As the unspeakable genocide in Gaza reaches its most nightmarish phase to date, Israeli leaders think they have found an endgame that will achieve their ambition of emptying the Strip of Palestinian life. It is a plan that, as Gideon Levy aptly notes, would have been worthy of Adolf Eichmann.
Last week, the head of Israel’s Mossad espionage agency, David Barnea, came to Washington to speak to Donald Trump’s lead Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, about plans to transfer large numbers of people from Gaza to third countries. According to sources close to the talks, Israel is in conversation with Ethiopia, Libya, and Indonesia in hopes that those countries would be willing to take people fleeing the carnage in Gaza.
Will Ethiopia, Libya, and Indonesia collaborate?
The fact that this idea exists at all is a clear example of how dangerous it is for major world leaders to throw ideas out in public without thinking or planning.
Not long after reoccupying the White House, Donald Trump did just that, musing about turning Gaza into a resort for the rich, after sending its current inhabitants elsewhere. He did this despite the fact that his predecessor, Joe Biden, had floated the idea of Egypt and Jordan taking in some of Gaza’s besieged people and met an unbreakable wall of resistance from those allies.
After Trump found similar resistance not only from Egypt and Jordan, but from the entire Arab world, he cooled to the idea. But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu never let it go.
When Netanyahu was at the White House earlier this month, a reporter asked Trump about Gaza. Trump, tellingly, handed the question off to Netanyahu, who responded by citing Trump’s “plan” to relocate Gazans, and claimed this would be a free choice, that anyone who wanted to stay could stay and those who wanted to leave could leave.
This rhetoric fooled no one. Obviously, Netanyahu’s idea of a “free choice” is akin to claiming that you are holding a gun at someone’s head and giving them the “free choice” to either sign a contract they’d never agree to or be shot.
Israel has made Gaza uninhabitable on every level and is now gradually working to squeeze the surviving Palestinians into a concentration camp where Rafah used to be. But the reaction to the concentration camp has been so severe—with even former Israeli Likud Prime Minister Ehud Olmert calling it what it is—that Israel can’t treat that as an endgame.
Instead, Netanyahu is now hoping the concentration camp, or possibly camps (Israel has talked about building several of them), will be the gun forcing Palestinians to “volunteer” to leave. But that still leaves the problem of where they can go.
Although Israel is telling Washington that these three countries—Ethiopia, Libya, and Indonesia—are open to taking in large numbers of Gazans, this seems unlikely. Of the three countries, only Indonesia has a sufficiently stable economy and political system to even consider taking in large numbers of refugees.
Certainly, in the cases of Ethiopia and Libya, they are merely exploring what potential incentives the United States might offer in exchange for cooperation in the ethnic cleansing of Gaza. Libya remains a divided country, with a fragile truce holding after recent clashes. The ceasefire between the rival governments in Libya has largely held for nearly five years, but tensions are rising, along with public frustration, over the two sides’ inability to agree on the rules for elections and a transition back to a unified state.
That is not an environment that can absorb hundreds of thousands of desperate refugees. Indeed, Libya itself has a population of only around 7.3 million, so any substantial number of people suddenly moving into the country would be a huge disruption.
Ethiopia, of course, is much larger, with a population of about 150.5 million, but it is also one of the poorest nations in the world. Ethnic hostilities across and within the federated territories of Ethiopia contribute strongly to the political instability, which was most recently witnessed in the Tigray War, from which the country, especially the Tigray region, is still recovering. It is obvious that Ethiopia does not have the means to support hundreds of thousands of refugees, who, even by the standards of war refugees, have been horribly traumatized.
That leaves Indonesia, which does already have some incentive to work with Israel. The country has been trying to accede to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) for years but cannot do so unless it has official relations with all OECD members.
While Indonesia does not have any formal diplomatic relations with Israel, there has been a long, clandestine relationship between the two on trade and security. Before the Gaza genocide, there was some possibility of a more formal relationship, but Indonesia has backed away from that, though it still declares that it would immediately establish relations with Israel if Israel recognizes a Palestinian state. Indeed, Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto reaffirmed that commitment as recently as two months ago.
