On Sunday, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich raised the possibility of the imminent implementation of US President Donald Trump’s plan to displace the Palestinian people from Gaza. “It’s a process I hope will begin in the coming weeks,” Smotrich told Israel’s Channel 12 news station.
“Even if it’s slow at first, it will gradually pick up pace and intensify,” adding it will be a “huge logistical operation to get such vast numbers of people out of here.”
Smotrich made these remarks as US Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with both men pledging to work together to implement Trump’s plan for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza.
“We discussed Trump’s bold vision for Gaza’s future and will work to ensure that vision becomes a reality,” Netanyahu said following his meeting with Rubio. “We have a common strategy,” he added.
For his part, the American secretary of state hailed Trump’s proposal to ethnically cleanse Gaza and annex it as an American territory. “It may have shocked and surprised many,” Rubio said, adding “what cannot continue is the same cycle where we repeat over and over again and wind up in the exact same place.”
Earlier this month, Trump declared that the Gaza Strip “should not go through a process of rebuilding and occupation by the same people that lived a miserable existence there.” Trump called for “other countries” to “build various domains that will ultimately be occupied by the 1.8 million Palestinians living in Gaza.”
Last week, Trump clarified that the United States would seize Gaza as its own territory. “We’re going to have Gaza,” Trump said. “We don’t have to buy. There’s nothing to buy. We will have Gaza. ... We’re going to take it.”
Trump’s plan to displace the people of Gaza is a flagrant violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention’s prohibition of the forcible transfer of civilians during armed conflicts.
In recognition of the complete criminality of their plan to ethnically cleanse Gaza, Rubio and Netanyahu spent a significant portion of their remarks condemning the International Criminal Court, the United Nations and all other institutions of international law.
In his remarks, Netanyahu railed against the “anti-American” character of international institutions. “We see that in the UN General Assembly, in the UN Human Rights Commission, where anti-Americanism is rampant, and more resolutions are passed about Israel than the rest of the world combined, and we see it especially in the lawfare that is being waged against America and Israel at the ICC, the ICJ, and elsewhere.”
Netanyahu praised Trump for imposing sanctions on the International Criminal Court, declaring, “Israel commends President Trump and his administration for restoring his executive order against the ICC and for moving quickly to sanction ICC officials.”
Netanyahu called the institutions of international law a “threat” to be “neutralized.” He boasted, “The secretary and I discussed working together to formulate a common strategy to deal with the threat of lawfare and neutralize this threat once and for all.”
In November, the International Criminal Court (ICC) formally charged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Secretary Yoav Gallant with war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Israeli genocide in Gaza. The court charged Netanyahu and Gallant with “the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare; and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts.”
The central target of both Netanyahu and Rubio, however, was Iran. “Israel and America stand shoulder to shoulder in countering the threat of Iran,” Netanyahu said, adding, “We agreed that the ayatollahs must not have nuclear weapons, and we also agreed that Iran’s aggression in the region has to be rolled back.”
Rubio, for his part, called Iran “the single greatest source of instability in the region, behind every terrorist group, behind every act of violence, behind every destabilizing activity, behind everything that threatens peace and stability for the millions of people who call this region home, is Iran.”
Over the weekend, Israel received a shipment of 2,000-pound bombs from the United States, following the announcement last week of a $7 billion arms sale to Israel by the State Department. The Biden administration had provided Israel with more than 14,000 such bombs since October 7.
Despite a nominal “ceasefire” in Gaza, Israel continued to carry out killings throughout Palestine, including in both Gaza and the West Bank. Over the weekend, Israeli forces destroyed homes and infrastructure in the Nur Shams camp in the West Bank. On Sunday, an Israeli airstrike killed three Palestinian police officers in Gaza.
Netanyahu and Rubio only threatened to intensify their onslaught on Gaza. “Hamas cannot continue as a military or government force,” Rubio said. “And as long as it stands as a force that can govern or administer or a force that can threaten by use of violence, peace becomes impossible.” He added, “They must be eliminated, they must be eradicated.”
Earlier this month, Gaza’s health ministry updated its estimated death toll since October 7, 2023 to over 60,000, including 14,222 people who are missing and presumed trapped under the rubble. Over 70 percent of Gaza’s buildings have been destroyed or damaged, and over 90 percent of its population has been displaced.
The US media, meanwhile, has worked to normalize Trump’s ethnic cleansing plan for Gaza. In an article titled, “If Indians and Pakistanis Can Relocate, Why Can’t Gazans?” the Wall Street Journal declares, “Many population transfers have taken place over the past century.” The article held up the partition of India, in which as many as 2 million people died, as a model.