Trump announces the US will take over the Gaza strip

[Atangledweb]

Announcement by Trump.

Take over and 'own it'

New thread since new announcements

Just 3% of Jewish respondents to the survey think the plan is immoral. @Fifiworks I think that is possibly the most depressing thing.

This is not a proposal for offering voluntary migration or temporary accommodation. This is wanting to use force to make people leave their own homeland when they don't want to go, so that an annexing power can take on ownership of their land and resources while eradicating a population the annexing power views as inferior to them.

No it’s not a proposal of anything temporary or even voluntary. And it is Colonisation - being perpetuated yet again, tragically.

That seems odd given that there are illegal settlements on the West Bank. Taking Palestinian land has been part of the issue for decades.

Well i think this plan has come out of nowhere. Nobody has ever floated the US taking over before. I think this one surprised the Israelis

But yes, the Israeli administration have made the land unliveable and it’s hard not to believe that that wasn’t their plan all along.

My take is that this was the plan along to make way for the Ben Gurion canal.

Ethnic cleansing isn't a 'novel solution' FFS

I believe it was always the plan of the Israeli Government - otherwise, why destroy the whole area - schools, hospitals, homes, road system etc. Why kill so many and why forcibly remove them from their homes? Forcing people out of their land and homes and destroying or seizing their assets .....think this happened in WW2 and what people like my father and others went to war to stop. Somebody has lessons to learn from history - and it's not the Palestinians.

This is from last year

https://m.jpost.com/israel-hamas-war/article-799756

Whatever you think of the proportionality of Israel's response to October 7th, you must see that there's a difference between the ghettos and death camps of Poland and the battles of Gaza.

At the start of the war, Hamas Qassam Brigades had 30,000 fighters, organised by area in five brigades, consisting in total of 24 battalions and c. 140 companies. They were an army.

The battle at Al Shifa hospital lasted 13 days. Who do you think the IDF were fighting for 13 days? You can't think it was civilians.

The Jews had no army in 1939. They weren't firing missiles at Germany. They were just born Jewish.

Thank you. I was beginning to think I must be going mad. The nonsense on this board is off the scale.

Indeed. Were they fighting pretend terrorists. I mean seriously, hamas had an army of over 30,000 fighters.

@SharonEllis @statsfun madness indeed.

I don’t think you can compare. This is a different situation. I do think that the Holocaust didn’t start with concentration camps. It started when the Nazis dehumanised Jewish people so this justified the genocide that followed. So we should always be wary when governments or groups try to assign certain negative characteristics to other groups or demonise them in any way. This can lead to the dominant group eliminating the weaker group.

so that’s the only relationship in my mind. Don’t “other” people. We are all human: that’s so important to remember, portraying “others” as subhuman leads to hell.

I understand that you and others are trying to sound a warning @fifiworks . But false equivalence of such magnitude makes your arguments lose all credibility.

It calls doubt on your judgement, but also the antisemitism of such severe Holocaust minimization raises the shadow that the fears of Jewish people are justified. The Holocaust wasn't the result of 'othering'. It was the result of antisemitism. Antisemitism which is still horrifyingly obvious today (if you don't share that prejudice yourself).

And it deliberately twists the knife on Jewish people. That's why it's done - to land that blow in an argument which really hurts.

Don't do it.

Compare Gaza to the Gulf Wars, if you like. Isn't that bad enough? 100,000 deaths, 5 million displaced persons and over $200 billion in property damage, as the US tried to make itself safe following attacks on their soil. (Although for the US, the threat was on the other side of the world, not within 50 miles of New York City).

If you want to spotlight the dangers of racial hatred, you could try to compare Gaza to atrocities caused by racial hatred such as Rwanda.

If you want to highlight what happens when states oppress minorities internally, compare it to oppression of the Uyghurs or the Yazidi genocide

Make your points that way. Personally, I don't see an echo of those later ones in Gaza: but that's what a discussion is for.

But don't weaponise the horror of the Holocaust against the Jews. That really is low.

And if your concern is just 'othering', look at any society, anywhere in the world!

Israel is hardly unique in that.

Very well said. The lack of understanding of what the Holocaust was about is astounding.

Holocaust comparisons are out of order. But genocide comparisons are not.
Rwanda has been raised as a potential more ‘appropriate’ comparison. That was a genocide.
Genocide is awful. Something that makes this whole thing so impossible is the generational trauma affecting all communities. Communities compounding that trauma won’t resolve anything.

