Ethnic Cleansing In Gaza—And The American Politicians, Beyond Just Trump And The GOP, Enabling It

When It Comes To Genocide, There’s No Lesser Evil— Just 2 Evil Parties

"Complicit" by Nancy Ohanian

You’d have to be deaf, dumb and stupid— or an AIPAC member— to not see Israeli ethnic cleansing in Palestine, particularly, at this point, in Gaza. When Trump and Jared talk about depopulating it— removing 2 million Palestinians— and turning it into an ethnically-cleansed Middle East Riviera, they’re not kidding. Especially not with Netanyahu pushing on it all the time. Yesterday, Barak Ravid reported that last week “Netanyahu said Israel is working with the U.S. ‘very closely’ to find countries that will agree to take Palestinians from Gaza and stressed that ‘we are getting close to finding several countries. I think President Trump had a brilliant vision. It's called free choice. You know, if people want to stay, they can stay, but if they want to leave, they should be able to leave. It shouldn't be a prison,’ Netanyahu said.” Israel has been making it uninhabitable. Ravid wrote that “most buildings in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed. Israel has been developing a plan for moving all two million residents of the enclave to a small ‘humanitarian zone’ near the border with Egypt. That plan has sparked concerns in Egypt and many Western countries that Israel is preparing for the mass displacement of Palestinians out of Gaza, something Netanyahu's ultranationalist coalition partners and many inside his own party have been pushing for years.”

Countries agreeing or close to agreeing to take in large numbers of Gazans include Ethiopia, Indonesia and Libya, which doesn’t have a national government. The head of the Mossad was in DC last week asking the Trump regime “to offer incentives to those countries and help Israel convince them.”

Here’s what’s holding this up— in both Israel and the U.S. Historically, occupying powers have engaged in ethnic cleansing, defined as the systematic removal or extermination of an ethnic or cultural group from a territory. As the Ottoman Empire was disintegrating, between 1915 and 1923, the Ottomans deported and massacred over a million Armenians, alongside Assyrians and Greeks, to eliminate their presence in Anatolia, the Turkish heartland. Worse yet— something the Israelis should have learned from— the Naziis perpetrated a Holocaust against Jews, killing around 6 million of them, not just in Germany but from all the occupied territories from France and Holland to Poland, the Baltic counties, the Balkans, Ukraine and Russia. And speaking of Russia, during and after World War II, the Soviet regime forcibly deported entire ethnic groups, such as Chechens, Ingush and Crimean Tatars, from their homelands to Central Asia and Siberia. These deportations, often justified as security measures, led to massive loss of life due to harsh conditions.

Since those atrocities, international laws have come to explicitly prohibit ethnic cleansing as a crime against humanity. In 1948, the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide defined genocide as acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group. This includes killings, causing serious harm, or creating conditions to destroy the group. That clearly defines what Israel is doing in Gaza. The 1949 the Geneva Conventions prohibited  violence, forced displacement or discrimination based on ethnicity, race or religion by occupying powers against civilians, something Israelis ignoring completely. More recently (1998), the International Criminal Court defined crimes against humanity to include acts like deportation, forcible transfer and persecution of identifiable groups when committed systematically or on a large scale. Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Gazans fits right in there. Israeli actions like mass displacement orders, blockades on humanitarian aid and statements from Israeli officials suggesting permanent demographic changes in Gaza are illegal. 

The International Court of Justice has issued provisional measures in South Africa’s case against Israel, ordering Israel to prevent genocidal acts and allow humanitarian aid into Gaza. However, Israel has repeatedly flouted these measures. The International Criminal Court can prosecute individuals for war crimes, crimes against humanity (like forcible population transfer) and genocide. Arrest warrants have been sought for Israeli leaders, including Netanyahu, but enforcement depends on state cooperation, which has been lacking.

