Trump muses on ethnically cleansing Palestinians from Gaza

Michael F. Brown Power Suits 30 January 2025

President Donald Trump with hands upraised at podium with man and American flag in background

President Donald Trump frequently makes statements without sufficient facts or thinking through the consequences.

Bonnie Cash UPI

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been issued with an arrest warrant by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity and war crimes, will likely visit President Donald Trump at the White House as soon as next week.

Whether Netanyahu will discuss Trump’s recent musings on ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip or focus on Iran and expanding the Abraham Accords remains to be seen.

On Saturday on board Air Force One, Trump was asked about a call he had earlier in the day with King Abdullah of Jordan.

Trump emphasized that the subject of their discussion was Jordan taking more Palestinian refugees.

“He really houses, you know, millions of Palestinians, and he does it in a very humane way. And I compliment him on that. But he really – Jordan has done an amazing job of housing largely Palestinians. And he’s done it in a very successful way.”

Trump added, “I said to him, ‘I’d love you to take on more.’ Because I’m looking at the whole Gaza Strip right now, and it’s a mess. It’s a real mess.”

The president also noted he’d like “Egypt to take people” and would talk the following day with Egyptian President Abdulfattah al-Sisi. Egyptian media reported Tuesday there has not been a discussion between the two leaders.

Trump then spoke specifics about removing some three quarters of Gaza’s population, though it wasn’t entirely clear if he thought he was talking about the entire population. “You’re talking about probably a million and a half people, and we just clean out that whole thing.”

Winging it, he acknowledged ignorance. “And I don’t know. It’s something [that] has to happen, but it’s literally a demolition site right now. Almost everything is demolished, and people are dying there. So, I’d rather get involved with some of the Arab nations and build housing at a different location where they can maybe live in peace for a change.”

Asked if this would be temporary, Trump responded, “It could be temporarily, could be long term.”

Rather than asking the obvious question about ethnic cleansing, the next journalist then pivoted to artificial intelligence.

Later, the conversation did return to Trump releasing to Israel 2,000-pound bombs paused by the Biden administration. Asked why, Trump said, “Because they bought them.”

There was no discussion about how Israel had previously used those bombs against Palestinian men, women and children in their homes to deadly effect.

This is not an adversarial press, but one that too readily concedes ground rather than challenges Trump on ethnic cleansing and American allies using American weaponry to commit serious human rights violations, including genocide.

Trump’s casual talk of ethnic cleansing received quick support from former Israeli national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir who euphemistically refers to it as Palestinians leaving on a “voluntary” basis.

Ben-Gvir tweeted: “I commend US President Trump for the initiative to transfer residents from Gaza to Jordan and Egypt. 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 – promote emigration now!”

Finance minister Bezalel Smotrich also took up the ethnic cleansing idea, though he did not mention Trump in his tweet. “After 76 years in which most of the population of Gaza was held by force under harsh conditions to maintain the ambition to destroy the state of Israel, the idea of ​​helping them find other places to start a new, good life is a great idea. After years of sanctifying terror, they will be able to establish a new, good life elsewhere.”

Smotrich did cite Trump while speaking to journalists about developing an “operational plan” to turn the president’s words into reality.

He claimed: “There is nothing to be excited about the weak opposition of Egypt and Jordan to the plan. We saw yesterday how Trump [imposed his will on] Colombia to deport immigrants despite its opposition. When he wants it, it happens.”

Unsurprisingly, as Smotrich indicates, both Jordanian and Egyptian officials reject Trump’s rhetorical broadside. Alarmingly, CNN reports that “Amit Segal, an analyst with Israeli network Channel 12 News, cited Israeli officials and reported Trump’s move was ‘not a slip of the tongue but part of a much broader move than it seems, coordinated with Israel.’”

If Segal’s claim is true, this is something to watch closely in the weeks ahead and at the Trump-Netanyahu meeting next week. Even before the inauguration, an official in the presidential transition also raised Indonesia as one of the locations to which Palestinians could be moved – meaning ethnically cleansed.

In response to a question from The Electronic Intifada asking why Trump wants Palestinians to go to Jordan and Egypt rather than to homes and lands in Israel that they were expelled from in 1948, a State Department spokesperson in bold letters responded: “We aren’t going to comment on the president’s comments. We refer you to the White House.”

It’s noteworthy the State Department is already so hollowed out by Trump that it can’t even reject ethnic cleansing. Of course, Biden’s State Department was similarly inept, even cruel, when questioned about its policies toward Israel and Palestinians in Gaza.

Al Mezan, a human rights group in Gaza, also raised the right of return rather than ethnic cleansing. “Instead of advancing or supporting actions that blatantly breach international law, the international community must commit to its enforcement by ensuring the realization of the inalienable right of Palestinian refugees – who form over 70 percent of Gaza’s total population – to return to their ancestral homes and lands from which they were forcibly expelled in 1948 by Zionist militias and the Israeli military.”

The human rights organization welcomed “the statements made by Jordan, Egypt, the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, which firmly reject any proposals or calls for the forcible transfer of Palestinians from Gaza.”

With Palestinians being denied movement north the day of Trump’s remarks, I harbored profound concerns about the plans of Trump and Netanyahu. But Palestinians moved north on Monday amid remarkable scenes of resilience and celebration, even as many knew they were likely to find ruins – courtesy of Netanyahu and President Joe Biden – where once their houses had stood.

