Israel is pitching to US Congress a plan to expel Palestinians from Gaza in a second Nakba

[RilakkuMAGA]

You don't have to be a rose twitter leftist to think this is horrendous and a disaster waiting to happen. Also, maybe a uhh...war crime.

I am not, so the libs here have to find a new epithet (usually fascist or Nazi). Anything to defend their atrocity machine.

[RilakkuMAGA]

But I had post removed for saying Israel was committing ethnic cleansing and wanting to take over Gaza

The participants in USGD seem a lot more pro-Israel than the actual international forum, I think as a natural sorting in reaction to moderation deliberately targeted at criticism of Israel's government.

[Horus]

Israel is creating a giant migrant crisis, and eventually the West will take the brunt of it.

Israel pushing its Palestinian problem onto the West would DESTROY right wing support for Israel faster than the left could scream “ethnic cleansing”.

The issue with expulsion is you need somewhere to expel them to and neither the other Arab states nor the West want to take them. The Palestinians are Israel’s problem alone.

I don't think they care. The Israelis seem pretty confident that Congress will accept their plan, they are being very bold about this. We don't really tell them no, outside of a few minor details, so I don't see why they won't also get their way here. The right wing support will drop, but it won't be instantaneous as the migrants won't be immediately expelled to the West. They're sending them to other failed states, and from there they will inevitably begin the journey.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

Ideally, Gaza should just be fully integrated into Egypt.

Incredibly stupid idea.

Egypt does not want them. Not just because of racism/nationalism/anti-immigrant/anti-refugee sentiment (though there is that too), but because there is already an insurgency in the Sinai peninsula.

If Egypt is suddenly ruling over an extra 2 million Palestinians (who are not going to just abandon the Palestinian cause), that will further destabilize Egypt (much as for example the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon destabilized Lebanon. It could lead to civil war/overthrow of government in Egypt.

The last thing any sane person should want is the chance of Egypt becoming another Lebanon or Syria.

[Open Source Intelligence]

A new initiative submitted to the US Congress calls for conditioning American aid to Arab countries on their willingness to receive refugees from Gaza, Israel Hayom has learned.

The proposal was shown to key figures in the House and Senate from both parties. Some who were privy to the details of the text have so far kept a low profile, saying that publicly coming out in favor of the program could derail it.

"Israel is trying to keep civilian casualties in the Gaza Strip as low as possible, but Hamas is not allowing the refugees to leave and Egypt is unwilling to open its borders,"  the plan's authors write in the opening paragraph. They later go on to explain that "the only moral solution is to ensure that Egypt opens its borders and allows for the refugees to flee from the tyrant control of Hamas. The US Government provides Egypt with approximately $1.3 billion in foreign aid, and these funds can be allocated to the refugees from Gaza who will be allowed into Egypt."

They continue: "The neighboring borders have been closed for too long, but it is now clear that in order to free the Gazan population from the tyrannical oppression of Hamas and to allow them to live free of war and bloodshed, Israel must encourage the international community to find the correct, moral and humane avenues for the relocation of the Gazan population."

The plan notes that Egypt should not shoulder the entire burden, but other regional countries should chip in. "Iraq and Yemen receive an approximate $1 billion in US foreign aid, and Turkey receives more than $150 million. Each of these countries receive enough foreign aid and have a large enough population to be able to accept refugees adding up to less than 1% of their population," the stress.

The plan also calls on the US to condition foreign aid to Egypt, Iraq, Yemen, and Turkey on those countries accepting a certain number of refugees.  

The plan even goes so far as to envision how many Gazan residents each of these countries will receive: one million in Egypt (constituting 0.9% of the population there), half a million for Turkey (0.6% of the population in Turkey), 250,000 for Iraq (0.6% of the Iraqi population), and another 250,000 for Yemen (0.75% of the overall population there currently). Each of these countries receives generous financial aid from the US and under the plan, it should continue to be handed out only under the condition that they accept Gazans. It should be noted that the Biden administration opposes the forced removal of Gaza residents from the Strip but has not ruled out voluntary migration for those who choose to do so.

https://www.israelhayom.com/2023/11/29/senior-us-lawmakers-review-plan-that-conditions-aid-on-arab-countries-receiving-gazans/

The news in this should be asking and answering the question "who are the plan's authors?" As in names. If it's individuals inside the Israeli government, why are they writing legislation for consideration by Congress?

Also, anyone notice the plan does not call for Saudi Arabia to accept anyone?

This is a completely horrid precedent if applied to just about every other situation in the world by the way.

[John Dule]

But I guess it would be a second Nakba in a certain sense, since the first one was also people voluntarily leaving a government they didn't want to live under.