The U.S. protects Israel from all possible pressure along these lines, and although more and more Democrats are moving away from this posture, most congressional Democrats are AIPAC-whores and are as bad as Republicans… not the lesser evil— just as evil. The only incumbents endorsed by AIPAC Tracker are:

• Hank Johnson (D-GA)

• Delia Ramirez (D-IL)

• Chuy Garcia (D-IL)

• Andre Carson (D-IN)

• Ayanna Pressley (D-MA)

• Rashida Tlaib (D-MI)

• Ilhan Omar (D-MN)

• Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ)

• Nydia Velazquez (D-NY)

• AOC (D-NY)

• Summer Lee (D-PA)

• Greg Casar (D-TX)

• Pramila Jayapal (D-WA)

• Mark Pocan (D-WI)

Incumbents they note as “improving” include Jated Huffman (D-CA), Mark DeSaulnier (D-CA), Ro Khanna (D-CA), Judy Chu (D-CA), Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-CA), Mark Takano (D-CA), Robert Garcia (D-CA), Maxine Waters (D-CA), Sara Jacobs (D-CA), Maxwell Frost (D-FL), Jill Tokuda (D-HI), Jonathan Jackson (D-IL), Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), Lauren Underwood (D-IL), Thomas Massey (R-KY), Chellie Pingree (D-ME), Jim McGovern (D-MA), Betty McCollum (D-MN), Al Green (R-TX), Joaquin Castro (D-TX), Lloyd Doggett (D-TX), Becca Balint (D-VT) and Don Beyer (D-VA).

They’ve also endorsed senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Jeff Merkley, Bernie (I-VT) and Peter Welch (D-VT). 

Among the House candidates they have endorsed are Saikat Chakrabarti (CA), Oliver Larkin (FL) and Donavan McKinney (D-MI).

Among possible presidential candidates, the ones AIPAC Tracker warns about as genocide supporters or genocide-ignorers include:

• Cory Booker (D-NJ)

• Pete Buttigieg (D-wherever)

• Ron DeSantis (R-FL)

• Rahm Emanuel (D-IL)

• Tulsi Gabbard (R-HI)

• Ruben Gallego (D-AZ)

• Nikki Haley (R-SC)

• Kamala Harris (D-CA)

• RFK, Jr (R-wherever)

• Gavin Newsom (D-CA)

• JB Pritzker (D-IL)

• Marco Rubio (R-FL)

• Josh Shapiro (D-PA)

• Donald Trump, Jr (R-FL)

• JD Vance (R-OH)

• Tim Walz (D-MN)

• Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI)

Among Members of the House in the Tracking AIPAC Hall of Shame:

• Juan Ciscomani (R-AZ)

• Pete Aguilar(D-CA)

• Ken Calvert (R-CA)

• Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL)

• Lois Frankel (D-FL)

• Brian Mast (R-FL)

• Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL)

• MAGA Mike (R-LA)

• Mike Scalise (R-LA)

• Jared Golden (D-ME)

• Steny Hoyer (D-MD)

• Glenn Ivey (D-MD)

• Jake Auchincloss (D-MA)

• Katherine Clark (D-MA)

• Haley Stevens (D-MI)

• Tom Emmer (R-MN)

• Wesley Bell (D-MO)

• Chris Pappas (D-NH)

• Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ)

• Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY)

• George Latimer (D-NY)

• Mike Lawler (D-NY)

• Greg Meeks (D-NY)

• Grace Meng (D-NY)

• Ritchie Torres (D-NY)

• Don Davis (D-NC)

• Valerie Foushee (D-NC)

• Tom Cole (R-OK)

• Michael McCaul (R-TX)

What Israel is doing in Gaza— right this moment— is not a misunderstanding, not a security measure not “defense”… it’s the slow-motion crime of ethnic cleansing, unfolding in real time with the full knowledge of the world and underwritten by U.S. power and American taxpayer dollars. Regardless of which party holds power we remain complicit. Biden’s tepid gestures and Trump’s genocidal fantasies are not polar opposites. They’re points on the same spectrum of indifference to Palestinian life.

There’s a reason why AIPAC pours obscene amounts of money into American politics: because this genocide can’t continue without bipartisan support. The politicians they elevate— and the ones too cowardly to speak out— are co-conspirators in this ongoing atrocity. History will not be kind to the enablers. It never is. Someday, the archives of this moment will be opened, and the names will be there: not just Netanyahu, Gallant, Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, but the Americans who looked away or worse— cheered it on, funded it, helped normalize it.