Caitlin Johnston and Phalapoem editor, 4/02/2025
Grinning like a cat that ate the canary, Hague fugitive Benjamin Netanyahu sat beside Donald Trump as the former U.S. president laid out a vision for Gaza that can only be described as outright ethnic cleansing. With chilling indifference to the tens of thousands of Palestinians slaughtered by Israel’s relentless bombardment, Trump declared on Tuesday that the plan for Gaza is not reconstruction, not humanitarian aid—but the permanent removal of all Palestinians from their homeland.
“I don’t think people should be going back to Gaza,” Trump said, as if the forced displacement of over two million people was a minor logistical issue rather than a war crime. “I think that Gaza has been very unlucky for them. They’ve lived like hell.”
Notably absent from his remarks was any acknowledgment of who created this “hell.” Gaza was not struck by a natural disaster—it was systematically destroyed by Israel with U.S. weapons, in what human rights experts, legal scholars, and even the International Court of Justice have described as plausible genocide. Yet Trump, in his usual detached and dehumanizing manner, spoke as if Palestinians simply had bad luck, as though they were victims of fate rather than a deliberate campaign of extermination.
Asked whether Palestinians would have a right to return after Gaza is rebuilt, Trump made it clear: there is no future for them in their own land. Instead, his “solution” is to build them housing in other countries—so luxurious, he claims, that they will simply forget about their homeland.
“It would be my hope that we could do something really nice, really good, where they wouldn’t want to return,” he said, adding, “I hope that we could do something where they wouldn’t want to go back. Who would want to go back? They’ve experienced nothing but death and destruction.”
This is nothing less than a grotesque justification for ethnic cleansing. The logic is clear: Palestinians have suffered so much that the “humane” solution is to expel them completely. Never mind that their suffering was inflicted by Israel. Never mind that their homeland, their families, their history, and their roots are there. In Trump’s racist worldview, Palestinians are not a people with rights, dignity, or self-determination—they are an obstacle to be removed.
When asked how many people he wanted to remove from Gaza, Trump’s answer was blunt: “All of them.”
Then, as if to put an imperial cherry on top, Trump announced that the U.S. would “take over” and “own” Gaza, overseeing its reconstruction.
“The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip, and we will do a job with it, too,” Trump boasted. “We’ll own it and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site, level the site and get rid of the destroyed buildings—level it out. Create an economic development that will supply unlimited numbers of jobs and housing for the people of the area.”
Given that Trump had just said he plans to remove every Palestinian from Gaza, it’s obvious who he envisions benefiting from this “economic development.” This is textbook settler-colonialism: destroy an indigenous population, steal their land, and then profit from its reconstruction. Gaza, in Trump’s mind, is not a home to millions of people—it is a piece of real estate waiting to be repurposed.
Trump’s Racist Indifference to Palestinian Lives
At no point did Trump express sympathy for the more than 61,700 Palestinians killed, most of them women and children. He did not mourn the 20,000 children bombed to death in their own homes, the mass graves discovered beneath the rubble of Israeli airstrikes, or the deliberate starvation campaign being waged against the survivors. He did not condemn the indiscriminate bombing of hospitals, schools, and refugee camps.
Instead, he spoke only of the land—who would control it, who would develop it, and how to ensure that Palestinians never return. It is a level of dehumanization so extreme that it would not be out of place in the darkest chapters of history.
And it should come as no surprise. Trump has long viewed Palestinians as subhuman, openly mocking their suffering and treating Israel’s crimes as mere political favors for his Zionist donors. In 2020, when asked about Israel’s brutal military occupation of the West Bank, he dismissed the issue entirely, saying: “That’s their problem.” When Palestinians protested their oppression, he called them “terrorists” and greenlit Israel’s expansion of illegal settlements. He moved the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem as a gift to Sheldon Adelson, one of his biggest campaign donors, bragging that the billionaire called him “the greatest president for Israel in history.”
This is not just about Trump’s personal racism—it is about the racist system he represents. The United States has spent decades enabling Israeli apartheid, funding its war crimes, and shielding it from consequences. Trump is merely saying the quiet part out loud: in the eyes of American empire, Palestinians have no right to exist on their own land.
Ethnic Cleansing Disguised as “Humanitarian Aid”
Trump’s plan is not just racist; it is an outright war crime. Forced displacement of an occupied population is a violation of international law, and his call to erase Gaza’s Palestinian identity is the very definition of ethnic cleansing. Yet he presents it as a humanitarian solution, pretending that driving an entire population into permanent exile is an act of kindness.
This has always been the playbook of colonial powers: commit genocide, then claim the survivors will be better off somewhere else. The idea that Palestinians should be grateful for their dispossession is as cruel as it is absurd. But Trump is not alone in pushing this narrative—his rhetoric aligns perfectly with Israel’s long-standing goal of making Gaza uninhabitable to force its people into exile.
The World Must Reject This Racist Agenda
Trump’s callous disregard for Palestinian lives, his enthusiastic endorsement of ethnic cleansing, and his eagerness to “own” Gaza like a conquered colony must be condemned in the strongest terms. The genocide unfolding in Gaza is not just Israel’s doing—it is backed and enabled by the U.S., and Trump is making it clear that if he returns to power, he will take it even further.
The world cannot allow Trump’s racist vision to become reality. Gaza belongs to the Palestinians. They have the right to live on their land, to return to their homes, and to exist with dignity and freedom. No amount of imperial posturing or billionaire-funded propaganda can erase that truth.
The genocide must be stopped. The ethnic cleansing must be resisted. And Trump’s open racism and dehumanization of Palestinians must be exposed for exactly what it is: a dangerous, genocidal ideology that must be defeated.
