Trump’s Gaza takeover won’t happen. But it has already changed the face of Israeli politics | Yair Wallach

WChicken President Donald Trump I issued an alarm To Hamas last week to issue all hostages by back on February 15, warning of this, “All hell [will] A loose break, “the Israeli right was active. Here was an opportunity to move forward in the end with the complete occupation and the extermination of the Gaza Strip. The Israeli hostages families were digging about the possibility of the shooting collapse, but members of the ruling coalition. He called for the killing of the deal. “We have international support, this matter!” The Israeli Finance Minister demandedPesalll Smotrich.

But it never came. Hamas was subjected to agreement and liberated three hostages; Then Israel launched hundreds of Palestinian prisoners. Trump ignored and said it was the decision of Israel. His envoy, Steve Whitchov, who visited Israel on Sunday, indicated that the trend of travel is not towards the resumption of hostility. Instead, the parties must now move to “fundamental” negotiations during the second stage of the ceasefire, He saidWhich leads to peace.

In the past four weeks, it is difficult to understand Trump’s approach in the Gaza Strip. On the one hand, it is credited with the president to push the parties to the ceasefire agreement, which raises hopes between the Israelis who want to see the return of the hostages and end the war. On the other hand, Trump embraced the arduous Israeli vision to purify Gaza ethnically, through a forced “transfer” of its 2.2 million Palestinian population, which led to an American real estate development that turns the tape into “”Riviera from the Middle East“.

Some suspect that this is just a trick of negotiations that hope will pressure the Arab countries to take responsibility on Gaza, and to force Hamas to abandon control and influence. Even if this is the case, Trump’s speech has already harmed international law. For the first time in many decades, the United States has publicly suggested the forced displacement of millions of people as a geopolitical solution. Like genocide researcher Dirk Moussa It was recently noticedThis may be the end of the post -war ranking, which determined the “transfer” of the population like war crimes banned by the Geneva Conventions. While the rings of forced displacement occurred in the second half of the twentieth century, such as those in Yugoslavia or in Syria, This was not adopted or defended by the White House.

Legitimacy for ethnic cleansing can have a permanent impact in Palestine, Israel Beyond it. History of Palestine is useful: In 1937, the Royal Palestinian Committee run by Britain proposed forced displacement of more than 200,000 Palestinians from Galilee as part of the partition plan. The main Zionist leaders have long excluded transportation operations for this range as unrealistic. But the British support for this idea gave it legitimacy. “This is a possibility that we did not dream about; we were not able to dream about the fiercest of our imagination.

Ben Gurion understood that the details of the partition plan were much lower than the principle of forced displacement. In the aftermath of World War II, “population stock exchanges” was explicitly or implicitly accepted by the great powers as a necessary mush. After 11 years of the Royal Committee, Bin Gurion supervised the permanent expulsion and ignored two thirds of the Palestinians, in Nakba From 1948.

We can already see the influence of Trump’s discourse on Israeli society. Since October 2023, Yemeni ministers and political activists He called for the “voluntary immigration” of the Palestinians from Gaza, yet the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin NetanyahuHe sought to keep a safe distance from such ideas. The idea of ​​forced displacement was considered widely beyond the pale, so that the prevailing opinion polls did not ask the question in Israeli public opinion polls.

However, shortly after his return from Washington, DC, Netanyahu praised the Trump box “Trump”The revolutionary vision of the day after HamasHe told the Knesset newspaper: “We see face to face with the American administration on … all our goals of the war.” Political commentator and radio host Amit Sigal, who was accused of service The mouthpiece of Netanyahu“We were like this dream.” The verse indicates the return of the Jews to Zion. Now it has been used to celebrate the expulsion that is looming on the horizon of the Palestinians from the country.

Fightly, most of the Israeli parties welcomed the plan. Former Defense Minister Beni Gantz Trump praised For his creative, original and interesting thinking. ”A poll found that no less than 82 % of the Jewish Israelis The plan was supported in principle; I thought 52 % was possible. Only 3 % of Israeli Jews rejected the plan as “unacceptable and immoral.”

However, even if many Israelis look at the fictional plan of GAZA that are raised, there is no appetite for the total war that will be required to achieve this plan. Opinion polls showed that the Israelis Firmly To an immediate return to hostile works. After 16 months of war, there is widespread fatigue. the Malnutrition Among the hostages who recently returned, and the torture reports they faced were very concerned. Two -thirds of the Israelis believe that the ceasefire agreement should be supported, and it should take the safe return of the roots priority.

We can expect more warning and confusion in the foreseeable future. Even if an immediate return to war is avoided, the risk of developing more than ever. Trump has left the collective parcel from the bottle. Ethnic cleansing for Gaza The massacre and atrocities will require even after the terrible scale during the past 17 months. It is unlikely to survive Israel’s peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan, and echo will feel all over the region. This is a scenario that does not only mean the potential death of the hostages, but an increasingly democratic auidocratic republic depends on destruction and conquest. If Israel is heading to this way, the Palestinians will not only destroy the Palestinians, but also condemn itself with an increasing war of ever.

• Yair Wallach is a reader in Israeli studies and head of the Jewish Studies Center at Soas University in London

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