Dehumanizing

To the editor:

On Feb. 4, President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu, two dystopian messengers, held a press conference. As Netanyahu stood by his side, Trump unveiled his Mideast plan. His proposal included the removal of two million Palestinians, the takeover of Gaza by the United States, and a rebuilding project that would turn the occupied territory into a seaside resort.  Before the press conference, Netanyahu gave Trump a golden pager to memorialize the pagers that exploded in Lebanon, causing thousands of casualties. Leon Panetta, the former CIA chief, called this terrorism. Two days after the press conference, Trump imposed sanctions on the ICC which had issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu who was accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity. 

Trump’s proposal was widely condemned at home and abroad with notable exceptions by right-wing extremist politicians and settlers in Israel, and some pro-Israel supporters in the United States. Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territory called it “unlawful, immoral and completely irresponsible…. It’s incitement to commit displacement … is an international crime.”

As Israel and the U.S. now discuss the annexation of the West Bank (another violation of international law), Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz has ordered the military to plan an “exit option” for the “voluntary” removal of Palestinians from Gaza.

Finally, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are returning to their homes in a Gaza that has been virtually destroyed after 15 months of Israeli bombing with U.S military complicity. Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, described conditions there as “horrific.” In a letter published in The Lancet last July, health researchers concluded that taking into account direct and indirect deaths caused by Israeli weapons, “It is not implausible to estimate that … 186,000 or even more deaths could be attributed to the current conflict in Gaza.”

Howard Elterman