This is like saying the Trail of Tears was voluntary. Jesus Christ.

[Comrade Funk]

But I guess it would be a second Nakba in a certain sense, since the first one was also people voluntarily leaving a government they didn't want to live under.

This is like saying the Trail of Tears was voluntary. Jesus Christ.

I mean, yeah. He hides his pro-apartheid, pro-ethnic cleansing views behind those laboriously long screeds he wastes his time on...as though a five paragraph dissertation will justify it.

[Vosem]

But I guess it would be a second Nakba in a certain sense, since the first one was also people voluntarily leaving a government they didn't want to live under.

This is like saying the Trail of Tears was voluntary. Jesus Christ.

No, there is a difference between being forced out by a government and leaving because you don't want to live under a particular regime. Plenty of Israeli Arabs stayed, precisely because there were not expulsions by force. (They were, incidentally, economically and politically better off afterwards.) Leaving because you fear that the new regime will commit reprisals is sad, but it isn't forced expulsion, especially because the new regime didn't commit those reprisals. It is more analogous to something like Loyalists fleeing after the American Revolution; it was unfortunate but it was not, actually, caused by deliberate policy on the part of the United States, and those that stayed were ultimately fine. The reason for it was political conviction.

This is an interesting dispute because in discussions with Palestinian-Americans in the real world -- as mentioned before I went to high school in a decently heavily Arab-American community -- I've never heard pushback on the point that their ancestors left because of fear of the new regime (or literally for the purpose of joining political movements which opposed it), rather than being forced out, but on the Internet I invariably get linked to various small-r revisionist post-Cold War historians and told that this is the most offensive opinion it is possible to hold.

But I guess it would be a second Nakba in a certain sense, since the first one was also people voluntarily leaving a government they didn't want to live under.

This is like saying the Trail of Tears was voluntary. Jesus Christ.

I mean, yeah. He hides his pro-apartheid, pro-ethnic cleansing views behind those laboriously long screeds he wastes his time on...as though a five paragraph dissertation will justify it.

Oh my God, literally when in 14 years of posting here have I hidden a single opinion

as I believe I said in IRC, Vosem appears so absurd because he explicitly states what are meant only to be the implicit tenets of neoliberal ideology.

So many people are unprepared to hear disagreement with their opinions. Since 2012 the problem has gotten much worse, too.

[John Dule]

But I guess it would be a second Nakba in a certain sense, since the first one was also people voluntarily leaving a government they didn't want to live under.

This is like saying the Trail of Tears was voluntary. Jesus Christ.

No, there is a difference between being forced out by a government and leaving because you don't want to live under a particular regime. Plenty of Israeli Arabs stayed, precisely because there were not expulsions by force. (They were, incidentally, economically and politically better off afterwards.) Leaving because you fear that the new regime will commit reprisals is sad, but it isn't forced expulsion, especially because the new regime didn't commit those reprisals. It is more analogous to something like Loyalists fleeing after the American Revolution; it was unfortunate but it was not, actually, caused by deliberate policy on the part of the United States, and those that stayed were ultimately fine. The reason for it was political conviction.

This is an interesting dispute because in discussions with Palestinian-Americans in the real world -- as mentioned before I went to high school in a decently heavily Arab-American community -- I've never heard pushback on the point that their ancestors left because of fear of the new regime (or literally for the purpose of joining political movements which opposed it), rather than being forced out, but on the Internet I invariably get linked to various small-r revisionist post-Cold War historians and told that this is the most offensive opinion it is possible to hold.

Saying the Palestinians left during the Nakba because "they didn't want to live under a particular regime" is a nauseating whitewash of the destruction of villages, the poisoning of Arab wells, mass rape, unlawful imprisonment, and the massacre of villagers. Yeah, the reprisals didn't continue afterwards... because Israel got what it wanted. If the Palestinians had stayed, there is little doubt in my mind that Zionist militias would have continued to harass and torment them. If you think it vindicates your argument to say that the Israeli military didn't literally march them out of the land at gunpoint, then good for you I guess. But that is hardly the point.

It's becoming increasingly clear that Israel defenders cannot possibly justify their positions without engaging in absurd historical revisionism or erasure. You are not helping your cause with these posts. Every time I read something like this, I become more pro-Palestine.

[Vosem]

But I guess it would be a second Nakba in a certain sense, since the first one was also people voluntarily leaving a government they didn't want to live under.

This is like saying the Trail of Tears was voluntary. Jesus Christ.

