Why Is Trump’s ‘Peace Plan’ Focused on Deradicalizing Palestinians, Not Israelis?
Israel violated the ceasefire, while Israeli settlers attacked a Palestinian woman and US journalist, and Israeli rioters shut down a soccer match.
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Imagine a country where kids are taught to sing songs about genocide, where prominent politicians and pundits go on national television to echo Nazi rhetoric, where polls show a majority of the public wanting the expulsion of an ethnic minority. Well, of course, you don’t have to imagine such a country. It’s Israel. And yet, according to Donald Trump’s peace plan, it’s Gaza, not Israel, that needs to be “deradicalized.”
The very first bullet in Trump’s 20-point “peace plan” states: “Gaza will be a deradicalized terror-free zone that does not pose a threat to its neighbors.” The plan says nothing about deradicalizing Israel, which, in addition to carrying out a genocidal assault and blockade on Gaza, has attacked seven of its neighbors in the past two years. And it only took hours for Israel to violate it.
In the two weeks since the ceasefire was signed, Israeli forces have killed at least 93 Palestinians in the enclave, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health.
It should come as no surprise that the Trump plan would almost immediately lead to Israeli violations. If a government spends two years committing a genocide, with unconditional support from the US, how seriously would it then treat a deal to stop committing said genocide, if it’s also brokered by the US, which still pretends it was never a genocide in the first place?
What is a “peace plan” if the party that has all the power isn’t forced to end its violent occupation and root out its radical elements?