Of the three countries mentioned, Indonesia is the only one capable of absorbing a sizable number of Palestinian refugees. Their economy is sufficiently stable that, with American support, they could absorb the newcomers. Although ethnically diverse, sectarian violence is only a minor problem there, and their political system is relatively stable.
But Indonesia would have the same problem that any Muslim country would have—it could not afford to be seen as overtly complicit with Israel in its ethnic cleansing of the people of Gaza. Indeed, the low level of inner turmoil in the country could quickly rise as some factions might express their objections violently. That could actually serve to hinder Jakarta’s ability to join the OECD as it would make recognition of Israel even more politically fraught.
Indonesia is the one country that currently has an incentive to cooperate and could be further enticed by American economic and trade gifts. Yet even there, it remains highly unlikely that they would agree to a move that would be universally denounced in the Muslim world and extremely unpopular domestically.
Genocide in action
All of that is how things stand now. Netanyahu, and certainly Barnea, know very well that there is nowhere for them to send the people of Gaza. But, in their view, that can change.
As Israel increases its attacks on Deir al Balah and holds its blockades tight against any food reaching the starving babies in Gaza, it is gradually pushing the population south and toward the sites of the proposed concentration camp. Its forces are systematically flattening what is left of villages in the north and central parts of Gaza.
Meanwhile, the strategy of starvation is escalating. On Tuesday, Gaza’s hospitals reported that fifteen more people had died of starvation in the preceding 24 hours, bringing the total of deaths by starvation to 101, including 80 children. That is certainly an undercount, as the hospitals can only report those deaths they know about directly. Plus, many other deaths of elderly, newborn, or chronically ill people will not be directly attributed to, but merely hastened by, hunger.
The slaughter of Palestinians queueing for the meager humanitarian aid they can get through the shooting galleries set up by the murderous “Gaza Humanitarian Foundation” is not only sport for sadistic Israeli soldiers and American mercenaries, much as it might seem so. Those deaths, which have now topped 1,000, serve an additional purpose, which is to increase the desperation of Palestinians and ensure that if they do survive they will take any opportunity to get out of Gaza, regardless of how attached to Palestine they might be.
The strategy is not just to increase the suffering of the people of Gaza so much that they will want to leave. Some will hold steadfastly until death, but how many parents can watch their children, their babies, starve to death? Of course, they will leave if they can, with the Israeli gun of starvation poised at their children’s or other loved ones’ heads.
And when that cry gets loud enough, Israel expects that there will be countries that will take the refugees in. It is a strategy whose cruelty boggles the mind.
This is what Barnea came to Washington to lay the groundwork for. David Barnea, the son and grandson of Holocaust survivors, came to DC to sell this plan.
As the Israeli journalist Gideon Levy put it, Barnea “…is an obedient senior official, having never caused friction with those above him. Does that sound familiar? He is the hero of the campaign for mass amputations through walkie-talkies. If you send him to save hostages, he goes. If you send him to prepare the deportation of millions of people? Not a problem for him. After all, he is only obeying orders.”
The irony is inescapable yet flatly denied throughout Israel and the West.
And Israel appears to be gearing up for annexing the West Bank; right now Israel is a de facto apartheid state, but apparently it can’t wait to make that status de jure as well.
“Lawmakers vote 71-13 in favor of non-binding motion calling for West Bank annexation”
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/lawmakers-vote-71-13-in-favor-of-non-binding-motion-calling-for-west-bank-annexation/
🕯️ [1] Understanding Genocide: From Germany to Palestine
Genocide is to a group as homicide is to an individual
When does genocide begin? Is it only when the killing starts — or does it begin earlier, when a government or movement sets out to make life so unbearable for a group that it must flee or collapse?
In popular memory, the Holocaust is often confined to the years of mass killing: Auschwitz, Treblinka, the gas chambers. But international law — and historical reality — teach us something more uncomfortable: genocide often begins with policies designed to coerce, isolate, and uproot, long before the first death camps are built.
This article examines how Nazi Germany’s anti-Jewish campaign beginning in 1933 fits a broader definition of genocide — and how a comparison with Zionist policies toward Palestinians, particularly starting in the Ottoman period in villages like Zarnuqa, helps clarify what genocide really means. The definition of genocide covers genocidal acts before the genocide evolves to mass murder of individuals.