No, there is a difference between being forced out by a government and leaving because you don't want to live under a particular regime. Plenty of Israeli Arabs stayed, precisely because there were not expulsions by force. (They were, incidentally, economically and politically better off afterwards.) Leaving because you fear that the new regime will commit reprisals is sad, but it isn't forced expulsion, especially because the new regime didn't commit those reprisals. It is more analogous to something like Loyalists fleeing after the American Revolution; it was unfortunate but it was not, actually, caused by deliberate policy on the part of the United States, and those that stayed were ultimately fine. The reason for it was political conviction.

This is an interesting dispute because in discussions with Palestinian-Americans in the real world -- as mentioned before I went to high school in a decently heavily Arab-American community -- I've never heard pushback on the point that their ancestors left because of fear of the new regime (or literally for the purpose of joining political movements which opposed it), rather than being forced out, but on the Internet I invariably get linked to various small-r revisionist post-Cold War historians and told that this is the most offensive opinion it is possible to hold.

Saying the Palestinians left during the Nakba because "they didn't want to live under a particular regime" is a nauseating whitewash of the destruction of villages, the poisoning of Arab wells, mass rape, unlawful imprisonment, and the massacre of villagers. Yeah, the reprisals didn't continue afterwards... because Israel got what it wanted. If the Palestinians had stayed, there is little doubt in my mind that Zionist militias would have continued to harass and torment them. If you think it vindicates your argument to say that the Israeli military didn't literally march them out of the land at gunpoint, then good for you I guess. But that is hardly the point.

It's becoming increasingly clear that Israel defenders cannot possibly justify their positions without engaging in absurd historical revisionism or erasure. You are not helping your cause with these posts. Every time I read something like this, I become more pro-Palestine.

The counterfactual here isn’t necessary because the counterfactual exists: many stayed behind and were not, in any way, harassed to emigrate. The argument that they were deliberately expelled is a conspiracy-theory one because no evidence for such a conspiracy has ever been found.

That those who fled were prevented from returning during and after the war, for essentially political reasons, is simply true. Your opinion of the fact pattern “people of an ethnicity known to be hostile to another flee a government led by the second and are then not permitted to return” can inform your opinion of numerous modern countries — it should imply enormous hostility to Algeria, Pakistan, India, Rwanda, and much of Eastern Europe — and it is virtually never depicted in the way the Israeli case is. I don’t think you would argue that Rwanda must take the hundreds of thousands of Hutus who fled the Kagame government, most of whom are not individually guilty of any crime but are politically opposed to the current regime in Kigali. (I think there is an important difference, incidentally, between countries like Israel, India, or Rwanda — where those who stay are treated with respect, even if those who leave are uniformly not allowed back — and countries like Pakistan or Myanmar, where those of the minority who remain actually are variously harassed and pressured to emigrate. By observing this you can learn something important about the character of a society.)

I don’t think I have much more to say here. The argument is reminiscent of arguments about the ceasefire, which start from the premises that peace is good and international norms must be followed. Both of these points are true. Yet peace is only possible when both sides forswear continued attacks, and the real international norms in existence are in existence to preserve sovereign states. You cannot support peace without supporting an end to those who would make war, and you cannot support international norms and conquest by force, the main thing that they exist to prevent.

[John Dule]

The counterfactual here isn’t necessary because the counterfactual exists: many stayed behind and were not, in any way, harassed to emigrate. The argument that they were deliberately expelled is a conspiracy-theory one because no evidence for such a conspiracy has ever been found.

This only makes sense if you believe that Israel's goal was to expel every last Arab from its land. Israel wanted to seize land and ensure a Jewish majority in that new territory, and they had no problem with treating the Arab minority well so long as that was the case. Again, all this means is that the Nakba accomplished its essential goal of expelling the vast majority of Palestinians.

The eviction of Arab civilians was a goal of the Ben-Gurion government and it devoted substantial resources to achieving that end, even if it was not explicitly stated outright. This is the definition of ethnic cleansing. There is no "conspiracy" involved. All one must do is look at the public historical record (not even factoring in the elements that Israel has tried to conceal). I'm not sure what possible counterargument one could make to this.

[OSR stands with Israel]

Dule at worst you can say Likud are Cheney style neocons but that’s still obviously better than being literally the Islamist version of Nazis (and yes Palestinian extremism has a direct link to Hitler) so please stop with false equivalency.   Even if you think both sides are bad , what the British did with their empire is far far worse than anything Israel has done yet they were obviously the good guys vs the Nazis because good is a relative comparison .

