Middle East | Ethnic displacement: Not an opinion, but a crime

There is and has never been a danger of the annihilation of Israel, a nuclear power (the only one in the Middle East) supported by almost the entire West. Conversely, the annihilation and "messianic transformation" of the territories still in Palestinian hands do not represent an imminent threat, but have long been a tangible reality.

The latest of many confirmations of this came last Tuesday when numerous Israeli politicians and settlers held a conference in the Knesset, where they declared that Washington had given them the "green light" to turn the Gaza Strip into a "tourist town" once the mass expulsion of more than two million Palestinians is complete.

Many displaced people live in the Gaza Strip

It must be clarified that the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem constitute 22 percent of historic Palestine. Advocating for the expulsion of Palestinians from what they still have is not an opinion, but a crime. Given the tragedy of the events, if the Palestinians were to be temporarily relocated, it would paradoxically have to be done within the State of Israel: 70 percent of the families living in Gaza today lived there. Thus, 77 years ago in July, 60,000 Palestinians were expelled following the Lydda and Ramla death marches: Some of those expelled from the two villages ended up in the Gaza Strip.

At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, the demographic ratio in the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea was one Jew for every nine to ten Palestinians, both Muslims and Christians. Asher Ginsberg (1856-1927), one of Zionism's most influential thinkers, came to Palestine in 1891 and reported on what he saw in an article titled "Emet me-Eretz Ysrael" (The Truth from the Land of Israel): "They (Ginsberg was referring to the new settlers who came from Europe) treat the Arabs with hostility and cruelty, beat them shamefully without sufficient reason, and even boast about their deeds. There is no one who can stop this despicable and dangerous trend."

The practices described by Ginsberg refer to a distant past. Yet they seem to describe the present, starting with the situation in the West Bank, where an army is stationed, enforcing a military occupation, and where, under its strict control, millions of civilians live, who for over half a century have been living in a legal gray area that denies them the most basic rights.

Occupation is everyday terror

In the eyes of those affected, the military occupation constitutes an everyday form of terror and is opposed and denounced as such by a significant number of Palestinians and Israelis, although many of the Israelis do not have direct and in-depth knowledge of Palestinian reality (as well as its history and culture): they only learn about it, so to speak, when they are called up for military service.

The denial and dehumanization of the "other" is clearly evident among both Palestinians (Hamas is just one example) and Israelis (see, among others, the "basic principles" written by the current Israeli government on December 29, 2022, the day it took office, including the strengthening of the state's Jewish identity). The decades-long presence of an occupying army and millions of civilians under military occupation, on the other hand, is a situation experienced by only one of the two parties to the conflict.

In response to a request from the UN General Assembly in December 2022, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) emphasized in an advisory opinion published on July 19, 2024, that the occupation of the Palestinian territory (the West Bank, including East Jerusalem and Gaza) is illegal and must end immediately. The ICJ also emphasized that the Israeli authorities are discriminating against Palestinians by illegally depriving them of their natural resources and violating Article 3 of the Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, which refers to apartheid, a term explicitly used by the Court.

He also clarified that the Palestinians are entitled to restitution, compensation, and reparations for the 57 years of illegal occupation. As the Israeli non-governmental organization B'Tselem has documented, approximately "94 percent of the materials produced annually in Israeli quarries in the West Bank are transported to Israel." Furthermore, according to Israeli economist Shir Hever, who has broken down the figures on humanitarian aid, foreign aid, and occupation costs, "at least 72 percent of international aid" to the Palestinians ends up in the Israeli economy.

Those who fail to speak out clearly against these and many other "anomalies" do not strengthen or support Israel, but rather weaken it by condoning forms of structural oppression that fuel extremism in all involved. "A nation that oppresses another," the Peruvian intellectual Dionisio Inca Yupanqui remarked in 1810, "forges its own chains."

This text was published on July 25 in our partner publication "Il Manifesto." The article, translated using AI programs, has been edited and shortened. The author is Lorenzo Kamel, a professor at the University of Turin and a specialist in the history of the Middle East and North Africa.