• Human Rights
• Middle East and North Africa

February 6, 2025, 1:43 PM View Comments ()

U.S. President Donald Trump’s proposal to “take control” of Gaza and “clean out” its more than 2 million inhabitants has elicited international outrage because it is both illegal and immoral—in effect, a U.S.-sponsored plan of ethnic cleansing—but his ill-conceived vision would also be radically destabilizing.

The original dispossession of Palestinians following Israel’s creation in 1948—known in Arabic as the Nakba, or catastrophe—produced decades of violence and instability. A U.S.-sponsored second Nakba would ensure decades more of both.

Trump’s plan did not emerge in a vacuum and, in many ways, is the natural culmination of his predecessor’s policies—as well as years of dehumanization of Palestinians in U.S. political discourse.

Although former President Joe Biden would never have put forth such a proposal, his policies over the last 15 months effectively laid the groundwork for it due to his tolerance for Israeli excesses and disregard for Palestinian lives.

Trump’s characterizations of Gaza as a “demolition site” and a “hellhole” are not inaccurate. And with more than 90 percent of Gaza’s housing units, all its universities, most of its hospitals, 70 percent of its agricultural land destroyed, Gaza may well be uninhabitable.

But none of this was unforeseen, nor was it inevitable. Israeli leaders telegraphed their intentions virtually from day one, promising to “flatten” Gaza and turn it into “city of tents,” all while declaring that there are “no innocents” in Gaza. Barely a month into Israel’s massive bombing campaign, United Nations human rights monitors were already warning that Gaza was being rendered uninhabitable.

Despite such warnings and Washington’s own assessment that Israel’s bombing campaign was “over the top” and “indiscriminate,” Biden refused to place any meaningful constraints on Israel’s conduct and continued to arm, finance, and facilitate Gaza’s destruction at every stage.

This inordinately high threshold for Palestinian death and destruction was itself a reflection of Palestinians’ diminished humanity in U.S. politics. Unlike antisemitism and other forms of racism, which generally elicit bipartisan outrage, anti-Palestinian racism and dehumanization have been normalized in American political culture.

As Israeli politics have shifted rightward, both Israeli policy and the political discourse in Washington have become notably more hostile toward Palestinians. Thus, denying Palestinian suffering, the existence of the Palestinian people, and even the very idea of “innocent Palestinian civilians” have become standard features of U.S. politics.

If Washington can countenance such unprecedented death and destruction in Gaza, then uprooting those who are left may not be so far-fetched.