Saying you oppose both sides is a complete false equivalence here and you should know better than to do that

[John Dule]

Dule at worst you can say Likud are Cheney style neocons but that’s still obviously better than being literally the Islamist version of Nazis (and yes Palestinian extremism has a direct link to Hitler) so please stop with false equivalency.   Even if you think both sides are bad , what the British did with their empire is far far worse than anything Israel has done yet they were obviously the good guys vs the Nazis because good is a relative comparison .

Saying you oppose both sides is a complete false equivalence here and you should know better than to do that

You can keep coming in with your "crosstabs" about "Palestinian public opinion" all you want. It will not win over anyone aside from your fellow extremely online Indian Zionist weirdos. To everyone else, comparing civilians who are being bombed and expelled from their homes to the most evil regime in human history will always be in poor taste. 

Don't worry-- when Israel finally enacts its final solution outlined in the OP, I will no longer "both sides" this conflict. I will be outright pro-Palestine.

[OSR stands with Israel]

Dule at worst you can say Likud are Cheney style neocons but that’s still obviously better than being literally the Islamist version of Nazis (and yes Palestinian extremism has a direct link to Hitler) so please stop with false equivalency.   Even if you think both sides are bad , what the British did with their empire is far far worse than anything Israel has done yet they were obviously the good guys vs the Nazis because good is a relative comparison .

Saying you oppose both sides is a complete false equivalence here and you should know better than to do that

You can keep coming in with your "crosstabs" about "Palestinian public opinion" all you want. It will not win over anyone aside from your fellow extremely online Indian Zionist weirdos. To everyone else, comparing civilians who are being bombed and expelled from their homes to the most evil regime in human history will always be in poor taste.  

Don't worry-- when Israel finally enacts its final solution outlined in the OP, I will no longer "both sides" this conflict. I will be outright pro-Palestine.

Palestinian Extremism has direct links to Hitler and Nazis and its government is run by adherents to that ideology. So yes it is completely fair to compare them to Nazis because they have direct link to the Nazis and denying this is completely morally disgusting in every way possible. Anyway Israel bombing of Gaza is far less extensive than our bombing of Germany in 1945 so your point is false to begin with as well .

Lastly it’s just not online Indians who are supporting Israel but Indians in general as India has taken a significantly more pro Israel stand than it has in the past so the fact is Israel has far more support today than it had in the past and that includes by our government which is far more pro Israel than it was prior to the 1990s

[Horus]

Dule at worst you can say Likud are Cheney style neocons but that’s still obviously better than being literally the Islamist version of Nazis (and yes Palestinian extremism has a direct link to Hitler) so please stop with false equivalency.   Even if you think both sides are bad , what the British did with their empire is far far worse than anything Israel has done yet they were obviously the good guys vs the Nazis because good is a relative comparison .

Saying you oppose both sides is a complete false equivalence here and you should know better than to do that

You can keep coming in with your "crosstabs" about "Palestinian public opinion" all you want. It will not win over anyone aside from your fellow extremely online Indian Zionist weirdos. To everyone else, comparing civilians who are being bombed and expelled from their homes to the most evil regime in human history will always be in poor taste.  

Don't worry-- when Israel finally enacts its final solution outlined in the OP, I will no longer "both sides" this conflict. I will be outright pro-Palestine.

Palestinian Extremism has direct links to Hitler and Nazis and its government is run by adherents to that ideology. So yes it is completely fair to compare them to Nazis because they have direct link to the Nazis and denying this is completely morally disgusting in every way possible. Anyway Israel bombing of Gaza is far less extensive than our bombing of Germany in 1945 so your point is false to begin with as well .

Lastly it’s just not online Indians who are supporting Israel but Indians in general as India has taken a significantly more pro Israel stand than it has in the past so the fact is Israel has far more support today than it had in the past and that includes by our government which is far more pro Israel than it was prior to the 1990s

True, Modi and his cretins are both pro Israel and pro Russia, which is the most evil, psychopathic combo there is. Just gravitating to the more powerful actor. Absolutely soulless.

[John Dule]

Dule at worst you can say Likud are Cheney style neocons but that’s still obviously better than being literally the Islamist version of Nazis (and yes Palestinian extremism has a direct link to Hitler) so please stop with false equivalency.   Even if you think both sides are bad , what the British did with their empire is far far worse than anything Israel has done yet they were obviously the good guys vs the Nazis because good is a relative comparison .

Saying you oppose both sides is a complete false equivalence here and you should know better than to do that

You can keep coming in with your "crosstabs" about "Palestinian public opinion" all you want. It will not win over anyone aside from your fellow extremely online Indian Zionist weirdos. To everyone else, comparing civilians who are being bombed and expelled from their homes to the most evil regime in human history will always be in poor taste. 

