Speaking of the fun house mirror that is internal American political discourse; while our media class is busy trying to figure out how serious the fascist president is when he announces his plans to do fascist things, Israel's Finance Minister is busy bragging that Trump's plan to ethnically cleanse Gaza is "taking shape" while revealing that the US administration and the Netanyahu government are working together to quickly make it a reality:
https://www.commondreams.org/news/smotrich-trump-plan-gaza
As Israel Pulls Plug on Gaza, Smotrich Says Trump's Ethnic Cleansing Plan 'Taking Shape'
"Israel's finance minister said Sunday that U.S. President Donald Trump's plan to ethnically cleanse Gaza is proceeding, remarks that came on the same day as Israel completely cut off electricity from the last receiving facility in the obliterated Palestinian enclave.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich of the far-right Religious Zionism party told fellow Knesset lawmakers that "this plan is taking shape, with ongoing actions in coordination" with the Trump administration.
Smotrich said that he is working with Cabinet members including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz to establish a "migration administration" that will oversee the removal of an indeterminate number of Gaza's approximately 2.1 million people, most of whom are descendants of Palestinians who fled or were ethnically cleansed from what is now Israel during the modern Jewish state's founding in 1948."
Folks, just because two fascist governments don't call removing a population based on ethnicity so you can build luxury condos on the ashes of their homes, "ethnic cleansing," does not in fact mean it isn't ethnic cleansing. In fact, if I'm being honest the term ethnic cleansing itself is a bullshit cop-out; the fact is forcingly removing a population based on ethnicity is in fact part of a process legally recognized as genocide; which is pretty on brand for an Israeli government credibly accused of genocide by international courts and a US government that's been actively arming, funding, and enabling the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza across multiple presidencies now, particularly the last two. Furthermore, while Smotrich claims the removals will be "voluntary" there is very little reason for anyone but the most credulous rubes to believe him. First of all, Israel has already engaged in an ongoing attempt to commit genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, and they just cut off electrical power to an area that is essentially always in a state of humanitarian crisis even though they know that action will kill innocent Palestinians. Additionally, there is no reason to believe Palestinians who have fought to keep their homes in Gaza intend to leave "voluntarily" and every single country the US and Israel have said would be happy to accept "voluntary" Palestinian "refugees' is stridently opposed to the plan because they recognize it as ethnic cleansing. Finally, this very same fascist government in Israel has repeatedly and publicly made no bones about their intentions to remove every Palestinian from Gaza, by lethal force or otherwise.
Friends, say what you will about Russian ministers bragging that Trump owes them one for political points, but Israel is not a geopolitical rival of the United States; they're allied with the US government and we send them billions of dollars worth of military and financial aid. Smotrich has no reason to lie about Trump's intentions and cooperation; in fact, he clearly couldn't be happier to have an American president working to accomplish the Netanyahu regime's odious intentions. Just don't expect a pro-genocide American media and political establishment to explain all this to you; they would after all much rather debate whether or not Trump is "serious" about getting rid of all the Palestinians and turning Gaza into a luxury resort complex for all his rich friends, until it's already a genocidal reality.