🧿 Genocide Is More Than Mass Murder
The UN Genocide Convention (1948) defines genocide not only as killing, but also as:
Causing serious bodily or mental harm to a groupDeliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction, in whole or in partImposing measures to prevent births, or forcibly transferring childrenThis definition recognizes that genocide can begin with laws, pressures, and policies designed to dismantle a people’s capacity to live freely and survive as a group — even before large-scale violence occurs.
🇩🇪 Germany, 1933: A Genocide in Motion
In 1933, when Hitler rose to power, Jews were not yet being herded into ghettos or gassed in camps — but the Nazi state was already laying the groundwork for their destruction:
Economic strangulation: Jews were boycotted, banned from professions, and driven out of public life.Legal disenfranchisement: The Nuremberg Laws stripped Jews of citizenship.Social isolation: Jewish schools, organizations, and communities were shuttered or suppressed.Forced emigration: Hundreds of thousands fled Germany under unbearable pressure.While the machinery of extermination came later, the intent to eliminate Jewish life from German society was clear from the beginning. Modern courts and scholars increasingly recognize this early phase — the creation of life-destroying conditions — as part of the genocidal process.
🕯️ [3] Understanding Genocide: From Germany to Palestine
Genocide is to a group as homicide is to an individual
📌 Why This Matters
We live in a world where slow genocides are often overlooked — where states use law, economics, and administration to erase populations without bullets or gas chambers. This is precisely why the Genocide Convention includes non-lethal methods of destruction.
Recognizing that the Nazi genocide began before the killing helps us understand how genocide functions as a process, not a single event.
And recognizing that Zionist strategies to displace Palestinians began long before 1948 helps us see that the Nakba was not just a wartime tragedy, but part of a long-term settler-colonial project that sought — and continues to seek — to remove a native population from its land.
🔚 Conclusion: Genocide Is a Structure, Not Just a Catastrophe
Whether in 1933 Berlin or 1910 Zarnuqa, the logic of genocide begins with the dehumanization of a people and the engineering of conditions that make their continued existence untenable.
To stop genocide, we must learn to recognize its early signs — not just its catastrophic outcomes. That means seeing displacement, legal erasure, economic suffocation, and forced emigration for what they often are: the first tools of destruction.
Thank you Mitchell, Keep reporting on ‘incentives’ DeathTechie Barnea expects; here’s flashback from Feb. 27, 2025 :
“…According to Barnea, the first 500 explosive pagers arrived in Lebanon weeks before Oct.7, 2023 attacks, and by the time of their detonation on Sept. 17, 2024, ten times as many were in circulation…”
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+MEMO: Libya’s Dbeibeh proposes $70 billion economic partnership to Trump adviser
Tunisian President Kais Saied said: “I believe you know these pictures well — a child crying and eating sand in occupied Palestine. Just one among many… He eats sand in the 21st century, with nothing else to eat and sand in his hands. Another shows a child close to dying because he has nothing to eat.”
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20250723-tunisian-president-shows-trumps-senior-adviser-images-of-gazas-suffering-children/
Masad Boulos is Tiffany Trump’s father-in-law; his smiling expression while Saied shows him starvation photos is sick.
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+ DefenceMirror on Barnea:
Barnea “focuses more on the collection of more immediate intelligence that can be translated into tactical operations aimed at achieving strategic change.”
>>>Translation: assassination and sabotage operations against the key figures and facilities of Iran’s nuclear program, which Israel regards as an existential threat.
Barnea is also credited with supervising the November 2020 assassination of Iran’s top nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh as he drove his car in small resort town just east of Tehran.
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+Barnea and Netanyahu destroyed their own Weizmann Institute with Iran attack>> kneecapping their own scientist for 20 yrs. Construction costs to build modern research facility are skyrocketing and many construction workers have already left Israel for safety. Trump’s DOGE bombed CDC scientists from the inside, killing research in America for decades.
I would rather blame those spinless Arab-world leaders for the Gaza holocaust. We cannot expect rationality from an international fugitive like Bibi, but the silence of Muslim leaders, specially these so-called Arab leaders, is only to be blamed.