So the Israel lobby prevails again. So much for Trump being different than any other president.

To recapitulate the views of this bunch of hypocrites:

if Russia cleanses and genocides the Ukrainians to preserve its sphere of influence, we should blame the victims, of course. That's fucking realism, baby.

if Israel cleanses and genocides the Palestinians to not be cleansed and genocided by the Palestinians, we should blame Israel, of course. That's suprime moral standard, you scum.

I think Rubio's time as secretary of state will end sooner or later.

(BBC, Feb 6th 2025) US President Donald Trump's proposal to resettle Gaza's population would only be temporary, Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said.

It follows Trump's suggestion that the US could "take over" Gaza and resettle around two million Palestinians living there – an idea that has drawn criticism from the UN, human rights groups and Arab leaders.

He, Marco Rubio, is already showing the signs of "being the adult in the room", which is highly irritating for Trump and hence dangerous for the secretary of state. Donald, as the genuine asshole he is, won't tolerate in the long run such behavior as he want only loyal sycophants that simply repeat what he says. This was already clear when Rubio met the president of Panama. Then there simply was NO talk of the US annexing Panama or the Canal Zone. Naturally the US got a deal, US warships can now pass freely the Canal, but that wasn't what Trump was talking about. Few million cheaper and a new port deal without Chinese is simply not what Trump talked about.

Trump won't have it. If this continues, Trump will simply look as foolish as he is. He blabbers every strange idea that comes to his senile mind, just like this Mar-A-Gaza idea, and then people take it Trump "playing 4D chess". Sorry, but what the US president says has to really mean what he says. There cannot be then people behind him just talking about it as "a negotiating tactic".

I'll predict that sooner or later Rubio has to go. And we will have that trade war.

So all snarkiness aside for a second. The reality here is that Trump wants an end to the conflict, which is good — and he’s using his experience in business in an attempt at a solution. The problem is what it’s always been: Palestinians don’t want to leave. At this point, now that Gaza has been largely destroyed, I don’t think it’s great that they do — but there’s little alternative for them. The surrounding areas won’t take them, and of course there are both religious and cultural reasons to stay, quite apart from their feeling of justice.

It’s a sad situation, and I’m actually truly rooting for Trump to mix things up. I was hoping for something more serious than this, though. It’ll just involve the US troops in the conflict, which will continue.

What Likud has done here is really unfortunate for Israel. They’ve wanted an excuse to ethnically cleanse the region, and Hamas provided them a great one with the horrid October 7th attacks on innocent people. It has to be understood in a historical context, as the treatment of the Palestinians has been awful for decades— but it doesn’t excuse it either. Nor does it excuse the disproportionate response.

I think Mearsheimer is right yet again: the Isael lobby in Washington is still very powerful indeed, to the point where even Trump — who is anti-war— can’t bring himself to demand a two state solution.

What a disappointment.

your post amounts to justifying making conditions terrible enough for people to want to leave and then ask "why is it bad that they want to leave?" I'm all for avoiding death and suffering but let's not blame the victims shall we?

The reality here is that Trump wants an end to the conflict, which is good — and he’s using his experience in business in an attempt at a solution[/s] — Mikie

"Lurid billionaire fascist capitalist Donald Fucking Trump wants to exploit the horrible tragedy of the Palestinian conflict for his greediness and that of other Jewish real-estate capitalists (e.g. Harey Zahav) with the pretext of bringing peace while pursuing and validating the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians. That makes me sick to my stomach. I feel like wanting to crucify my own pacifist balls for that"!
There I've corrected it for you. No need to thank me.

Many Palestinians actually would like to leave and go to peaceful Palestinian communities abroad. Many Palestinians would like to raise their children in peace and live quiet lives. The problem is Hamas doesn't let them. A few days ago Hamas murdered many innocent Palestinians for "stealing aid." The Egyptian border is built so high and so tough because without it the Palestinians would be leaving. When one lives under totalitarian rule one is not in a position to express open dissent or speak of one's true intentions publically without risk of reprisal.