Don't worry-- when Israel finally enacts its final solution outlined in the OP, I will no longer "both sides" this conflict. I will be outright pro-Palestine.

Palestinian Extremism has direct links to Hitler and Nazis and its government is run by adherents to that ideology. So yes it is completely fair to compare them to Nazis because they have direct link to the Nazis and denying this is completely morally disgusting in every way possible. Anyway Israel bombing of Gaza is far less extensive than our bombing of Germany in 1945 so your point is false to begin with as well .

Even if you could prove empirically that every Arab resident of Gaza was an antisemitic neo-Nazi (which is ridiculous), that would not justify their mass murder and expulsion from their homes. We are not talking about civilians living in a country we have declared war on. We are talking about civilians who are being used as human shields by a terrorist organization that is deliberately trying to get as many innocents caught in the crossfire as possible to strengthen their own propaganda. And Israel is taking that bait without any reservation, egged on by Netanyahu and his land-grabbing cronies.

Neither Hamas nor Likud care about the lives of Palestinian civilians. This is a situation that cannot be defined as anything but "both sides are bad."

[OSR stands with Israel]

Dule at worst you can say Likud are Cheney style neocons but that’s still obviously better than being literally the Islamist version of Nazis (and yes Palestinian extremism has a direct link to Hitler) so please stop with false equivalency.   Even if you think both sides are bad , what the British did with their empire is far far worse than anything Israel has done yet they were obviously the good guys vs the Nazis because good is a relative comparison .

Saying you oppose both sides is a complete false equivalence here and you should know better than to do that

You can keep coming in with your "crosstabs" about "Palestinian public opinion" all you want. It will not win over anyone aside from your fellow extremely online Indian Zionist weirdos. To everyone else, comparing civilians who are being bombed and expelled from their homes to the most evil regime in human history will always be in poor taste. 

Don't worry-- when Israel finally enacts its final solution outlined in the OP, I will no longer "both sides" this conflict. I will be outright pro-Palestine.

Palestinian Extremism has direct links to Hitler and Nazis and its government is run by adherents to that ideology. So yes it is completely fair to compare them to Nazis because they have direct link to the Nazis and denying this is completely morally disgusting in every way possible. Anyway Israel bombing of Gaza is far less extensive than our bombing of Germany in 1945 so your point is false to begin with as well .

Even if you could prove empirically that every Arab resident of Gaza was an antisemitic neo-Nazi (which is ridiculous), that would not justify their mass murder and expulsion from their homes. We are not talking about civilians living in a country we have declared war on. We are talking about civilians who are being used as human shields by a terrorist organization that is deliberately trying to get as many innocents caught in the crossfire as possible to strengthen their own propaganda. And Israel is taking that bait without any reservation, egged on by Netanyahu and his land-grabbing cronies.

Neither Hamas nor Likud care about the lives of Palestinian civilians. This is a situation that cannot be defined as anything but "both sides are bad."

Their plan is literally trying to reduce as many civilian casualties as possible by trying to convince neighbors countries to accept residents of Gaza into their nation . Literally all this plan does is condition US aid to Egypt , Jordan , Iraq on them accepting refugees from Gaza which isn’t ethnic cleansing by any definition. It is actually propaganda to call it that so please stop .

[John Dule]

Their plan is literally trying to reduce as many civilian casualties as possible by trying to convince neighbors countries to accept residents of Gaza into their nation . Literally all this plan does is condition US aid to Egypt , Jordan , Iraq on them accepting refugees from Gaza which isn’t ethnic cleansing by any definition. It is actually propaganda to call it that so please stop .

Do me a favor: Look at the numbers in the OP. Assuming those accurately reflect what's being proposed-- 1 million refugees to Egypt, 500k to Turkey, and 250k each to Iraq and Yemen-- then that accounts for the entire population of the Gaza strip. This is not Israel attempting to set up "refugee corridors" for people who might want to flee voluntarily. This is very obviously a first step towards expelling every single last resident of Gaza.

There is also no reason to believe that this report is inaccurate, as it comes from a conservative Israeli news outlet that is a staunch Netanyahu supporter.

Please explain to me how this is not ethnic cleansing in the making. I would love to hear your tortured logic stretch itself to its absolute breaking point.

[Open Source Intelligence]

Their plan is literally trying to reduce as many civilian casualties as possible by trying to convince neighbors countries to accept residents of Gaza into their nation . Literally all this plan does is condition US aid to Egypt , Jordan , Iraq on them accepting refugees from Gaza which isn’t ethnic cleansing by any definition. It is actually propaganda to call it that so please stop .

