American proposal to clear out Gaza

[Daftasabroom]

Trump is proposing to "clear out" Gaza.

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2025/01/25/politics/trump-gaza-strip-jordan-egypt

So USA is actually proposing that the Gaza Strip should be cleared of Palestinians. 1.5 million people.

For some it appears that the Palestinians are not the right kind of "victims", their refusal to capitulate and happily accept subjugation or better yet "move" or die is too defiant.

I mean after being ethnically cleansed, they should be jumping for joy at being offered 22% of Historical Palestine by their benevolent benefactors.

The Aid is there because this is a mess originally created by Western powers intervention in the region, redrawing maps and giving away land that was not theirs to. The aid allows countries that provide it to continue looking away and pretend that they are just, kind and charitable.

There are ( arguably) two possible good outcomes from Trump’s proposal
1 A consensus that ethnic cleansing is unacceptable
2 A more urgent debate about alternatives to Trump’s mad plan

Nothing to do with being inherently violent, or the wrong sort of victims.

@mollyfolk suggested that the Palestinians didn't get as much "support of the international community" as Japan did after WW2, which is clearly nonsense.

Japan had to make some pretty painful concessions after they surrendered. They had to give up territory, make government reforms, disarm, permit occupation, open the country to trade. Their alternative choice was to not surrender, in which case the Allies may have bombed them again. They chose to surrender, with all the concessions demanded. And so they were able to rebuild.

The Palestinians also make choices. But they can only choose from certain possibilities, just as Japan had to. 20 years ago, the Palestinians seemed to have a 2SS as an option. That option required some big concessions which they didn't want to make, especially around the right to return. They didn't choose to make those concessions.

The Palestinians still have agency, both as individuals and as a group, but 20 years of violence later and especially after October 7th, things have moved on. I can't see how Israel would accept a 2SS any more - so that isn't an option open to the Palestinians now - certainly not in the form suggested 20 years ago.

Trump has made a suggestion, although pretty light on details (such as whether it would be voluntary/mandatory, temporary/permanent). There's a lot of noise about it, which was probably his intention. It will be interesting to see what suggestions come out of all that noise.

Once again for those who haven't listened.

Western powers did not 'give away' land.
Both groups have roots in the area. Both groups had been fighting for 100's if not 1000's of years over the land, in particular Jerusalem which is extremely important to both Jews and Muslims. The British attempted to separate them then left them to it. The Jews accepted the division of land and declared a state. The Palestinian Arabs did not.

The British did not create conflict where there was harmony. They failed to administate a lasting, peaceful solution yes. As has every other power in the region before and since.

Understanding how we got to this place is key to understanding how to get away from it.

I hope you're not suggesting the ethnic cleansing of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians didn't happen when Israel was created. If your home and land was taken I'm sure you'd consider that your land was taken away and given to someone else.

Ethnic cleansing of Jews from Arab lands took place at that time.

Please don't be upset by something I haven't actually said.

Yes, many many Palestinians were displaced. As were many, many Jews from their homes all over the middle east.

Yes, so land was given away.

Maybe we should clear all Me and other parts of continets or whole ones and redraw borders on tribalism and religion. (yeah yeah, I know it's too late, but one can dream of utopia) 🤷
Most borders in colonies (of various countries over many colonisers) and taken territories were artificially made with no regard for that and still cause issues.

But that's exactly what the UN tried to do in the Palestinian mandate after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Have you seen the borders they drew? They were entirely based around current population density and land ownership between the 2 main religious/ethnic groups who lived there - the Jews and the Arabs. That's why it was so wobbly and disparate! There were also extra concessions to the Arabs, such as no Jews being permitted east of the Jordan.

We've seen how badly that failed. The isolation of the different ethnic areas wasn't tenable as the country descended into civil war. The Arabs tried to besiege and over-run the Jewish enclaves, even before Israel was established. Then of course there was the full-on war in '48. That's why Israel chose defendable borders after defeating the Arab armies.

Then again, it could have been worse. When they drew the borders of Iraq and Syria - who were also part of the Ottoman empire, and so also needed to be defined as new states - they ignored the Yazidis. There would have been enough Yazidis to create a meaningful state - and in a nice neat area too - but instead the borders were drawn right through them, leaving them as separate, small minorities in Iraq, Syria and Turkey. That made them vulnerable to the Yazidi genocides.

In Lebanon, they tried making a single state with even proportions of Muslims and Christians (rather than a large Muslim majority, which we've seen is quite unhealthy for any minority). That worked for a while, before becoming destabilised by Palestinian militants and descending into bloody civil war.

Pretty much every flavour of governance was tried in the various states created out of the Ottoman empire. I don't think any flavour of 'sharing' has worked.

Land was fought over in a war of extermination declared by the Arab League. Bear in mind the Arab League declared war on the new Jewish nation not 5 years after the Holocaust. They fully expected to kill every last Jew in the area. It's pretty hard to fathom.