↪Count Timothy von Icarus your post amounts to justifying making conditions terrible enough for people to want to leave and then ask "why is it bad that they want to leave?" I'm all for avoiding death and suffering but let's not blame the victims shall we

Where did I do that?

Do you think I drew the comparison to between Israel and Assad, Hitler, the ethnic cleansing of the Jews from across the Middle East, and the Germans from Eastern Europe because I thought those were all clear examples where the aggressor was justified?

Let me ask, was it "justifying" the Hutu genocide of the Tutsi to allow Tutsi civilians to flee over Rwanda's borders?

Why is this different? Why in this one case must refugees desperate to flee a war zone be penned in? Why was it acceptable for Yazidis to flee, and for countries to help them, even as it "gave ISIS what they wanted," and helped erase them from the region? Or was it not, should the Yazidis have been forced to stay?

I know why the Arabs absolutely opposed letting Gazans have the status of other refugees. One, because they don't want to deal with the potential political unrest and fallout. Libya and Qatar previously ethnically cleansed their Palestinians, close to 500,000 were expelled in the later case. The history in Jordan and Lebanon is significantly more bloody. So there is a fear of getting embroiled in a in political or military conflict.

However, I hardly think this remains the main reason. The real reason is far more dubious. Even today, Christian nationalists and ethno nationalists fantasize about the day when "Constantinople will be reclaimed by the West." This was a major goal of the Russian Empire in WWI, the "Third Rome" restoring the "Second Rome" and the historical heart of Eastern Christendom. It's part of why they kept gambling on a losing war, even after the Tsar fell. That was half a millennia after Muslims took the city. The appeal to "one day" retake Jerusalem is every bit as strong in the Arab world.

This is explicitly why Gaddafi ethnically cleansed his Palestinian population. The PLO was considering a two state solution, and this meant giving up claims of reconquest. He also advised all other Arab states to do the same, a punishment for not being willing to "tough it out" until the day of victory. This is also explicitly why Hamas carried out its massive terror campaign, to try to derail the formation of a Palestinian state because it would be giving up claims on territory, primarily Jerusalem.

Obviously, Christian powers would form alliances with the Ottomans over the centuries. They accepted their short to medium term existence, all while holding out for the day of reconquest. The same is true for many vis-a-vis Israel. This is obvious in the case of the Europeans, since they pounced on the opportunity to retake the city when it finally came and just failed to win the city back.

That is why Gaza is the one place where there can be active urban fighting, but it would be "wrong" to allow women and children to leave the fighting. This is why the idea of even allowing voluntary temporary relocation to Europe is condemned. The Palestinians are there to function in much the same way that Russians settled in Ukraine after the Holodomor, or Germans settled out east during German conquests, to hold the land, or at least a claim on it, by their presence. But shouldn't they have a say in this?

This is also why the Palestinians Arab allies didn't grant the Palestinians citizenship after 1948, or let them seek employment, but instead herded them into squalid camps under military rule (this, despite their explicit goals in 1948 being to annex that land, not set up a new state). We know from documents at the time that this was explicitly to "keep the conflict alive," to have the door open on another attempted reconquest (obviously with a subsequent ethnic cleansing by the victorious party). Such attempts were made, they just failed. It is not any different today.

This is also why the Gulf States are happy to work with China, to buy billions in arms from them and provide them oil, even as they carry out a massive ethnic cleansing campaign against their Muslim population. East Turkestan is not a place nationalists and fundamentalists dream of reconquering, so it has no salience.

No doubt, many Palestinians would not want to leave Gaza for similar reasons. Nowhere did I suggest they should be removed by force. I said it does not make sense to force those who do want to leave, who would be treated as valid refugees if they were from anywhere else on Earth, to have to stay in a war zone, under a violent and repressive regime, in order to "stake other's long term claim to the land."

This position makes no sense from a Western liberal point of view. It is astounding to me that people who are otherwise fierce advocates of the rights of refugees are bamboozled into this, and I can only suppose that it is because their politics and philosophy tell them that they must defer to Arabs on Arab issues (but apparently not those at the border begging to be let through).