Mitchell Plitnick at Mondoweiss points out that Trump may view Gaza as a “massive real estate swindle.” Trump’s ambiguous words earlier in the month – “some beautiful things can be done with [Gaza]” – certainly hint at that possibility and the return of illegal settlements.

Admittedly, this is reading the worst fears into his comments based on his settler-colonial inclinations as demonstrated in his first term with his colonizing actions on the Golan Heights and Jerusalem. Palestinians going north would seemingly allay those concerns, but Trump is anything but consistent, veering wildly from idea to idea.

Trump, it bears repeating, often voices the views of those he’s most recently heard from on a subject. This raises the concern that Trump is getting wretched advice.

For the moment, however, it seems Trump – who is now closely associated with the ceasefire – may make sickening comments, but still want to see at least the first stage of the ceasefire succeed.

Indeed, Trump repeated his remarks on Monday, again aboard Air Force One. He maintained that he would “like to get [Palestinians from Gaza] living in an area where they can live without disruption and revolution and violence so much.”

Trump also noted, “When you look at the Gaza Strip, it’s been hell for so many years.”

Then, weakly attempting to demonstrate his grasp of Gaza’s history though without saying a word about the 1948 Nakba and dispossession of Palestinians to Gaza, he said: “There have been various civilizations on that strip. It didn’t start here. It started thousands of years before, and there’s always been violence associated with it. You could get people living in areas that are a lot safer and maybe a lot better and maybe a lot more comfortable.”

Repeating standard American government racism about the region, Trump added: “I wish [al-Sisi] would take some. We helped them a lot, and I’m sure he’d help us. He’s a friend of mine. He’s in … a rough neighbourhood. But I think he would do it, and I think the king of Jordan would do it too.”

Even as Palestinians continue to move north, Trump’s willingness to repeat the threat is alarming as other leaders have buckled to the president’s threats previously. Ethnic cleansing, however, is on a whole different scale.

Senator Bernie Sanders did take the president to task and name Trump’s words appropriately. “There is a name for this – ethnic cleansing – and it’s a war crime,” Sanders tweeted.

Unwinding the ceasefire, as Ben-Gvir and Smotrich want, and forcing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians south again – and perhaps into Egypt – might surpass the viciousness of the past 15 months. Yet Palestinian determination to remain rooted to the land and return to northern Gaza has, for now, carried the day.

Déjà vu

There was a lot of rightful teeth-gnashing over the callous way Trump engaged with the idea of ethnic cleansing against a people that already endured the 1948 Nakba, but it certainly has a recent precedent.

The Biden administration also entertained the idea, just minus the rough edges of Trump. As Trump has, the Biden administration faced similar regional pushback.

Less than a week into the onslaught, as Secretary of State Antony Blinken prepared to fly to Israel, a journalist questioned him on the tarmac about “civilian safe passage” to Egypt.

That exchange is worth citing in full.

Journalist: “Mr Secretary, yesterday, [Biden’s national security adviser] Jake Sullivan said that US officials were talking to the Israelis about getting civilian safe passage through Gaza into Egypt. Today, [White House spokesperson] John Kirby said they’re still talking to officials about this. What is the holdup? What’s the obstacle to getting civilian safe passage out of Gaza?”

Blinken: “We are talking about that. We’re talking to Israel about that. We’re talking to Egypt about that. It’s an ongoing conversation. I can’t get into the details. Some of this is needless to say and understandably complicated, but we want to make sure to the best of our ability and I know Israel wants to make sure to the best of its ability that civilians are not harmed. But Israel has to take steps to defend itself. It has to make sure that any ongoing threat is dealt with and I believe it has to make sure that going forward what happened doesn’t happen again.”

Journalist: “Is the issue more on the Israeli side?”

Blinken: “I’m not going to get into the details, but it’s an ongoing conversation.”

Blinken is more refined in his language than the crass Trump, but he’s talking ethnic cleansing – at the very least to Egypt – in his comments. He’s just far too diplomatic to spell it out in all its ugliness.

With Blinken working this possibility, it’s clear that Biden was also giving initial support.

Yes, the Biden administration did shift away from the idea. And Trump may do the same, effectively moving in that direction with the surge of Palestinian refugees north. Both leaders certainly heard from regional leaders that ethnic cleansing to their countries would be an exceptionally bad and unacceptable idea.

What remains different for now is that Biden provided weaponry for a genocide. Trump is providing weapons, but in the midst of a ceasefire. The obvious danger is the 2,000-pound bombs will be employed later.

For the moment, however, the president remains invested in a ceasefire that he has bragged about on social media.

Trump adhering to the ceasefire remains a positive sign. His promotion of ethnic cleansing, however, even if just rhetoric at the moment, is extremely worrisome for the future, as are the champions of “Judea and Samaria” he is putting forward to represent the US at the United Nations and in Israel.

These are warning signals of how quickly Trump could allow the situation in both Gaza and the West Bank to deteriorate.

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Bob Emery replied on

Although Pres Trump probably has no religious views of his own (other than the "positive thinking" of Norman Vincent Peale), he is surrounded by fundamentalist biblical loonies who espouse a maximalist "biblical Israel" from which all non-Jews are to be expelled. I don't think he has thought through the implications--in terms of humanitarianism or religious freedom. We will have to expect this for the next four years.

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Michael F. Brown

Michael F. Brown is an independent journalist. His work and views have appeared in The International Herald Tribune, TheNation.com, The San Diego Union-Tribune, The News & Observer, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Washington Post and elsewhere.