Trump’s ‘Cleansing’ Comment, Israel’s Gaza Right and Angry Palestinians Excited
With Israel facing multiple and potential crises over its borders, Donald Trump sparked a firestorm on Saturday with comments about the ongoing relocation of Gaza’s Palestinian population to other countries.
Calling Gaza a “land of destruction”, the US president has raised the issue with the king of the Arab countries and offered to build and build housing for the Palestinians so that “maybe they can live in peace for a change”.
“We’re just cleaning that thing up,” Trump told reporters, telling reporters he was the first to talk about the Air Force.
Whether his words represent a real change in US politics or just musings is unknown. Nevertheless, the Commentary bounced around the Middle East on Sunday.
Islamic Jihad – One of the militant groups involved in the October 7, 2023, attacks that killed More than 1200 people And yet Israel held hostages in Gaza – releasing a statement condemning the “deportation of our people”.
The group said Trump’s comments reflected an “extreme Zionist agenda” and rejection of Palestinian identity.
A senior Hamas official was not spared either.
“The people of Gaza have endured death in order not to leave their homeland, and they will not leave for any other reason,” said Sami Abu Zuhri.
Indeed, among the few positive reactions to Trump’s comments, Israel removed the Palestinians from Gaza and the occupied West Bank as their prime political targets.
Bezalel Smotrich, leader of Israel’s religious Zionist party and the country’s finance minister, called Trump’s proposal “a great idea.”
Gaza in ruins after 15 months of war
Some human rights groups Amnesty International, Trying to destroy Palestinian society with a violent 15-month bombing campaign in Gaza, trying to destroy Palestinian society with a 10-month bombing campaign in Gaza.
Since then, more than 47,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, according to medical authorities there. UN, two-thirds of buildings in Gaza destroyed or damaged.
Israeli leaders, as well as politicians from the Republican and Democratic parties in the United States, have rejected the genocide claim.
There is also the Trudeau government gossip At the International Court of Justice, South Africa disagrees with the arguments that Israel committed genocide in Gaza.
‘No Palestinian … can accept his deal’
Despite agreeing to a three-phase ceasefire earlier this month, including hostage and prisoner exchanges, the Israeli government has refused to articulate its vision for post-war Gaza or say how it believes the territory will be governed.
Hamas released four female Israeli soldiers on Saturday, in exchange for 200 Palestinian prisoners in the second week of Gaza. A video released by the Israeli military showed some Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, cheering on the waving crowd of women hugging their parents, smiles and tears.
For Arab nations—especially Jordan and Egypt, who have peace treaties with Israel—the prospect of Western countries or Israel accepting Palestinians from Gaza has long been viewed as intensely stabilizing and politically unacceptable.
United Nations Relief and Works Agency (Welcome) There are already more than 2.3 million Palestinians living in Jordan.
“There are no Palestinians as far as I know,” he said. Yohanan TzoreffA senior researcher at Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv.
Israel, Israel for more than 30 years participated in the implementation of the Oslo accords and worked closely with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzat Rabin during the peace process, often as an Arabic translator.
“The idea of ​​refugees, of moving people from one area to another, is one of the complex issues in Arab history, and especially in Palestinian history,” Tzoreff told CBC news.
“If (Trump) talks about it publicly and declares something, you put all the Arab people in the Middle East who will do whatever they can’t accept your opinion.”
The Palestinians decided to start
Over the weekend, there was a second exchange of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners, with four female Israelis returning to Israel and the release of 200 Palestinian soldiers.
During the days of the ceasefire, there are also incredible scenes of Palestinians trying to return to their broken neighborhoods in Gaza, trying to start over rather than leave the territory.
On Sunday, a sea of ​​tens of thousands overtook Israeli checkpoints and roadblocks in what Israel calls the Netzarim Corridor, trying to return to towns and neighborhoods in northern Gaza.
Under the terms of the ceasefire, hundreds of thousands of civilians are expected to be taken back on Saturday, but Israel has blamed Hamas for aspects of the deal and has responded by preventing people from returning to the north.
Among those waiting, the response to Trump’s relocation proposal was overwhelmingly negative.
“This is our country, our land and the land of our ancestors,” Sayyah al-Sigali, 60, told a videographer for a videotape for CBC news. “We don’t answer to an American president.”
“(Trump) cannot force migration and emigration from their lands,” said Samir al-Sultan, 58.
“Either we are all martyrs or we return to our cities – it is impossible to leave our country without leaving our cities.”
Israel’s neighbors have long worried about the Palestinians triggering another displacement.
During and after the establishment of Israel in 1948, more than 700,000 people, or as the Arabs call them, fled their homes Nakbaor disaster.
Later, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were forced to flee after the 1967 war in which Israel captured the West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem.
Many of the displaced people ended up in Gaza, as well as in refugee camps in the occupied West Bank.
The fate of whether his descendants will return to their ancestral home in Israel is at stake in the peace talks.
“I don’t know who his (Trump’s) advisers are and who he’s talking to … but they still think they have to think,” he said.
The previous Biden administration earlier rejected mass displacement as a policy to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian crisis, while the Netanyahu government was widely criticized for not using its influence to procure a ceasefire.
At one of his last public events, former Secretary of State Antony Blinken repeated Israel’s “original security” can only be achieved by recognizing a Palestinian state.
The new leadership of the United States may change the policy
In his short term as president, Trump has made no such pronouncements, but his choice for the United States suggests that the new administration may abandon the two-state solution for US policy.
Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, an ardent supporter of Israel, quoted As he says there is no such thing as Palestine and that the concept is used as “a political tool to avoid and force the land from Israel”.
Huckabee also said that there would be a state for the Palestinians, not outside of Israel itself, but outside of the land belonging to Israel’s Arab neighbors.
Trump received praise from Israeli families.
But the crash, forced removal, or fall of Palestinians from Gaza represents an idea that causes more conflict than an idea that causes less.
It’s unclear whether Trump plans to push him.
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