The new Big Lie among the MAGAts is that there is no such thing as “Palestinians.” The story being circulated on the Right (apparently originating here) is that the “Palestinians” are a made-up people invented by Soviet propagandists during the Cold War. They’re really just Arab Muslims who settled in the area that is now Gaza and Israel over the past couple of centuries, the story goes.
This claim began to circulate yesterday after Trump proposed moving all the Palestinians out of Gaza and resettling them in Egypt or Jordan. What Egypt and Jordan think of this plan, I do not know. I doubt they will comply, so this proposal is unlikely to go anywhere. I’m also waiting to see what Juan Cole has to say about it. Netanyahu and the hard right in Israel are ecstatic, of course.
Trump also lifted the hold placed by President Biden on on sending 2,000-pound bombs to Israel. I wonder what all those Muslim Americans in Michigan who voted for Trump are thinking now. Hmmm.
FYI, the name “Palestine” appears to have been coined by the Greek historian Herodotus in the 5th century BCE to designate a district of Syria between Phoenicia and Egypt. In the 2nd century CE the Roman Empire renamed its province of Judea as :Syria Palestinia. The Romans were suppressing the Jews at the time, of course. So the name has been around for a while. The Palestinian people are said to be the descendants of the ancient Canaanites, although in the Middle East everybody’s DNA is pretty much all mixed up now, so everybody is a descendent of just about everything that was ever there.
Of course, anyone paying attention to Trump over the past few years could see something like this coming for miles and miles. I’m sorry that Joe Biden’s Gaza policies turned out to be a mess, but as I’ve argued earlier we cannot know what Kamala Harris’s policies would have been. Vice Presidents are more or less gagged about splitting with the POTUS on foreign policy, especially while delicate negotiations are going on. She at least was on record as supporting a two-state solution, which Trump does not. Trump wants whatever Netanyahu wants, and he was clear about that during the 2024 campaign to anyone paying attention.
I see that there were some pro-Palestinian protests of Trump yesterday in Chicago; whether this was before or after he announced his plan about clearing out Gaza, I do not know. But I’m not going to hold my breath waiting for all those tools who were out protesting “genocide Joe” to be just as fervently opposed to Trump’s Gaza policies, no matter how cruel. “genocide Donald” just doesn’t have the same ring to it. No fun.
I can't see Trump asking the House to appropriate billions for the relocation. I can't see Egypt or Jordan forking over the money either. The UN will be opposed. Israel might pay if the Palestinians are relocated to Africa. From Egypt or Jordan they could still strike.
This may be a distraction from the Friday purge that we are not supposed to notice.
It's hard to know with Trump. He may sincerely think "cleaning out" Gaza is a good idea.
The Roman diaspora did not involve complete depopulation of the region. More like the proscription of any civil or religious center of Jewish identity. The remnant population became largely christian then muslim as the ruling hegemons changed. The sick truth is beyond having been there for centuries, the Palestinians never really left.
The Israelis are the utterly foreign occupiers, perpetrating an American taxpayer conceived, financed and morally sanctioned genocide on the indigenous population of Palestine, a place known to Rome, Greece, Persia, possibly Sumer six thousand years ago and maybe the ancient Indians even before that. Bulldoze anything bulldoze Tel Aviv
Who didn't see this coming? Jared proposed such months ago …
What's happening in Gaza was "conceived" in Israel, not the U.S. The problem is too many years of knee-jerk support for Israel in the U.S. going back to the days of David Ben-Gurion. But support for Israel was much more understandable then. We should have shifted course in the 1990s.
Yeah but the Jews were there in the time BCE also. So it’s not like they only showed up after WWII. The thing is over the long course of history there have been several civilizations that took turn being on top, so it’s hard to say if any of them has an historical “right” to that land.
I’m not siding with Netanyahu’s war on Gaza, TenBears, just tweaking your historical commentary a bit.
The whole region is a mess.