In late August President Trump met with his son-in-law Jared Kushner and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair to discuss plans for a postwar Gaza. A month earlier, staff members of a think tank set up by Blair met with Israeli business leaders to develop a postwar Gaza plan that includes the creation of a “Trump Riviera” and a manufacturing zone named after Elon Musk, using financial models developed by a U.S. firm, the Boston Consulting Group.

Kushner has praised Gaza’s potential as a “very valuable waterfront property”, some of which he would like to own with his father-in-law. Back in February, Trump called for setting up a luxury beach resort called “Trump Gaza” after Israel kills or otherwise forcibly removes the Palestinians there.

Blair was leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007; he supported and authorised Britain’s participation in the 2003 invasion of Iraq and was a member of the Zionist Labour Friends of Israel. Blair confirms he is in frequent contact with current Labour Party leader and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who was part of the witch-hunt to root out of the party anybody who voiced pro-Palestinian positions, whom he charged with ‘anti-Semitism’, and who is leading Britain’s support for Israel’s genocide against the Palestinian people.

In a program discussing this, Democracy Now! interviewed John Paul, a former State Department official, who resigned over U.S. policy toward Gaza. Paul said, “At the end of the day, this is a nightmarish example of profits over people. What you have with Kushner and Blair is a combination of the corrupt and the feckless…” The Gaza Riviera project “is reliant ultimately on the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians…there is no way to advance this project without violating international law.”

Israel’s war

This proposal for a postwar Gaza coincides with — and is part of — Israel’s current intensification of its war on Gaza to pave the way for the mass slaughter and/or driving out of Palestinians from all of Gaza. To do this, Netanyahu is mobilising 60,000 army reserves to join the fight in Gaza City. There is no light between Trump and Netanyahu, they are in lockstep: Trump has repeatedly said that in all the land that Israel occupies, including the West Bank, Gaza and “Green Line Israel”, Palestinians should be gotten rid of; U.S. Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, has said that “Palestinians don’t exist”; Trump recently denied any Palestinian entry to the United States. This included barring members of the Palestinian Authority (PA) based in the Israeli-military-occupied West Bank from entering the U.S. to participate in the United Nations General Assembly. Previously, PA head Mahmoud Abbas has been at the General Assembly. But Netanyahu has now ruled out any role for the PA in Greater Israel, in spite of Abbas’ pro-Israel and pro-U.S. positions including his cooperation with the Israeli military in the West Bank.

Israel’s new assault on Gaza City is meant to drive out Palestinians and force them into the southern area around Rafah, to put pressure on Egypt to take them in. John Paul says that Israel’s aim is to force Palestinians into “small manageable groups … and then impose forms of governance that are undemocratic, that are autocratic, and that allow for companies to come in and take profits and gain strategic advantage.”

The U.S. is directly implicated in this genocide through its “aid” organisation, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. The Foundation aims to drive out the UN and any other real aid groups trying to bring food into Gaza, but is also designed to bring in some food to entrap starving Palestinians who are then mowed down by Israeli troops. John Paul said that “over a thousand Palestinians have been killed” at these sites.

While the aims of Netanyahu and Trump are clear, achieving them is another matter. The Palestinian people are fighting back and resisting occupation and genocide. Palestinians in Gaza will fight Israel to the bitter end, if it comes to that. In such situations of war against a whole people, the adage is “for every fighter killed two take their place.” Two examples were the Algerian fighters against the French, and the Vietnamese fighting first against the French and then the U.S. troops.

Our job in the imperialist countries funding this genocide is to continue to fight in solidarity with the Palestinian people against the racist state of Israel and its imperialist backers.