Do me a favor: Look at the numbers in the OP. Assuming those accurately reflect what's being proposed-- 1 million refugees to Egypt, 500k to Turkey, and 250k each to Iraq and Yemen-- then that accounts for the entire population of the Gaza strip. This is not Israel attempting to set up "refugee corridors" for people who might want to flee voluntarily. This is very obviously a first step towards expelling every single last resident of Gaza.

There is also no reason to believe that this report is inaccurate, as it comes from a conservative Israeli news outlet that is a staunch Netanyahu supporter.

Please explain to me how this is not ethnic cleansing in the making. I would love to hear your tortured logic stretch itself to its absolute breaking point.

And again: if this were a real plan, why is Saudi Arabia nor any rich Gulf-side Arab state not included when they receive a ton of foreign aid from the U.S. and are much richer and would be better able to accommodate refugees than for example Yemen and Iraq?

Including Yemen on this list makes no sense considering the situation there.

If the plan is just "you receive aid from the U.S., get some Gaza refugees to continue getting it...we're planting them everywhere globally?

[OSR stands with Israel]

Their plan is literally trying to reduce as many civilian casualties as possible by trying to convince neighbors countries to accept residents of Gaza into their nation . Literally all this plan does is condition US aid to Egypt , Jordan , Iraq on them accepting refugees from Gaza which isn’t ethnic cleansing by any definition. It is actually propaganda to call it that so please stop .

Do me a favor: Look at the numbers in the OP. Assuming those accurately reflect what's being proposed-- 1 million refugees to Egypt, 500k to Turkey, and 250k each to Iraq and Yemen-- then that accounts for the entire population of the Gaza strip. This is not Israel attempting to set up "refugee corridors" for people who might want to flee voluntarily. This is very obviously a first step towards expelling every single last resident of Gaza.

There is also no reason to believe that this report is inaccurate, as it comes from a conservative Israeli news outlet that is a staunch Netanyahu supporter.

Please explain to me how this is not ethnic cleansing in the making. I would love to hear your tortured logic stretch itself to its absolute breaking point.

It clearly states it won’t be forced though. I have a question for you and that is if Likud was a genocidal as you claim then why have they even bothered with doing a ground invasion rather than just completely carpet bomb Gaza beginning on 10/8.

Doesn’t the fact they are doing a ground invasion and not conducting a bombing campaign even as extensive as our bombing campaign against ISIS show that they aren’t genocidal

[John Dule]

It clearly states it won’t be forced though.

Right, just like how the Nakba wasn't forced I guess Israel can cut off electricity, drinking water, basic emergency services, foreign aid, and imports of medical and other essential supplies... but if the Palestinians want to leave, it's ultimately their choice. Don't make me laugh.

I have a question for you and that is if Likud was a genocidal as you claim then why have they even bothered with doing a ground invasion rather than just completely carpet bomb Gaza beginning on 10/8.

Doesn’t the fact they are doing a ground invasion and not conducting a bombing campaign even as extensive as our bombing campaign against ISIS show that they aren’t genocidal

Look at how world opinion has turned against Israel in the past two months, and then ask yourself how much worse the situation would be if Israel were to simply level Gaza. I doubt if even the bowtied neocons you worship would continue to support Likud if it wiped out two million people in one fell swoop. Honestly, could you bring yourself to justify such an action? If Israel were to lose the support of even people like you, it would become a pariah state overnight. It is ultimately still completely dependent upon support from the United States, and while it has jeopardized that support, it cannot take any action that would eliminate it.

Now answer my question: What possible motive could Israel have for suggesting refugee allocations equivalent to the entire population of Gaza aside from depopulating Gaza? And if that were to happen, why would that not be ethnic cleansing?

[OSR stands with Israel]

It clearly states it won’t be forced though.

Right, just like how the Nakba wasn't forced I guess Israel can cut off electricity, drinking water, basic emergency services, foreign aid, and imports of medical and other essential supplies... but if the Palestinians want to leave, it's ultimately their choice. Don't make me laugh.

I have a question for you and that is if Likud was a genocidal as you claim then why have they even bothered with doing a ground invasion rather than just completely carpet bomb Gaza beginning on 10/8.

Doesn’t the fact they are doing a ground invasion and not conducting a bombing campaign even as extensive as our bombing campaign against ISIS show that they aren’t genocidal

Look at how world opinion has turned against Israel in the past two months, and then ask yourself how much worse the situation would be if Israel were to simply level Gaza. I doubt if even the bowtied neocons you worship would continue to support Likud if it wiped out two million people in one fell swoop. Honestly, could you bring yourself to justify such an action? If Israel were to lose the support of even people like you, it would become a pariah state overnight. It is ultimately still completely dependent upon support from the United States, and while it has jeopardized that support, it cannot take any action that would eliminate it.

