Trump’s Gaza Expulsion Plan Follows Decades Of U.S. Policy

By Stephen Zunes, The Progressive

On February 4, in a joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Donald Trump announced that the United States “will take over the Gaza Strip,” “level the site,” have all Palestinians removed, and enable people “from all over the world [to] be there” to enjoy what he appears to envision as an international resort area.

While many observers are dismissing Trump’s statement as a bizarre and spontaneous scheme on which he will likely not follow through, the announcement appeared to be the result of at least some degree of planning, as he read from prepared notes from a proposal assembled well ahead of Netanyahu’s visit.

While this may be among the most extreme anti-Palestinian initiatives to have ever come out of Washington, it is the logical extension of decades of bipartisan U.S. policy in support of Israel’s occupation and colonization of the West Bank, as well as recognition of Israel’s illegal annexation of the Golan Heights, a recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s exclusive capital, and support for Israel’s decades-long siege of and successive devastating wars on the Gaza Strip. In denying Palestinians equal rights, either through a viable two-state solution or a binational state with guaranteed rights for all, the United States has contributed to the emergence of violent extremists on both sides, and has given the far more powerful Israelis license to escalate their imposition of a kind of apartheid system.

Trump has rationalized expelling Palestinians in order to rebuild Gaza on the terms of the United States and Israel by noting that much of Gaza has been reduced to rubble, and can no longer sustain the population. While he referred to the Palestinians’ plight as a result of “bad luck,” it is in fact the result of deliberate targeting of civilian infrastructure by U.S.-backed Israeli forces. A growing international legal consensus has described this ongoing siege as genocide, made possible through bipartisan support for unconditional military aid, five U.S. vetoes of otherwise-unanimous U.N. Security Council resolutions calling for a ceasefire, and attacks on human rights groups and international legal institutions that have sought accountability for the actions of the Israeli government.