Yet I don't know how you can watch the videos of people desperately pleading to be let across the Egyptian border, or read the stories of people giving away their entire life savings just for the chance that their children alone might be smuggled across the border, and then say: "good job Egypt. Those soldiers need to be there to keep them in at gun point. Otherwise the claim on the land could be lost to the movements of history!"

I don't see how such a position could possibly stem from a concern from those families seeking to leave.

Sorry, but your speculations are worthless. Given that this conflict has gone on for 70+ years, to blame Hamas for the Palestinians’ (correct) desire to want to stay in their rightful homeland is ridiculous. Yes, some want to leave. Most want to stay.

Famous Israeli Journalist
@shlomieldar

“I’ve been talking to people from Gaza since this morning, and most of them say the same thing: If ships docked at the Gaza coast, they would board them for countries with Palestinian communities, such as Sweden, England, and Canada—if they were guaranteed medical insurance and education for their children. In that case, they would leave.

Egypt and Jordan aren’t seen as real options. If they were to leave, it would be for a place that offers the next generation a chance to live, breathe, and integrate.

People want a better life—a future for their children. The question is: Is such a move even feasible? Is the world ready, able, and willing to support Trump on this plan?”

https://x.com/Osint613/status/1887860828159742239

Many if not most Gazans seemly want a new start after 15 months of war.

Good to see all these Jews in support of deportation. Well done for having learned fuck all from this thread, history or having a smidgen of common decency.

Good to see all these Jews in support of deportation. — Benkei

They're a nasty little bunch, aren't they? Always causing trouble.

Yes, some want to leave. Most want to stay.

I would assume this is likely true. But this is precisely why I don't get the blanket denial on letting people leave. In particular, some people had the courage to speak out with journalists about their unhappiness with Hamas during the war, and might very well be facing retribution. This is a case where someone would normally have a good asylum claim. Likewise, particularly effective critics of Israel might have similar concerns.

Why doesn't Israel let the Gazans leave?

But seriously, if you're expecting the Jews to have sympathy after Israelis were kept in concentration camp like conditions in Gaza and being paraded on stages and leaving emaciated, after women and children were murdered in Hamas captivity, after Israeli women were raped and then set on fire at a music festival.... I don't know what else to tell you.

It seems like with you Hamas could be in literal Nazi uniforms burning Israeli prisoners alive and you'd still be pearl clutching about Israeli soldiers. I'd imagine you'd say something like "well Israel is the ultimate cause behind all of it." And you can charge the same at me -- that I overlook Palestinian suffering yet I never claimed to be impartial but amazingly you apparently do.

Let's start with destroying Hamas and allowing Palestinian migration. I'm as uncomfortable with forced deportation as anyone.

The Middle East was never de-Nazified.

You need to learn to see Israeli civilians as human beings rather than just "Israel." You would never speak of the deaths of Palestinians as "resistance against Palestine" or "resistance against Hamas." There's a nasty double standard at work.

Grow a conscious instead of rationalising crimes all the time.

My conscience tells me to fight. If ~1200 of your people were tortured, raped, and murdered and your conscience didn't tell you to fight I would question your brain development.

Yes, fight all those women and children who had nothing to do with it. I’m sure we’ll “destroy Hamas” any day now…

Your moral instincts are as admirable as your judgment.

So you would be pro-Israel if all the dead were men who were involved in 10/7 or Hamas members? What of Hamas members who weren't involved in 10/7? Would those be valid targets?

I'm as uncomfortable with forced deportation as anyone. — BitconnectCarlos

Really? Are you? So you oppose the Trump Mar-a-Gaza plan?

So you would be pro-Israel if all the dead were men who were involved in 10/7 or Hamas members? What of Hamas members who weren't involved in 10/7? Would those be valid targets? — BitconnectCarlos

Usually in war it's the combatants that one fights. Yet not all the dead are Hamas members and not all buildings destroyed in Gaza were military positions were Hamas fought from.

