On April 7, United States President Donald Trump met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for a second time since his inauguration. Speaking to the media, Trump doubled down on his earlier comments about the Gaza Strip, describing it as an “incredible piece of important real estate”.Trump also repeated his suggestion that the Palestinians should leave the Strip “to different countries” and claimed that people “really do love that vision. … A lot of people like my concept.”
Days later, about 70 percent of Gaza had been turned into a “no-go zone” for Palestinians. Confirming that Israel is working “in accordance with the US president’s vision, which we seek to realise”, Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz declared Israel’s intention to “seize” more territory, adding that “wilful passage” will be given to Palestinians who want to leave.
It is by now clear that Trump’s statements on Gaza have had the effect of legitimising a longstanding Israeli vision of ethnic cleansing of the Strip. What the US president calls “my concept” is in fact not his at all. Advertisement
Over decades of Israeli occupation and colonisation of the Gaza Strip, there have been multiple plans to empty out or disperse the Palestinian population in a bid to secure full control over this part of Palestine. The power of colonial practices has also been tested. For example, to draw Israeli settlers and thereby help transform Gaza’s demographics, the Strip was at one point even promoted as the “Hawaii of Israel”.
Left out of Israeli war …
