On Monday, the Netanyahu government effectively announced the start of the final stage of ethnic cleansing of Gaza with a plan to militarily occupy the entire Gaza Strip and transfer the population into concentration camps under armed guard, in preparation for sending them on forced marches through the desert or loading them onto ships.

In February, US President Donald Trump declared that “The US will take over the Gaza Strip” and “level out” the remaining buildings and transfer the Palestinian population to “other countries.” At the time, both US and international media dismissed Trump’s plan as an “outlandish” scheme with no prospect of realization.

The Israeli government approached Trump’s plan with deadly seriousness. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised Trump’s “bold vision” for an ethnically cleansed Gaza. “We’re working on it,” Trump said during a meeting in Washington last month.

On Monday, the Netanyahu government effectively announced the beginning of the final stage of ethnic cleansing in Gaza. The plan includes a full military occupation of the entire Gaza Strip and the mass internment of the population in concentration camps under armed guard, as a prelude to forced marches through the desert or deportation by sea.

These concentration camps will be staffed by private US security contractors, with the Israel Defense Forces overseeing the distribution of starvation rations. According to a report this week by Reuters, the United States and Israel are actively discussing the formation of a “transitional government” headed by a US official to administer Gaza.

Echoing the “final solution,” the Nazi term for the genocide of Europe’s Jews, Netanyahu declared, “It’s time to launch the concluding moves.” The next day, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich explained the meaning of the Israeli government’s plan:

Within a year, … Gaza will be entirely destroyed, civilians will be sent to … the south to a humanitarian zone … and from there they will start to leave in great numbers to third countries.

The mechanism for the forcible displacement of the Palestinian people will be mass starvation. As National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir made clear, “No electricity, and no other aid should be allowed—neither by the [Israeli military] nor by civil society.”

On March 2, Israel imposed a total blockade on all food, water and electricity entering the Gaza Strip. As a result, the majority of Gaza’s community kitchens have been forced to shut down due to a lack of supplies, and cases of acute malnutrition have surged by more than 80 percent. Harrowing images have circulated of emaciated, starving children—victims of a famine that is entirely man-made.

  • Saleh@feddit.orgEnglish
    52·
    13 hours ago

    That is not true. People kept petitioning the Democratic party to stop the genocide. They kept raising the issue at Democratic events. Biden and then Harris shut them out. At the DNC congress in September Harris forbade a group of people from speaking about Palestine that tried to convince people to vote for Democrats despite supporting the genocide in Gaza as the group tried to take the “work from within” angle to change the parties position. The DNC chose that it is better to lose to Trump than risk anyone questioning the genocide to have a platform. The DNC did everything they can to alienate the voters and now they are running more racist gaslighting blaming the loss on “dumb minorities”.

    • taladar@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      1·
      7 hours ago

      You are probably incredibly young but Israel has had a firm control of American politics for literally its entire existence. Both parties, all presidents, pretty much all senators and members of congress on every level of your government. Lying to your faces that they could change that at a whim because Israel is committing another atrocity this decade on top of the ones they did in the decades before would have been a reason not to vote for them because that would have clearly made them untrustworthy.

      Not to mention that every single dictator the US installed in the last century or so was pro genocide too.

      • Saleh@feddit.orgEnglish
        21·
        6 hours ago

        All systems based on bribery and intimidation are incredible fragile once questioned in the open. If the DNC would decide to take a stance it would break the back of AIPAC and other lobby groups overnight. And there is no question this moment will come. AIPAC had to spend absurd amounts of money to campaign against local Democrats that challenged the support for genocide in the last year.

        There is no political excuse for the DNC. They do this from ideological conviction and these convictions are against the American people and humanity at large just like the convictions of most Republicans are.