Trump and Netanyahu’s roadmap: Nakba, forcible transfer and expulsion

5 February 2025

Trump’s announcement this morning (Feb 5) constitutes a call for ethnic cleansing through uprooting and forcibly transferring some 2 million people. This is Trump and Netanyahu’s roadmap for a second Nakba of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

The idea is deranged and reprehensible. Regardless of its feasibility, the very fact of its announcement is an indelible moral stain on all involved. Implementing such a plan would be a grave violation of international law.

This move is intended to realize the ambitions of the regime in Israel and its distorted worldview, which justifies completely dispossessing the Palestinian people and erasing their rights through mass killing and destruction, along with seizing all Palestinian lands.

The applause Trump has received in recent hours from many opinion leaders and decision-makers in Israel, including from what is known as the political center, is a disgraceful spectacle that highlights how far the dehumanization of Palestinians has gone among Israelis.

These dangerous ideas should alarm anyone who believes in human rights and democracy, and urge us all to do everything we can to stop them from becoming reality.

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מחנה הפליטים ג'נין היום. צילום: והאב בני מופלח, אקטיבטילס

Open-Fire Policy

Jenin Refugee Camp is not a battlefield - it is the home of thousands of people

For more than 24 hours now, the Israeli military has been operating inside the densely populated Jenin R.C. as if it were a battlefield and not a place where human beings live, work, study and dream. Until now, reports have come in of aerial strikes and a ground invasion by tanks, APCs, bulldozers and hundreds of soldiers. Ten people have reportedly been killed so far, and hundreds injured, some critically. Evacuating the wounded has been a challenge as the military destroyed roads inside the camp as well as access roads to it. Hospitals are overrun and having difficulty providing the injured who have been evacuated with the care they need. Water, power and internet services have reportedly been cut off, and medical centers have sustained damage. Homes and other private property have also sustained massive damage. Thousands of civilians - children, women, men and the elderly - have been forced to flee their homes, some without knowing where they might go. As far as the Israeli government is concerned, these actions are a necessity, part of its “fight against terrorism.” This implied assertion was unquestioningly accepted across the political spectrum in Israel, with members of almost every party rallying around the government, along with many in the international community. But the fighting in the refugee camp is not divorced from the objectives of the apartheid regime, which has been working for years to advance Jewish supremacy throughout the area between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River and military control over the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. Committing massive human rights abuses while ignoring the humanity of Palestinians reflects the regime’s worldview. Contrary to what policymakers in the military and the government say, such widespread intentional harm to civilians is unlawful and flies in the face of humanity’s basic moral norms. Some actions are out of bounds, even if it is a “war against terrorism,” and certainly when the agenda is advancing racist, violent political goals. Policymakers refuse to distinguish between what is permitted and what is not, what is legitimate and what is criminal, what is humane and what is cruel. For the Israeli public, large swathes of which have for months been fighting against government plans that threaten to violate their rights - here is an opportunity to oppose human rights violations by the same government that are taking place right now. The international community has an obligation to set boundaries for Israel and act decisively to stop its attack on Jenin Refugee Camp.

4 July 2023

Apartheid

Not a "vibrant democracy". This is apartheid.

Some 15 million people live under one regime between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, about half Jews and half Palestinians. Yet all Palestinians – whether defined citizens, residents or subjects – are excluded, fully or in part, from the coming elections. The regime is organized around a single principle: cementing the supremacy of one group – Jews – over another – Palestinians. Jews have the monopoly on political power, and only they have a true seat at the table where the fate of all who live here is determined. This is apartheid.

28 October 2022

Apartheid

B’Tselem welcomes President Biden with billboard campaign: Mr. President, this is apartheid

Today (Wednesday, 13 July 2022), Israeli human rights group B’Tselem put up billboards and digital screens in the West Bank cities of Bethlehem and Ramallah, ahead of US President Biden’s visit to Israel and the West Bank, reading: “Mr. President, this is apartheid.” US policy treats Israel as though it were running two separate regimes side by side: a permanent democracy (within the country’s sovereign borders) and a temporary military occupation (in the Occupied Palestinian Territories). In January 2021, B’Tselem published a position paper clarifying that in reality, the entire area under Israel’s control between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea is governed by a single regime, which works to impose Jewish supremacy over Palestinians: an apartheid regime. Without constant backing by the US, Israel would not have been able to politically, geographically and demographically re-engineer the area under its control; to impose military rule over millions of subjects and deny them rights for 55 years; to annex East Jerusalem to its sovereign territory; or to systematically discriminate against its Palestinian citizens. B’Tselem’s publication was followed by groundbreaking reports on the issue by the world’s two leading human rights organizations – Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. Palestinian human rights organizations have long claimed that Israel is employing an apartheid regime. B’Tselem Executive Director Hagai El-Ad said: “The human rights community has reached an updated consensus, shared across the board by Palestinian, Israeli and international organizations, that this reality constitutes apartheid. One US Administration after another has continued to back Israel with international support and immunity, allowing it to violate human rights without demanding accountability. The US must acknowledge that the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterreanean Sea is governed by an apartheid regime, and change its attutide to Israel accordingly. When the attitude changes – so will the regime.”

13 July 2022