Trump’s Gaza plan: The century-old Zionist illusion of ‘voluntary’ emigration of Palestinians
A Palestinian flag waved as people walk along Gaza’s coastal al-Rashid Street to cross the Netzarim corridor from the southern Gaza Strip into the north on 27 January 2025
Thierry Brésillon writes in Middle East Eye on 28 January 2025:
On Sunday [26 January], US President Donald Trump proposed that one and a half million Palestinians in Gaza be relocated to Jordan or Egypt as part of a plan to “just clean out” the enclave. His special envoy for the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, even suggested relocating a portion of the Gaza population to Indonesia.
Israel’s former far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir supported Trump’s suggestion in a post on X. “One of our demands from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is to promote voluntary emigration. When the president of the world’s greatest superpower, Trump, personally brings up this idea, it is worth the Israeli government implementing it – promoting emigration now,” he wrote.
This ethnic cleansing would pave the way for Jewish colonisation projects and the transformation of Gaza into the futuristic technological hub that Netanyahu dreams of.
With this plan, Trump is in keeping with the long-term movement of Zionism and, more precisely, the war objectives set by the Israeli far right.
On 20 December, Ben Gvir reiterated his proposal of “encouraging the voluntary migration” of Gaza residents in order to recolonise the Palestinian territory from which the Israelis had disengaged in 2005. That is, in his view, a necessity for Israel’s security and a better solution for Gaza residents: “Gaza is unsanitary while other countries need workers, they will be better off there,” he said.
That was not the first time since the war erupted on 7 October 2023 that the far-right minister had put forward this idea. For instance, on 14 May 2024, Ben Gvir presented his proposal in a humanitarian light: “Encourage the voluntary departure of Gaza’s residents… It is ethical! It is rational! It is right!” The “return” of the Jews to Gaza would be both the fulfilment of a prophecy and justice rendered to the Jewish people: “We have to return home, because that is the Torah, that is morality, that is historic justice, that is logic and that is the right thing,” he said.
On the same occasion, Israeli MP Zvi Sukkot, a member of the Religious Zionist Party, went further by saying: “Tell the countries of the world who with hypocritical morality care for the Gazans that they [Gaza Palestinians] will be much safer with them in other countries. If they love them so much, South Africa should take the residents of Jabaliya.”
As illustrated by Sunday’s comments, the ceasefire has not fundamentally changed this perspective, which goes back to the origin of Zionism.
‘100,000 Arabs in Gaza and not 2 million’
Despite some disapproval from the Israeli opposition and even the United States under President Joe Biden, once again in the history of Israeli colonisation, the project was advanced through war, in a fait accompli policy.
This was particularly the case in northern Gaza, where the army methodically implemented a plan to expel, exterminate and relocate Palestinians, following the recommendations of the so-called Eiland Plan or Generals’ Plan, designed by a group of senior reservists to ethnically cleanse the area. There is no doubt that for many Israeli leaders, the departure of the majority of Gaza Palestinians would be the logical, even if gradual, outcome of military operations.