In his gilded fantasy, President of the Middle East Donald Trump sips cocktails with his Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, by the poolside of a luxury casino in Gaza. According to the president – this time in real life – the first stage of the plan is for the 1.8 million Palestinians living in Gaza to move.
Trump may switch visions every few days, but for Israel, population transfer is already an approved and actively implemented policy. Indeed, since the beginning of the current government’s term, it has forcibly transferred hundreds of Palestinian families from their homes in the West Bank.
In 2013, Israel promoted a plan to concentrate Palestinian shepherd communities living east of Ramallah into a single town to be built in the Jordan Valley. The “Ramat Nu’eima” plan was meant to clear land for the expansion of Israeli settlements by uprooting about 12,500 Palestinians. Although the official plan was eventually frozen, it signaled Israel’s intention to expel Palestinian communities residing in the area between Ramallah and the Jordan Valley.
A decade later, intentions turned into actions, and the transfer began. In 2023, within just a few months, settlers from shepherding outposts violently seized 100,000 dunams (25,000 acres) of land surrounding the settlements of Kochav HaShahar and Rimonim, emptying them of Palestinian residents who had lived there since the 1980s.
This expulsion took place almost under the radar, without protests or demonstrations, in areas unfamiliar to most Israelis, but highly significant for Israel’s territorial aspirations. What exactly is the transfer that Israel portrays as “voluntary departure”? How do you cleanse a vast area of the Palestinian residents who have lived there for decades?
The geographic dispersal of families as a result of the expulsion has led to the collapse of community resilience, the loss of a unique social fabric, and ultimately the disintegration of communities
The first step was to create a hostile environment of prolonged institutional oppression. The Civil Administration – the military’s bureaucratic arm – has for years refused to issue building permits to Palestinian shepherd communities, and structures built perforce without permit were immediately issued with demolition orders, which were quickly executed. At the same time, Israel declared surrounding lands to be “state lands” and allocated them exclusively to Jewish settlers.
Settlements and outposts multiplied and expanded with state funding, while the military regime – declaring that “the army and settlements are one” – built and developed infrastructure exclusively for Jews. Red-tile rooftops faced demolished tin shacks; in a word – apartheid.
Despite the institutional discrimination and bureaucratic harassment, the Palestinian communities clung to their land and refused to surrender. In response, Israel used another violent measure to persuade them to leave “voluntarily” by “other means”. Over the past decade, the state supported the establishment of more than 100 new shepherding outposts throughout the West Bank.
This is a systematic method designed to achieve the stated goal of seizing Palestinian land. Through violence and threats, denial of access to grazing lands, and control over water sources, settlers harm Palestinian shepherd communities physically, mentally, and economically – ultimately expelling them from their homes.
Clearly, this is not voluntary. In 2023 alone, over 1,000 people have lost their homes, possessions, and livelihoods. The transfer has imposed a new way of life on the Palestinian communities, leading to the erasure of culture, traditions, and customs. The geographic dispersal of families as a result of the expulsion has led to the collapse of community resilience, the loss of a unique social fabric, and ultimately the disintegration of communities built on a balance between natural resources and human needs.
Those same shepherding outposts would not have been established and flourished had Israel not wanted them to: the government funds them, elected officials legitimize the, the army supports
The settlers do not act on their own. In March 2025, Israel Ganz, CEO of settler umbrella organization Yesha Council, which is also publicly funded, presented “the national mission called farms” in the West Bank.
Speaking at the Knesset, Ganz explained: “There is a very important process of farm being established on a well-organized basis, together with state authorities. […] Together with the IDF – the IDF now secures all the farms with the understanding that these farms occupy a strategic territory”.
He concluded by saying: “The farms will determine the reality on the ground”. In his statement, Ganz completely ignored the criminal methods used to seize these lands and the rights violated as a result.
Thus, as is now customary in our country, everything is done openly, without concealment and without shame. Those same shepherding outposts that have facilitated the transfer would not have been established and would not have flourished had Israel not wanted them to: the government funds them; elected officials legitimize them; the army supports and cooperates with them; the Civil Administration allocates them land and builds infrastructure; and the police ignore their criminal activities. All of this is approved by the Israeli public, which buries its head in the sand.
Three additional facts are worth noting. First, at no point did any governmental or military authority claim the Palestinian shepherd communities pose a security threat. They have been suspected of nothing and accused of nothing. Their only “crime” is standing in the way of annexation.
Second, the West Bank is not a lawless area, but a territory fully controlled by a military regime maintained by the State of Israel and under its legal responsibility. Third, transfer does not only occur via soldiers forcibly loading civilians onto trucks. It can also be carried out through less direct but no less effective coercive means such as violence, threats, arrests, psychological pressure, and destruction of property.
This policy, already implemented in the Jordan Valley and South Hebron Hills, may spread to the rest of the West Bank – and, of course, the Gaza Strip
Thus, Israel is responsible for the war crime of forcible transfer of Palestinians in the West Bank, either carried out directly by state authorities or indirectly by citizens – with its full support. Moreover, the state’s deep involvement, its modes of operation, the systematic nature of the acts, and their recurrence in various locations all lead to the grim conclusion that, in certain parts of the West Bank, Israel is implementing practices of ethnic cleansing.
There is moreover cause for concern that the forced uprooting of Palestinian communities east of Ramallah, combining institutional and settler violence, is merely a pilot for a much larger plan.
Israel’s transfer mechanism operates in a calculated strategy of pushing Palestinians into clearly defined areas, reducing their living space, seizing their land, and annexing their territory once cleansed. This policy, already implemented in the Jordan Valley and South Hebron Hills, may spread to the entire Area C, which comprises 60% of the West Bank, and from there, to the rest of the West Bank – and, of course, the Gaza Strip.
Not without historical precedence, cleansing land of its inhabitants and confining them to a predesignated area are illegal and inhumane. The citizens of Israel bear responsibility, whether through vocal or silent consent, for the trampling of human rights and lives that the State of Israel is leading in both the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
What is unique about the present historical context is that we know the players, understand the method, and can foresee the next step. The only remaining question is – does anyone care?
Israelis’ infatuation with Trump is a honey trap. One way or another, the responsibility for war crimes in the Occupied Palestinian Territories will eventually land at its feet. It may begin with Eurovision and soccer, continue with academia and the arts, but at some point, Israeli citizens will become unwelcome in countries around the world. Perhaps such isolation will finally cause the oppressive occupation regime to collapse.
At the same time, it might also bring down the ethnocracy that claims to be the only democracy in the Middle East.
