'Clean out' Gaza: Why Trump's 'voluntary' transfer proposal should be made to Israelis
29 January 2025
Rather than advocating for the illegal expulsion of Palestinians, the US president should urge allies to accept displaced Israelis, thousands of whom are fleeing the country
A man walks under a banner addressed to the US president reading “Congratulations Donald Trump, Israel loves you”, in Jerusalem, on 24 January 2025 (John Wessels/AFP))
As Israel continues its murderous bombing of the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank, it has expelled 15,000 Palestinians in the past week alone and demolished dozens of their homes.
Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump, in contravention of international law, proposed over the weekend to "clean out" the devastated Gaza Strip by expelling 1.5 million of its Palestinian inhabitants - who had just survived Israel's genocide - to Egypt, Jordan, or even Indonesia, a figure 100 times greater than the number of those expelled from Jenin.
Trump's illegal expulsion proposal is hardly new but rather a continuation of a clandestine western policy that was set in motion 15 months ago.
In October 2023, shortly after launching its extermination campaign in Gaza, Israel demanded the expulsion of Palestinians to the Egyptian Sinai.
Then-President "Genocide" Joe Biden and his Arab allies swiftly began working on a plan to accommodate Israel's wishes. However, Egypt's President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi rejected the proposal, suggesting that displaced Palestinians be relocated to areas within Israel rather than to the Sinai.
In search of potential destinations for the Palestinians that Israel and the West sought to expel, the Americans and Europeans negotiated with several African countries, including Congo, as well as Canada, and even floated the idea of Saudi Arabia.
'Reasonable solution'
Trump's reasoning for his proposal, which violates international law, was that he would "rather get involved with some of the Arab nations and build housing at a different location where they can maybe live in peace for a change", adding that this relocation could be "temporary or could be long term".
This purported desire for Palestinians to "live in peace" after their expulsion from their homeland, thereby enabling illegal Jewish colonisation and land theft, echoes Israeli proposals from October 2023.
Those proposals framed Israel's planned ethnic cleansing of Gaza's Palestinians and their potential expulsion to the Egyptian Sinai as a positive and reasonable solution. They even described the Sinai as "one of the most suitable places on Earth to provide the people of Gaza with hope and a peaceful future".
Alas, such a plan will not bring peace for either Palestinians or Israelis.
However, if Israel were to abide by international law and UN resolutions, and if Trump were to "get involved" with Israel - rather than with Arab nations - and force it to repatriate all Palestinian refugees it expelled since 1948, returning them to the homes Israel now illegally occupies with Jewish settlers, then a genuine, lasting peace could be achieved.
If Trump truly wanted people to "live in peace for a change", he could further push Israel to "build housing" for Palestinians on their original lands - in the villages and towns Israel destroyed - thus aligning with international law.
Leaving Israel
Interestingly, no Arab government has suggested that African countries, Canada, or even the US or Europe should become destinations for Israeli Jews fleeing the destruction in parts of Israel since October 2023.
Official data showed that 82,000 Israeli Jews have already left the country since the start of Israel's genocidal war, with unofficial estimates putting the number closer to half a million.
Certainly, many more Israelis would welcome the opportunity to "live in peace for a change", as Trump put it, in the United States and other countries.
Trump could convince those governments to take them in as refugees, especially since around one million Israelis already hold US and European passports and would not require refugee status.
Between 1948 and 2015, the Israeli government claims that 720,000 Israelis - mostly Jewish colonists and their descendants - emigrated to more peaceful countries and never returned to Israel.
In December 2022, the Israeli newspaper Maariv reported the emergence of a new movement aimed at facilitating the emigration of Israelis to the US.
Formed in the wake of the Israeli elections, it viewed the rise of Benjamin Netanyahu and his fanatical coalition to power as altering the Zionist state's relationship to religion.
The group, which calls itself "Leaving the country - together", presented plans to move 10,000 Israelis in the first stage. Its leaders include anti-Netanyahu activist Yaniv Gorelik and Israeli-American businessman Mordechai Kahana.
Indeed, there is a pressing need for Trump to offer refuge to the hundreds of thousands of Israelis displaced by the bombing in the north and the so-called Gaza envelope.
Many have refused to return to their settlements due to safety concerns and remain as refugees in other parts of Israel.
They, along with those who no longer feel safe from the periodic missiles hitting Tel Aviv and its environs, would greatly welcome a US, European, or Canadian offer of refuge, complete with free housing, so that they too can "live in peace for a change".
Counterproposal
Perhaps Jordan's King Abdullah II and Egypt's Sisi - both of whom rejected Trump's proposal to take in the expelled Palestinians - could counter-propose that displaced Israelis be offered refuge instead.
Such a proposal would reflect their own desire for displaced Israelis to "live in peace".
Similarly, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates could either volunteer or be encouraged to fund the emigration of Israelis and provide them with housing in their "old/new" homelands, or what the founder of Zionism, Theodor Herzl, called "Altneuland".
This is not some far-fetched, utopian solution to the ongoing state of war that was imposed on the entire Middle East by Israel since its establishment as a Jewish settler colony on stolen Palestinian land in 1948.
On the contrary, allowing Palestinian refugees to return to the land they were expelled from would be a just and reasonable application of international law.
Israelis who no longer feel safe living on stolen Palestinian land could then move to countries that would welcome them with open arms, offering them the housing, safety, and peace they so crave.
Are there any takers out there?
Joseph Massad is professor of modern Arab politics and intellectual history at Columbia University, New York. He is the author of many books and academic and journalistic articles. His books include Colonial Effects: The Making of National Identity in Jordan; Desiring Arabs; The Persistence of the Palestinian Question: Essays on Zionism and the Palestinians, and most recently Islam in Liberalism. His books and articles have been translated into a dozen languages.