If I was someone from Israel, I would be suspicious of any support from the Evangelical right in the US. They have no interest in resolving the issue. Many genuinely want to encourage it further to bring on Armageddon, the second coming and their expected Rapture. There’s something concerning about what people who believe they’re living through the end times do. I may have done too much reading about 17th Century England recently but there are some worrying parallels.

The treatment of Palestinians by Israel did NOT justify October 7th (nothing could). The response is also not justified. With a toothless UN and ICC and a rogue USA we end up here. I was concerned and worried when Netanyahu was re-elected. I was concerned about Hamas. I am devastated for all the civilians of Palestine and Israel that I have been proven right.

The dehumanisation practised by both sides needs to stop for any progress to be made. I can’t see it happening though. There are also too many people who don’t know anything about the region or history involved in discussion. I am continually surprised by people’s surprise about Christian presence in Palestine (it crops up every year in coverage of Manger Square - which I’d always hoped to visit).

Anyway, as someone who could do with knowing more about the issue I will bow out with the final comment that no one, at all, should trust Trump and his team have the interests of anyone other than themselves at heart. His right hand man Musk has spent much of the past few years enabling antisemitism. He can’t be trusted by anyone.

i completely agree. Every society has this. Every country can fall into this. And many are right now. Once you start to dehumanise any group you can justify their suffering. Exactly like the examples you mention.

I’m weighing in on a conversation that was talking about the holocaust. I’m saying it’s a different situation that you can’t directly compare but there is a common thread. The same thread that you will find in all genocides or examples of ethnic cleansing. It’s all starts with the thinking that one group is less than human.

@GrammarTeacher i totally agree with you.

Its a monstrous comparison and shows no understanding of history. The holocaust was the systematic extermination of the Jewish people. That is not what has haplened in gaza and is not what is planned.

I'm grateful for mnhq deletion

It’s terrible enough in its own right. The more I think about it the more I realise that such comparisons are disrespectful to everyone in different ways.
The individual elements of the Holocaust weren’t unique but the planned out industrialisation of it sure as heck was.
That this was (and will hopefully remain) without direct equivalent is not to say that Rwanda, Bosnia, Kosovo, Palestine. Sudan (and more the list is a depressingly long one) aren’t also awful. But they are awful in a different way.
You can disagree with the treatment of Palestinians over the past decades without Holocaust denial or accepting what happened in October.
Until more people are calling out the contemporary situation on its own terms for both sides (like the ICC has tried to do) I can’t see a way forward.
Trump’s plan is a recipe for disaster though. Big disaster.

That is not what has happened in Gaza and is not what is planned

Well - I’d like your insight into ‘what is planned’ because Trump seems to have plans to remove the Palestinians from their lands and the Israeli Government appear to agree with that. There is a clear message they do not want the Palestinians to have their land back or to give up the land illegally settled by Israelis.

Thanks for thinking it through, and also for replying.

I agree that it isn’t anti-semitic to compare Gaza with other conflicts, so long as it's actually a thoughtful comparison of the conflicts themselves, and not linking them without reflection... simply because people use the same words about them. Genocide. Ethnic cleansing.

Similarly to the Holocaust comparisons, people don't always use those words in good faith.

I mentioned the Rwanda genocide, the persecution of the Uyghurs and the Yazidi genocide. You added Sudan and Bosnia.

Each conflict is as you say is different and horrific in its own way. The horrors of those others don't detract from the devastation and horrors in Gaza. We should respect them all, and not use them as weapons.

I do think that looking at the reality of those other conflicts (rather than hearing only the label) calls the labels of 'genocide' and 'ethnic cleansing' for Gaza into question. That's my opinion.

I think the closest comparison to Gaza is the Gulf war. Both in motivation: given it was triggered by a horrific terrorist attack on US soil, where 2996 innocent US civilians were murdered, but with the conflict obviously also having a wider background. And also in the huge disparity of strength and the devastating consequences. No one calls that a genocide or ethnic cleansing, despite the 100,000 deaths, 5 million displaced persons and over $200 billion in property damage. There are obviously differences between the 2 conflicts, but I think it's worth reflecting on why that is.

So I'd add an extra bit to your comment, which I otherwise absolutely agree with:
You can disagree with the treatment of Palestinians over the past decades without Holocaust denial or accepting what happened in October or calling it a genocide or ethnic cleansing.