gets to govern which parts of this ancient oft-contested land.
As reported by The Guardian, the BBC, Haaretz, Times of Israel and others, Katz said he’s ordered the Israeli Defense Forces to put together a plan to move every Palestinian into a camp in the southernmost part of Gaza. Meanwhile, perhaps during the 60-day ceasefire being slow-walked into existence while existence in Gaza becomes ever more bleak, construction could begin for a “humanitarian city” on the ruins of Rafah, he said.
The plan: first move 600,000 Palestinians into Camp Rafah. Everybody gets a security screening to keep Hamas out. Once in, everybody stays in. Eventually, all 2.1 million Gazans would be penned there. Until, that is, they are shipped to wherever will accept them. Everyone automatically assumes that means nearby countries. But perhaps Netanyahu has been talking to Donald Trump about bribing countries anywhere to accept them. Libya was once mentioned by Trump as an option before it was pointed out the place has been wildly unstable since 2011, including four years of his presidency. Well, you can’t know everything when you skip all the briefings.
So for now it’s Camp Rafah and then to places unknown. Maybe. Emma Graham-Harrison at The Guardian writes:
Eventually the entire population of Gaza would be housed there, and Israel aims to implement “the emigration plan, which will happen”, Haaretz quoted [Katz as] saying. Since Donald Trump suggested at the start of the year that large numbers of Palestinians should leave Gaza to “clean out” the strip, Israeli politicians including the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, have enthusiastically promoted forced deportation, often presenting it as a US project. Katz’s scheme breaks international law, said Michael Sfard, one of Israel’s leading human rights lawyers. It also directly contradicted claims made hours earlier by the office of Israel’s military chief, which said in a letter that Palestinians were only displaced inside Gaza for their own protection. “(Katz) laid out an operational plan for a crime against humanity. It is nothing less than that,” Sfard said. “It is all about population transfer to the southern tip of the Gaza Strip in preparation for deportation outside the strip.
The whole idea prompted a ferocious response from Amos Goldberg, the historian of the Holocaust at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He made clear the so-called “humanitarian city” is nothing more than “a concentration camp or a transit camp for Palestinians before they expel them. [...] It will not be a livable place, just as the ‘safe areas’ are unlivable now.” Goldberg asked of Katz,’s plan, “What will happen if the Palestinians will not accept this solution and revolt, because they are not completely helpless?”
Jeremy Konyndyk, president of the Refugees International advocacy group, told Reuters that the humanitarian motive given as the reason for the “city” was bogus. "There is no such thing as voluntary displacement amongst a population that has been under constant bombardment for nearly two years and has been cut off from essential aid," he said.
Reuters also reported that a $2 billion plan for so-called "humanitarian transit areas" inside Gaza was recently discussed in the Trump White House.
Mansour Abu Al-Khaier, a Gazan told The Times of Israel "This is our land. Who would we leave it to, where would we go?" And Abu Samir el-Fakaawi said: "I will not leave Gaza. This is my country. Our children who were martyred in the war are buried here. Our families. Our friends. Our cousins. We are all buried here. Whether Trump or Netanyahu or anyone else likes it or not, we are staying on this land."
That, of course, remains to be seen. Currently, there are tens of thousands of Palestinians living in refugee camps that are nearly 80 years old originating with the first nakba, the disastrous displacement of Palestinians when Israel became Israel. The sense of generational déjà vu must today be immense. Reeling on the precipice of the ultimate nakba. Is it to be eternal refugee camps in foreign lands for them all?
Are Israel and — can there be any doubt? — the United States truly going to carry through with this? It certainly looks to be so. Laugh all you like at the idea of a Trump Tower and casino in Gaza, but there’s got to be some payoff for Transaction Man. A Nobel would be nice, but, well, so is cash, an attraction for Netanyahu as well. Indeed, keeping himself out of prison over taking bribes has been a manifest goal of keeping the war on Hamas going with less a priority placed on getting the abducted hostages or their corpses back than many Israelis think should be the case.
Have the Gazans not yet paid a big enough price for the savage Oct. 7 atrocities that their autocratic leaders unleashed, tainting the cause of a free Palestine? A penalty had to be exacted. Nobody doubted that. The attacks could not go unanswered. And few objected initially. But now the main architects of October are dead. Along with the majority of Hamas fighters. Along with thousands of their wives and children. Along with numerous doctors and other medical personnel. Along with aid workers. Along with people just trying to get a bite to eat. Tens of thousands of them. More tens of thousands permanently maimed mentally or physically. Livelihoods shattered. The Gaza infrastructure pulverized. Hizb’allah shattered. Iran defanged. When is the desire for retribution sated?
Sen. Bernie Sanders said in a statement on Xitter, "As President Trump and members of Congress roll out the red carpet for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, let's remember that Netanyahu has been indicted as a war criminal by the International Criminal Court for overseeing the systematic killing and starvation of civilians in Gaza."
He went on to say, "At this moment, hundreds of thousands of people are starving after Israel prevented any aid from entering Gaza for nearly three months. In the last six weeks, Israel has allowed a trickle of aid to get in, but has tried to replace the established United Nations distribution system with a private foundation backed by security contractors. This has been a catastrophe, with near-daily massacres at the new aid distribution sites. In its first five weeks in operation, 640 people have been killed and at least 4,488 injured while trying to access food through this mechanism."
Atop all this death and destruction now comes plans for Palestinian expulsion with the imprimatur of Donald J. Trump. Straight up ethnic cleansing as happened to Jews in Muslim countries soon after Israel was founded. Netanyahu has long made clear that he believes in an Israel “from the river to the sea.” Not as many Americans flinch when he says it as when a Palestinian student does. But it seems impossible that he and Israel’s other current leaders actually believe implementing this crime against humanity will deliver peace. The plan is hideous and the outcome can be expected to be worse.
You can find me @meteorblades.bsky.social
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