In February, US President Donald Trump declared that “The US will take over the Gaza Strip” and “level out” the remaining buildings and transfer the Palestinian population to “other countries.” At the time, both US and international media dismissed Trump’s plan as an “outlandish” scheme with no prospect of realization.
The Israeli government approached Trump’s plan with deadly seriousness. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised Trump’s “bold vision” for an ethnically cleansed Gaza. “We’re working on it,” Trump said during a meeting in Washington last month.
On Monday, the Netanyahu government effectively announced the beginning of the final stage of ethnic cleansing in Gaza. The plan includes a full military occupation of the entire Gaza Strip and the mass internment of the population in concentration camps under armed guard, as a prelude to forced marches through the desert or deportation by sea.
These concentration camps will be staffed by private US security contractors, with the Israel Defense Forces overseeing the distribution of starvation rations. According to a report this week by Reuters, the United States and Israel are actively discussing the formation of a “transitional government” headed by a US official to administer Gaza.
Echoing the “final solution,” the Nazi term for the genocide of Europe’s Jews, Netanyahu declared, “It’s time to launch the concluding moves.” The next day, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich explained the meaning of the Israeli government’s plan:
Within a year, … Gaza will be entirely destroyed, civilians will be sent to … the south to a humanitarian zone … and from there they will start to leave in great numbers to third countries.
The mechanism for the forcible displacement of the Palestinian people will be mass starvation. As National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir made clear, “No electricity, and no other aid should be allowed—neither by the [Israeli military] nor by civil society.”
On March 2, Israel imposed a total blockade on all food, water and electricity entering the Gaza Strip. As a result, the majority of Gaza’s community kitchens have been forced to shut down due to a lack of supplies, and cases of acute malnutrition have surged by more than 80 percent. Harrowing images have circulated of emaciated, starving children—victims of a famine that is entirely man-made.
Among voters, it was more than half. If you didn’t vote, you don’t count.
I think that misrepresents the situation in a bad way though. Of possible voters, it was barely over a third—they are not a majority, don’t make it appear as though they are
If you didn’t vote, you voted for this. This is a representative democracy, and voting is the absolute least you can possibly do.
You don’t get out of your civic duty by abstaining – you’re implicitly supporting the winner by failing to do the bare minimum. You’re doing far worse if you uttered one sentence to convince others to abstain with you, which many, many did.
Unless you live in a literal cave, you’re complicit.
Actually, if I recall it was ultimately still slightly less than half (after the massive excess of California votes that don’t count came in). He still had the most votes of the candidates, but no candidate garnered more than half.
Which is really just splitting hairs on a technicality, ultimately 77 million people voted this way, and it would have still been a deep problem even if Harris had won the popular and electoral votes.