Now answer my question: What possible motive could Israel have for suggesting refugee allocations equivalent to the entire population of Gaza aside from depopulating Gaza? And if that were to happen, why would that not be ethnic cleansing?

1. The plan clearly would be in coordination with the US government

2. No I wouldn’t be able to support them if they did that but would they care what the US thought if they were as bad as you say they were . Genocidal leaders don’t care about world opinion as much and they probably would try to openly court Russia or China in this case or would think they could court them as these types of leaders are extremely arrogant

3. I reject the premise that world has turned on them . The US is more supportive of Israel than it was prior to the 1990s . India is more supportive of Israel than they ever have been and arguably so is most of Western Europe .

4. Look at the plan proposed by Henry Morgenthau for what the Allies should do to post WW2 Germany and you can see even we have floated absolutely horrible plans as well . What mattered was it wasn’t implemented and neither will this one

[John Dule]

1. The plan clearly would be in coordination with the US government

Yeah, duh, because it depends on us cutting off aid if these countries refuse to take the refugees. What's your point?

2. No I wouldn’t be able to support them if they did that but would they care what the US thought if they were as bad as you say they were . Genocidal leaders don’t care about world opinion as much and they probably would try to openly court Russia or China in this case or would think they could court them as these types of leaders are extremely arrogant

Genocidal leaders absolutely do care about the opinions of their benefactors, because they depend upon them for their existence. Israel has no one else to turn to; the US is the most powerful country on Earth, and Russia and China are not nearly as invested in it, nor do they have anything to gain by aligning themselves with a tiny country that is outright hated by all its neighbors.

3. I reject the premise that world has turned on them . The US is more supportive of Israel than it was prior to the 1990s . India is more supportive of Israel than they ever have been and arguably so is most of Western Europe .

There have been protests across Europe and the US against Israel's actions for the past two months. These protests have dwarfed those supporting Israel.

In any case, this isn't essential to my point. I am simply saying that Likud has had to restrain itself in order to appease western interests. There are dozens of Likud politicians who have suggested simply flattening Gaza; I don't know if those voices would have won out under different circumstances, but you cannot deny that they exist.

4. Look at the plan proposed by Henry Morgenthau for what the Allies should do to post WW2 Germany and you can see even we have floated absolutely horrible plans as well . What mattered was it wasn’t implemented and neither will this one

Ok, then let's not let it get to that point. I think it's clear from the rhetoric coming from Likud politicians and ministers that Israel is close to taking some sort of drastic action with Gaza (whether it's the one outlined in the OP or not). Can we agree that Netanyahu and all his cronies should be expelled from office so as to prevent them from acting on the ideas they've floated?

[OSR stands with Israel]

1. The plan clearly would be in coordination with the US government

Yeah, duh, because it depends on us cutting off aid if these countries refuse to take the refugees. What's your point?

2. No I wouldn’t be able to support them if they did that but would they care what the US thought if they were as bad as you say they were . Genocidal leaders don’t care about world opinion as much and they probably would try to openly court Russia or China in this case or would think they could court them as these types of leaders are extremely arrogant

Genocidal leaders absolutely do care about the opinions of their benefactors, because they depend upon them for their existence. Israel has no one else to turn to; the US is the most powerful country on Earth, and Russia and China are not nearly as invested in it, nor do they have anything to gain by aligning themselves with a tiny country that is outright hated by all its neighbors.

3. I reject the premise that world has turned on them . The US is more supportive of Israel than it was prior to the 1990s . India is more supportive of Israel than they ever have been and arguably so is most of Western Europe .

There have been protests across Europe and the US against Israel's actions for the past two months. These protests have dwarfed those supporting Israel.

In any case, this isn't essential to my point. I am simply saying that Likud has had to restrain itself in order to appease western interests. There are dozens of Likud politicians who have suggested simply flattening Gaza; I don't know if those voices would have won out under different circumstances, but you cannot deny that they exist.

4. Look at the plan proposed by Henry Morgenthau for what the Allies should do to post WW2 Germany and you can see even we have floated absolutely horrible plans as well . What mattered was it wasn’t implemented and neither will this one

Ok, then let's not let it get to that point. I think it's clear from the rhetoric coming from Likud politicians and ministers that Israel is close to taking some sort of drastic action with Gaza (whether it's the one outlined in the OP or not). Can we agree that Netanyahu and all his cronies should be expelled from office so as to prevent them from acting on the ideas they've floated?

