Feb 03, 2025, Jerusalam (Middle East Eye): Since assuming office, US President Donald Trump has relentlessly called on Egypt, Jordan and other Muslim-majority countries to resettle Palestinians from Gaza.
The proposal, which the Palestinians have resoundingly rejected, has nevertheless continued to dominate the front pages of nearly every Israeli newspaper.
Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who last year argued that it was “justified and moral” to starve Palestinians in Gaza, has been outspoken in his support of the idea, saying: “After 76 years in which most of Gaza’s population was forcibly held in harsh conditions to preserve the aspiration to destroy the State of Israel, the idea of helping them find other places to start a new good life is a great idea.”
Yedioth Ahronoth’s senior military correspondent, Yossi Yehoshua, has also been a stalwart supporter, saying: “Perhaps the time has come to adopt Trump’s proposal and talk about voluntary exile from Gaza.”
Shortly after the 7 October attacks on southern Israel, when discussions first emerged over the future of Gaza when the bombing ended, there was a palpable fear that Israel would follow through with its undeclared war plan of ethnically cleansing Palestinians from the enclave.
Many of us thought that due to the high level of support Israel was receiving from its Western backers, a similar fate would await Palestinians in Jerusalem, the West Bank, and eventually even those of us living in the lands of historic Palestine seized by Israel in 1948.
This was because, in October 2023, a 10-page document from Israeli minister Gila Gamliel’s Intelligence Ministry spoke about forcibly transferring Palestinians from Gaza to Egypt’s Sina peninsula.
Gamliel’s document examined three alternatives for post-war Gaza, but the alternative “that will yield positive, long-term strategic results” is the transfer of Palestinians to Sinai, it said.
On Saturday, the foreign ministers and officials from Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, the Palestinian Authority and the Arab League rubbished Trump’s proposal, saying it would threaten stability in the region, spread conflict and undermine prospects for peace.
“We affirm our rejection of [any attempts] to compromise Palestinians’ unalienable rights, whether through settlement activities, or evictions or annexation of land or through vacating the land from its owners,” they said in a joint statement.
Even Trump’s “favourite dictator,” Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, has been a dissenting voice – saying Egyptians would take to the streets to express their disapproval.
Palestinian defiance
Amidst all of these talks of ethnic cleansing – the Palestinians, however, have been resolute with extraordinary scenes unfolding in northern Gaza.
Despite the Israeli army flattening whole neighbourhoods, pulverizing residential buildings, health and educational facilities and critical infrastructure, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have continued to stream north.
The image of an 80-year-old man walking from southern Gaza to the north has evoked memories from the Nakba when hundreds of thousands had to flee from their homes due to Zionist militias and armed gangs.
But this time, the scene and mood aren’t one of despair. There’s a genuine belief that despite how bad things get, the Palestinians won’t disappear.
As a result, Israeli media has gone into a complete meltdown, with many lamenting the scenes of Palestinian defiance.
Channel 13’s political correspondent, Moriah Asraf, recently wrote: “These images make me shiver all over my body… Something about the Gazans returning to their home, albeit destroyed, but to their homes. It drives me crazy.”
Matan Zuri, a security correspondent for Ynet, said: “Thousands of Palestinians have returned to the devastated northern Gaza Strip. The dream of renewed Jewish settlement has faded for the time being… This is the price of ending the war and returning the hostages. We knew it would happen, we saw it coming, and there was no choice but to accept it with submission and stick to the goodness of the deal.”
Whatever happens next is anyone’s guess, but the image of Palestinians going back to what remains of their bombed-out homes has been the best response yet to Trump’s racist and dehumanizing plan. (Lubna Masarwa, Jerusalem Bureau Chief)
