From Greenland to Gaza

TRANSCRIPT

So, Donald Trump has now said that he wants the United States to take over the Gaza Strip and expel all the people there. This, in a way, is what I feared. This is the nightmare scenario that has been like kind of haunting me for even before October 7^th. And it’s something that gradually emerged for me over the years when I watched Israel do ever more terrible things, really even going back to Avigdor Lieberman when he became foreign minister in 2009. It’s quaint now, but that was considered kind of a shocking event.

I watched my community. I watched my people in the United States. And I began to notice something. There was no limit. There was nothing that Israel could do where the organized Jewish community in the United States would say: enough. There was no independent moral standard. Israel would act, and then there would be a post hoc justification of explaining why actually this was totally legitimate and in fact quite praiseworthy, or at the very least necessary.

So, people had said in the organized American Jewish community for years: Israel really, really wants a Palestinian state. No, they really, really want one. The Palestinians won’t accept one. When Netanyahu came back in 2009, you had Israeli governments that very frankly said: we passionately oppose a Palestinian state. We will never allow one to happen. And then the response from the organized American Jewish community said: well, how can you blame them? It’s far too dangerous to have a Palestinian state.

And you’re like, but wait a second. I thought just the day before yesterday, you were saying that Israel really wanted a Palestinian state, but the Palestinians wouldn’t accept one, right. This is just an example of what we see again and again. And because when you treat—this is the central point of my book—when you treat a state as a God, when you worship a state, when you see a state as having unconditional inherent value rather than having to be judged against something else, judged against the standard of international law, judged against the standard of the human dignity of the people under its control, then that state can do whatever it wants.

And so, I feared that Israel, after October 7^th happened, after the horror of October 7^th, immediately there were reports that Israel wanted to expel Palestinians en masse from Gaza. There were reports in the Washington Post that Netanyahu was trying to convince Western leaders to pressure Egypt to do this. And I remember right at the beginning, I started hearing the discourse. The discourse was: well, that would be a tremendous humanitarian gesture. How noble of Israel to allow the Palestinians to leave Gaza given how terrible Gaza is. And so, you could already see the justifications that were building.

And now, this idea is now back on the table, right, because it was the position of the Israeli right, but it wasn’t sure that it was going to be possible because Sisi, the Egyptian leader, had adamantly opposed it. And now, Donald Trump has put it smack back on the table. And the very American Jewish leaders, watch this, watch the response in the next days. The same people who would have accused you of being a vicious antisemite two days ago if you had suggested that there was any possibility of mass expulsion of Palestinians will now defend that prospect, AIPAC, the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish community. I would love to be proven wrong. I don’t think I will be.

Just watch the pro-Israel politicians. Instead of saying, this is monstrous. This violates a moral red line we have. We might have been willing to bomb Gaza to smithereens, but we don’t believe in mass ethnic cleansing. They will move the bar and say, actually, this is a humanitarian gesture because Gaza is unlivable, right—not mentioning who made Gaza unlivable, right—Gaza is unlivable. And therefore, it would be better for all concerned if the Palestinians had a chance to start a new life in some other country. This is what it means to treat a state as a God. This is what idolatry means in practice. The most horrifying barbarism. It’s in the Tanakh. It’s in the Hebrew Bible. The connection between idolatry, which is the worship of something human and the destruction of human life, right. This is what we’re seeing, right. So, this is from the position of the organized American Jewish community, right. And Netanyahu, you notice, immediately started applauding this when Trump said it.

The second question is: why Trump is doing this? Why, right? It’s not something that most other American politicians, indeed even most Republicans, were talking about, right. They might have been open to Israel expelling Palestinians, but they weren’t suggesting that America take this over. I think it has everything to do with Greenland. To understand Gaza, you have to understand Greenland. And what you have to understand is that Donald Trump has gone beyond the Republican position, which was just to [not] apologize for America’s past history of imperialism and reject criticism. He’s such a passionate believer in that American imperialist project that he wants to revive it in its most naked form, right. Not just kind of neo-imperialism where America basically, you know, tells other countries what to do, but actually where America actually physically takes control of the territory and the resources. This is the way he talks about Panama, and Canada, and Greenland.

And now, Gaza is part of this project, right. And so, this is directly related to this ferocious attack on diversity, equity, inclusion, this massive backlash, right. The idea is we will crush anyone who challenges America’s myths of 19^th century and early 20^th century conquest. And part of the process of crushing those critics will be that we will reenact that process of conquest in its most brutal and crude form, right. And so, it’s astonishing, you know, people have gotten literally like, you know, canceled for using the term settler colonialism, right. It actually turns out to be a pretty darn good description of what’s happening here, right. You’re expelling the population and it’s just that what’s different is that Donald Trump seems to want to make sure that some of those settlers who will settle Gaza will be not just Israelis, but maybe actually Americans, that America will get a share of the pie as you expel these people.

And it’s directly connected to the other intolerance in Trump’s Republican Party of any questioning of America’s founding myths and the genocide and conquest that took place in America’s founding and the desire to have a kind of new form of 19^th century American imperialism in Canada, in Greenland, in Panama, now in Gaza, anywhere America could do it. This is the world without moral limits. The world with absolute disregard for the humanity of people who are not white and Christian, or Judeo-Christian, and Western. And this is the barbarism of our time. It’s monstrous to watch, but this has been a long time in coming. Every American politician, every rabbi, every Jewish leader who was not willing to say enough years and years and years ago has now found themselves in a position and will not be able to say enough now. And because we have a mad king in Donald Trump who wants to be a 19^th century imperialist, he will help Israel in that project today, and people will go along with it.