From the Balfour Declaration to the Final Solution in Gaza?
By Andres Kogan Valderrama
HAVANA TIMES – As if the many brutalities expressed by Donald Trump upon assuming office again as President of the United States weren’t enough, his recent statements regarding the future of the Gaza Strip, while meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu, are of the highest gravity.
I bring this up because suggesting that the United States will take control of Gaza and expel all Palestinians living there not only violates international law but is also a criminal proposal that evokes memories of Hitler, who at one point proposed sending all the Jews from Poland to Madagascar.
Thus, Trump’s announcement could deepen the ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people, while the United Nations continues to look the other way and is unable to do anything about it, leaving no hope for those people.
However, I think it is a mistake to focus solely on the brutal words of someone as despicable as Trump and his macabre plan to turn Gaza into a large tourist hub, without recognizing that this announcement is part of a colonial, imperial historical process of denying the Palestinian people for over a century.
I refer to the 1917 Balfour Declaration, issued by the British government, which laid the foundation for the future construction of the State of Israel, at the cost of denying the rights of the Palestinian people, thus opening the door for massive Jewish immigration that led to the displacement of hundreds of thousands of inhabitants.
As a result, although it may be difficult to accept for both right-wing and left-wing Zionists, the State of Israel was founded on a catastrophe (Nakba) against the Palestinian people, creating from its inception an ethnic cleansing that has deepened over the decades.
This is not about denying Jews the right to live within a state, like any other, but the problem is not recognizing that such a state cannot exist if it does so by denying the Palestinian “other,” replicating European colonial logics and those of the United States.
Therefore, it matters little whether Jews continue to identify with Zionism, as long as illegal settlements are removed, apartheid and racism against Palestinians are eradicated, and it is understood that if Trump’s plan is accepted, it could lead to a new Final Solution against the Palestinians, just as happened with the Jews during World War II.
In other words, rather than calling for the end of Zionism, with which the vast majority of Jews identify, we must demand that the State of Israel stop trampling on the Palestinian people and withdraw from all occupied territories, returning to the 1967 borders, as only then can a sustainable peace process free from fanaticism begin.
If this does not happen in the short term, not only will Palestinians continue to experience their annihilation as a people, but Jews themselves will be much more vulnerable, even though many foolishly believe that clinging to a militarily strong state guarantees their security in the future.
This is why it is so important for Jews and people of Jewish descent to empathize, raise our voices, and view Gaza as a territory of life not only for Palestinians but for all humanity, which needs a bit of hope at a time when any fanatic can become president and say anything.
I totally agree, I have expressed this for many years. I’m not anti Semantic, just anti genocide of any group of people. I just don’t understand how a group who suffered similarly during the Second World War, which most of the world has promised to never “forget” or let happen again, can do this to the Palestinian people.