Just because I'm uncomfortable with something doesn't mean that I oppose it. We ethnically cleansed Germans from territories like Alsace-Lorraine and I've never heard of anyone complain about that. Jews have been ethnically cleansed 3x from Gaza since 1929 and no one could care less. Perhaps we ought to work to reinstate their presence there.

Best PR would be to describe it as a temporary migration while Gaza is rebuilt.

Usually in war it's the combatants that one fights. — ssu

I wish we could take all the Hamas members and all the IDF and place them on an island where they could duke it out among themselves, but that's not realistic. Also consider that many of those who kept hostages as slaves were not Hamas, but civilians. Many of those who attacked Israel on 10/7 were civilians also. So when Israel hits back, the Palestinians get to turn their deaths into evidence of Israel's unimaginable cruelty.

Just recently Hamas killed a 14 year old Palestinian boy when one of their rockets crashed in Gaza. You know that's going on the "killed by Israel" list.

And that's not the only young Palestinian teenager dying in a manner like that. Not too long ago a 14 year old Palestinian boy was blown up when the explosives he was transporting detonated.

You don’t want terrorism, stop engaging in terrorism.

Sometimes I toy with the idea that certain cultures just ought to be vanquished — BitconnectCarlos

:eyes:

Just because I'm uncomfortable with something doesn't mean that I oppose it. — BitconnectCarlos

Tells a lot. So you are uncomfortable with ethnic cleansing, but think it's an OK thing to do.

Sometimes I toy with the idea that certain cultures just ought to be vanquished on behalf of their own wickedness. — BitconnectCarlos

Then you have absolutely no problem of understanding Nazi ideology, because that's the way exactly how they thought. Some may have been "uncomfortable" in the process, but hey, the end justifies the means.

I'll just end here with that I'm categorically against your thinking. There are ample examples that once conflicts are over, people can adapt to peace. Yet then it's a military that is vanquished, or a political movement that has ended up in failure. Not a culture. The idea of perpetual war between "cultures" is a strange and dubious idea, because in the end you are talking of people that basically just want to live their life. I think your view of the "wickedness of some cultures" is one of the most dangerous in this World and will spread destruction and death in further conflicts. Because military conflict isn't seen as an extension or outcome of political disagreement, but a way to attack whole people constituting a culture. The objectives are war aren't as Clausewitz put them, but something of the lines of the Roman saying: "Create a desert and call it peace". If ethnic cleansing is OK, it isn't a big leap to genocide.

Yep, some new member would be immediately banned.

If wishing for the destruction of a culture where e.g. powerful men routinely abuse young boys or human sacrifice is a constant make me a Nazi then so be it.

In Nazism, it was a perpetual war between races. One's blood made one the enemy. Jews who abandoned their own culture and adopted German culture were not spared. Such an evil could only emerge in modernity.

Ideally the wicked group is destroyed by God/nature/its own internal dynamics. As we see with Sodom and Gomorrah. I'm not typically one to support military intervention against a group simply because it is wicked. However, if that group is being both wicked and violent towards its neighbors it likely needs both a decisive military defeat and wholescale culture reform. It will surely lose its self-determination after the defeat. It must be purged of certain practices by its new rulers, like the Spanish did with human sacrifice in the New World.

I apply this to my own group as well. Our texts do describe one of our ancient exiles as punishment for our own practice of child sacrifice (among others) in the first temple period. So my hope is, in the end, that wickedness is vanquished from all cultures. Some cultures are just more egregious and aggressive in their wickedness than others, and bad cultures poison all within it. May we one day see a day where it is all gone.

If wishing for the destruction of a culture where e.g. powerful men routinely abuse young boys or human sacrifice is a constant make me a Nazi then so be it. — BitconnectCarlos

Exiling Palestinians from their land will not destroy their culture. It will be a second Nakba.

I think if they were exiled they would lose their culture fairly quickly. "Palestinian" as an ethnic identity is only around 60-70 years old and it will fade in due time.

It's been 78 years since they were ejected from their homeland, and that hasn't faded from their memories yet. They believe they have a sacred bond to their land,and this part of their culture won't fade. Tribalism not assimilation, is typical in the Middle East.