What land was given away? By whom? To whom? The partition plan intended for there to be Arabs in the Jewish state and vv. Then war broke out ( because Arabs weren't happy with the allocation of land ) and people were displaced. Some forced out at gunpoint, some left because they fully expected to return once all the Jews were dead.

This hasn't even mentioned the Jews forcibly expelled from their homes all over the ME.

Please explain to me what land was 'given away.'

@dairydebris @statsfun thank you for injecting some knowledge & perspective.

Are you for real.

It was a violent episode of ethnic cleansing. Those cleansed lost their homes, land and villages to what became Israel.

Please don't erase what happened to them. It's really gross when people do that.

A violent episode of ethnic cleansing? The Arab armies that invaded the fledgling state of Israel told people to leave and they would be able to return after they won the war. The UN partition was not accepted by the Arabs! That is what was gross.

What is it which dairydebris posted at 17.50 which you don't think is 'for real'?

I think the @Lalaloveya was referring to the 750,000 Arabs that were violently expelled from their homes, as well as the thousands that were murdered by Zionist paramilitaries to create the state of Israel in 1948.

Correct.

Depressing to see these atrocities glossed over.

Rewriting of history to suit a narrative.

Agreed.

Absolutely this. Notice my post explaining that it was the Arab armies who convinced people to leave their homes on 14 May 1948 fully believing they would conquer the Jews. They failed to do so and consequently thousands became unwelcome refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt etc. #Facts #History

Similar numbers of Jews were violently expelled from Arab countries at the same time. The state of Israel was created by the UN not Zionist paramilitaries.

I'm genuinely confused here.

Are you arguing that the only reason the the Arabs left their homes was to conquer the Jews.

That prior to the 14th of May there had been peace and prosperity for those Arabs living in the area and they just all left to conquer the Jews.

I think history is only useful to a point anyway. Every side holds on to their own narrative quite dearly - and won’t let go of it and so the cycle of violence goes around and around.

Ultimately you need to look at the situation now. There are 2 million odd Palestinians living on land that I am going presume that we agree they have a right to live on. They are human beings - we all do have a shared humanity, 50% of them are children. What happens now to them? They aren’t cattle to be herded around the place. Surely we can all agree they have a right to a voice in all of this.

Acknowledging the fact that multiple crimes against humanity took place against the Palestinians before Ben Gurion unilaterally declared Israel a state on the 14th May 1948, doesn't quite fit the narrative of the "angry Arabs were out to annihilate us".

Plan Dalet the Israeli plan to ethnically cleanse Palestine had been in operation for months, quotes from Ben Gurion:

"We must expel Arabs and take their places...and, if we have to use force... then we have force at our disposal." (from Nur Masalha, Expulsion of the Palestinians, p. 66)

"The compulsory transfer of the [Palestinians] from the valleys of the proposed Jewish state could give us something which we never had, even when we stood on our own during the days of the first and second Temples. We are given an opportunity which we never dared to dream of in our wildest imaginings." (from Benny Morris, Righteous Victims, p. 142)

"In many parts of the country new settlement will not be possible without transferring the [Palestinian peasants]... Jewish power, which grows steadily, will also increase our possibilities to carry out the transfer on a large scale." (from Righteous Victims, p. 143)

"With compulsory transfer we [would] have a vast area [for settlement]. I support compulsory transfer. I don't see anything immoral in it." (from Righteous Victims, p. 144)

That "compulsory transfer" included many massacres in Palestinian villages,
here is a letter written a UK delegation to the UN regarding the attack on Deir Yassin which happened on 9th April 1948:

(1) The operation is believed to have been a joint National Military Organisation – Stern Group enterprise undertaken with the knowledge of the Haganah.

(2) The deaths of some 250 Arabs, men, women and children, which occurred during this attack, took place in circumstances of great savagery.

(3) Woman and children were stripped, lined up, photographed, and then slaughtered by automatic firing and survivors have told of even more incredible bestialities.

(4) Those who were taken prisoner were treated with degrading brutality.

(5) Although the Haganah is unable to deny that it gave covering fire to the terrorists responsible for this outrage, the action as a whole has been condemned by the Jewish press and denounced by the Chief Rabbinate.

(6) Owing to other pre-occupations, the Security Forces were not in a position to act before the 14th April, for which day an air strike at Deir Yassin was arranged.

(7) On the 13th April, it became apparent that the Haganah had taken over the village from the terrorists, and the operation was, therefore, suspended.

(8) The Government of Palestine reported on the 14th April that it had not yet been possible to enter Deir Yassin and that a Jewish Police Officer sent to investigate was not allowed by the Haganah to proceed beyond Givat Shaul.

(9) A representative of the International Red Cross who visited Deir Yassin on the 11th April is said to have stated that in one cave he saw heaped bodies of some 150 Arab men, women and children, whilst in a stronghold a further 50 bodies were found.

https://www.un.org/unispal/document/auto-insert-211346/

Thankfully there are lots of historical records that document what happened.

Agree @mollyfolk 17000 of those children are orphans, where will they go ?There is the highest amount of child amputees in modern history? What country will support them.