Trump's Gaza plan: Palestinians are seen as a problem to be solved, just like Jews in the 1930s

When US President Donald Trump’s plan for Gaza was announced, the world reacted with a flood of analysis - expert opinions, geopolitical assessments, and endless debates over its feasibility. 

Discussions swirled around whether the plan could realistically be implemented, how it would affect regional stability, and whether neighbouring countries - particularly Egypt and Jordan - would accept Palestinian refugees. 

Analysts obsessed over whether Jordan, already home to a significant Palestinian population, could withstand taking in more of us, as if we were an invasive species rather than a dispossessed people.

But in all this chatter, one horrifying fact stood out: the world was not outraged by the very idea of our forced displacement. It did not recoil at the suggestion that an entire people could simply be removed, erased, or reshuffled like an inconvenient statistic. The discussion was never about the fundamental injustice of uprooting Palestinians from their land. 

Instead, it was about whether the logistics of our ethnic cleansing would work; whether we could be absorbed elsewhere, and, more chillingly, whether we should be absorbed at all.

The sheer casualness with which this plan was dissected - this plan that proposed wiping out our presence, as if we were nothing more than a geopolitical nuisance - made me sick to my core. It was revolting to witness. 

The unspoken assumption seemed to be that we do not belong; that our presence is inherently problematic; that the world would be more stable, more peaceful, if we simply ceased to exist as a people in our own homeland.

We are not pawns

And so, once again, we were turned into a question to be answered, a dilemma to be resolved - not human beings with a history, culture and rights, nor a people who have been wronged, brutalised, occupied and dispossessed for generations. Instead, the entire conversation suggested we were an object in the way of progress; an issue to be debated by those who see themselves as the rightful architects of our fate.

What was absent from nearly every analysis of Trump’s plan was one simple, inarguable truth: Palestinians have agency. 

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We are not mere pawns in some geopolitical game, to be moved at will. We are not numbers in a policy document to be redistributed. We are not a burden to be shouldered by Egypt or Jordan, or anyone else. And yet, we are spoken of as though we are just that. The Israeli occupation - the real source of instability, violence and suffering - is not the problem being discussed. We are.

It is difficult to describe the emotional toll of hearing, again and again, that you are unwanted; that you are a problem to be solved; that even your own homeland is not yours to claim. It is unbearable to know that your people are seen not as a nation with rights, but as a mistake in history that must be corrected.

I fear that if the world continues to watch in silence, it will one day wake up to find that we are gone. And it will ask itself how it let that happen

That realisation weighs heavily. To be told that you are not wanted even in your own homeland is a level of dehumanisation that is hard to put into words. It strips you of dignity, of belonging, of the very foundation of what it means to be human.

Every time I hear someone on television saying, “Look, no one wants to take the Palestinians - not Egypt, not Jordan, not anywhere,” a pit forms in my stomach. I feel the weight of those words pressing down on me. 

Imagine hearing, over and over, that you are an inconvenience, that your very existence is something that must be managed and negotiated away. What does that do to a person? What does it do to a people?

To be spoken about in this way, to be reduced to a burden on the world, chips away at something fundamental. It makes you wonder whether you really are the problem. It makes you question your worth. It creates a kind of self-doubt that is corrosive, that eats away at your sense of self until you begin to wonder whether you truly belong anywhere.

Failed by the world

And I cannot help but think of history.

I think of the way Jewish people were treated in Europe - not just during the Holocaust, but in the centuries leading up to it. How they were vilified, marginalised, and cast as an unwanted presence; how society came to see them as an inconvenience, an obstacle, a threat; how, over time, their humanity was eroded in the eyes of the world until the unthinkable became possible - until their suffering could be justified, their extermination rationalised.

I think about how the world failed them, how their cries for justice were ignored, how their persecution was met with silence, how the narrative that they were a problem took hold so deeply that even their presence became intolerable to those in power.

And I ask myself: is history repeating itself?

I do not ask this lightly. I ask it because I see the same mechanisms at play. I see how Palestinians are being spoken about - as if our displacement is inevitable, our suffering an acceptable cost for someone else’s vision of peace. I see how our resistance is criminalised, our very existence framed as a threat. I see how our deaths are justified, our homes destroyed, our voices silenced.

And I see how the world watches, and does nothing.

Peak dehumanisation 

There is a terrifying moment in history when dehumanisation reaches its peak - when a people are no longer seen as individuals with rights and dignity, but as a collective burden, a problem to be erased. That moment is always a precursor to something far worse - because once a people are seen as disposable, their suffering no longer matters. Their deaths no longer count. Their eradication no longer shocks the conscience of the world.

That is what terrifies me. Because we are already there. We have been there for decades.

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I do not know what it will take for the world to recognise our humanity. I do not know what more we can do to make it clear that we are not just numbers, not statistics, not a bargaining chip in someone else’s political game. We are a people. We have homes, families, memories, dreams. We have a right to exist, not just in exile, not just as a problem to be managed, but as a free people on our own land.

That is not up for debate. That is not a question of logistics. That is justice.

And yet, here we are, still forced to plead our case, still forced to prove our worthiness, still forced to watch as the world discusses our fate - as if we are not even in the room.

There is no greater violence than to be erased while you are still alive. That is what is happening to us.

And I fear that if the world continues to watch in silence, it will one day wake up to find that we are gone. And it will ask itself how it let that happen.

But by then, it will be too late.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.