1. yes and we probably may consider it for a more limited and more workable plan than the one floated here . We will likely propose a much more humanitarian way to do this and implement that plan

2. That’s true but you also have to agree they are far more arrogant to think they won’t lose support or will get support from others . Israel also has a good deal amount of nukes so such a leader may think they wouldn’t need the support from the US either .

3. As the summer of 2020 shows , big protests doesn’t mean public support . What matters at the end of the day are what the policy makers in each nation supports and the summer of 2020 showed them that they don’t need to go along with the opinions of large and intense protests.

I do not deny that but I would point you to also Lindsey Graham rhetoric here or the rhetoric of many neoconservative politicians that didn’t end up actually taking place . At the end of the day what the military leadership does matters more when it comes to individual battles or operations .

4. Israel has brought in many opposition parties into the wartime cabinet so Likud already has less power than they did before and Bibi probably will be removed before post war plans are implemented

[Vosem]

The counterfactual here isn’t necessary because the counterfactual exists: many stayed behind and were not, in any way, harassed to emigrate. The argument that they were deliberately expelled is a conspiracy-theory one because no evidence for such a conspiracy has ever been found.

This only makes sense if you believe that Israel's goal was to expel every last Arab from its land. Israel wanted to seize land and ensure a Jewish majority in that new territory, and they had no problem with treating the Arab minority well so long as that was the case. Again, all this means is that the Nakba accomplished its essential goal of expelling the vast majority of Palestinians.

The eviction of Arab civilians was a goal of the Ben-Gurion government and it devoted substantial resources to achieving that end, even if it was not explicitly stated outright. This is the definition of ethnic cleansing. There is no "conspiracy" involved. All one must do is look at the public historical record (not even factoring in the elements that Israel has tried to conceal). I'm not sure what possible counterargument one could make to this.

We can look at the public historical record, see that there was not a plan to evict and that the evictions were largely not forced. Indeed the plan was to take only enough land that a Jewish majority could be guaranteed, which is why in spite of the substantial military advantage at the end they did not press their advantage into the West Bank, and left religious sites and their own water supply in the hands of other governments. If the goal was to kick everyone out, then what happened in Jerusalem? (This contrasts strongly with forced population movements of the same period in eastern Europe, or the Trail of Tears, which were indeed done largely under the threat of imminent genocidal violence and were ordered and planned on high by governments. The other analogy, I guess, is to Rwanda, where you see a similar case of the international community refraining from pressuring a country to take back refugees, and instead accepting that they be resettled elsewhere. One can even draw something like an equivalence between M23 and the Lebanese Forces, though the Congolese case is both in a much poorer country and on a far larger scale.)

Their plan is literally trying to reduce as many civilian casualties as possible by trying to convince neighbors countries to accept residents of Gaza into their nation . Literally all this plan does is condition US aid to Egypt , Jordan , Iraq on them accepting refugees from Gaza which isn’t ethnic cleansing by any definition. It is actually propaganda to call it that so please stop .

Do me a favor: Look at the numbers in the OP. Assuming those accurately reflect what's being proposed-- 1 million refugees to Egypt, 500k to Turkey, and 250k each to Iraq and Yemen-- then that accounts for the entire population of the Gaza strip. This is not Israel attempting to set up "refugee corridors" for people who might want to flee voluntarily. This is very obviously a first step towards expelling every single last resident of Gaza.

There is also no reason to believe that this report is inaccurate, as it comes from a conservative Israeli news outlet that is a staunch Netanyahu supporter.

Please explain to me how this is not ethnic cleansing in the making. I would love to hear your tortured logic stretch itself to its absolute breaking point.

This report is kind of obviously fantastical, just based on the specific countries and numbers listed (many of which would not be amenable to any kind of agreement with Israel or the US, much less one to absorb vast numbers of immigrants). On the other hand, the idea that a peace settlement will have to mandate that countries which have seen multiple generations of Palestinian refugees give them citizenship, and that a Palestinian government cannot try to impose controls on emigration as if it were the Eastern Bloc, is also self-evident, and the US government conditioning aid on "you cannot maltreat people" is something that should have been done from the very beginning, under Truman/Eisenhower.

Even more generally, trying to police which Middle Eastern countries take which migrants, and how they treat them, has obviously become a political goal of Central European countries over the past decade. I don't know how that'll pan out -- the rise of Kais Saied in Tunisia suggests to me that the Middle Eastern countries will flatly refuse no matter how much they are bribed, and most likely whenever Erdogan ultimately loses there will be a migrant crisis of enormous proportions. I have no idea what the solution is or how it will end. My guess is that it is plausible that there will be an opportunistic attempt to use this crisis to establish norms that the Central European countries like better than the existing ones.