Trump spells out plan for ethnic cleansing in Gaza
US President Donald Trump has declared his intention to ethnically cleanse Gaza of its Palestinian population. Trump outlined his genocidal vision during a grotesque press conference, standing alongside a smirking Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who has overseen the massacre of at least 50,000 people in Gaza, and who has an International Criminal Court arrest warrant issued against him for war crimes.
Trump justified his calls for the annihilation of the Palestinian people from their homeland by describing the complete devastation that has been wrought on Gaza—devastation caused by the man grinning next to him, and by the US itself which has supplied Israel with the weaponry to destroy Gaza’s homes, hospitals, schools and all other civilian infrastructure.
As if ethnic cleansing wasn’t bad enough, Trump added his own billionaire-parasite twist, declaring that the US would “own” Gaza, and that he would turn it into “the Riviera of the Middle East”. Republican Congresswoman Nancy Mace put it succinctly: “Let’s turn Gaza into Mar-a-Lago”.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has kept his knee bent before the hard-right US president by refusing to condemn these open calls for genocide. Albanese said he “would not give a daily commentary on statements by the US President”. Even spineless world leaders who have been lining up to kiss Trump’s arse, like the UK’s Keir Starmer, have at least verbally rebuked his calls for ethnic cleansing. Not so Albanese, who is setting new standards for pathetic capitulation to the far right.
Trump’s open support for the total removal of Palestinians from Gaza puts much of the political and media establishment in Australia and around the world in a bit of a quandary. They continued to support Israel through sixteen months of its genocide in Gaza, no matter how many children were massacred. They have dehumanised the Palestinian people and engaged in an escalating campaign of slandering, sacking and repressing those who speak up for the Palestinians, from journalists and academics to students and protest organisers. But most of this has happened under the official pretence that Israel was “defending itself”, accompanied by weasel words from former US President Joe Biden and Albanese pretending that they wanted peace and a two-state solution, and a compliant media who presented this fairytale as though it were real. Netanyahu knows this game well; he knows that to get away with genocide it’s best to deny that is what you’re doing.
Trump has shattered that pretence. He has said out loud what has been Israel and the US’s policy all along, obvious to anyone who wanted to see, yet officially denied: wiping out the Palestinian people. That’s what the last sixteen months have been about, and the US and Australia have provided the arms to do it.
The media’s reaction has been mixed, reflecting this quandary of how to deal with a US president who makes it harder to justify the rotten system we live in. Rupert Murdoch’s Daily Telegraph ran an opinion piece titled “Can Trump’s plan to level Gaza finally bring peace?”. Pondering about whether genocide equals peace was a bridge too far for most, though, who have instead tried to reassure us that Trump’s statements are “outlandish” and unrealisable.
But the genocide in Gaza is not outlandish. It has been happening. And Trump’s statements have effectively ripped up the ceasefire deal and given Netanyahu the green light to resume the slaughter in coming months. They must be stopped.
