The Elimination of Palestinians: A Brutal Project in Progress

Everything Israel does is for its own purposes, and to complete its genocidal settler-colonial project.

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“Much of the Gaza Strip is destroyed after more than 15 months of relentless Israeli bombings, leaving hundreds of thousands of Palestinians with nowhere to live.” [https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2025/1/20/aerial-photos-show-scale-of-israeli-destruction-in-gaza]

“They have plundered the world, stripping naked the land in their hunger… they are driven by greed, if their enemy be rich; by ambition, if poor… They ravage, they slaughter, they seize by false pretenses, and all of this they hail as the construction of empire. And when in their wake nothing remains but a desert, they call that peace.” —The Agricola and The Germania, Tacitus (~98AD)

Only someone completely detached from the world could fail to notice the dark clouds gathering over us. I remind myself that these dark clouds were always there. It is simply my turn now to live through yet another downturn in this endless destructive cycle we cannot seem to escape. I do, however, question whether the stability that many of us in the West have enjoyed—and have grown to take for granted—is being dismantled.

When faced with gradual but persistent change, we can only make predictions based on past experience. My predictions could well be wrong—things might turn out better, worse, or just different than I anticipate—but it is hard to shake the ominous feeling that those of us who were used to stability and relative peace are heading toward very dark times. Others, like the Palestinians, are already in the middle of an apocalypse, the same kind of apocalypse many indigenous people have experienced throughout history. Just like it was in ancient Rome, our stability and prosperity have depended on plunder and theft, and on human suffering usually far away from our shores. The crimes we have allowed our countries and our leaders to commit, supposedly on our behalf and to give us our comforts, may be coming back to haunt us, and the signs of unraveling are becoming harder to ignore.

Those capable of inflicting atrocities on others, reveal a mindset that is not limited to a particular group of scapegoats. A person or regime capable of objectifying even one human being, demonstrates a pathological absence of empathy. In other words, they are not dangerous only to their choice victim. They are universally dangerous.

From the narcissistic to the psychotic, our leaders operate under the delusion that they are fundamentally different from the rest of us. Like rulers throughout history, these powerful individuals see themselves as invincible gods. And they are surrounded by sycophants who reinforce this belief, confirming that they are indeed ‘special’ and deserving of different rules than those that bind ordinary humans. Political power has always allowed the wealthy to fulfil their fantasies, not just in their personal domains, but globally. While each one of us has an impact on a limited number of people, those in power can impact on every human being in the world.

The story of the Great Fire of Rome told in detail in book XV of Tacitus’ Annals is a chilling description of the chaos and devastation that a narcissistic ruler and his enablers can wreak upon the people under their rule. Two fires devastated Rome in July 64AD. The Roman public, having no illusions about their ruler’s character, believed Nero had started both.

“… a rumour had gone forth everywhere that, at the very time when the city was in flames, the emperor appeared on a private stage and sang of the destruction of Troy, comparing present misfortunes with the calamities of antiquity.”

Tacitus says that “…there attached the greater infamy [to the second fire]… and it seemed that Nero was aiming at the glory of founding a new city and calling it by his name”. —Tacitus, Cornelius. The Annals of Imperial Rome (p. 215).

Nero was good at covering his tracks and getting away with crimes, including the murder of his own mother, Agrippina the Younger, wife and niece of Emperor Claudius. Nero’s behaviour—the mixture of grandiose self-image, lack of empathy, and sadistic pleasure in wielding absolute power—exemplifies patterns we see in leadership today

Dark times have always been driven by psychopathology. Healthy people do not treat others as objects to be rearranged at will. Healthy people are wary of wielding power, and do not take any pleasure from killing or controlling others. Psychopathology has a far bigger impact on human affairs than psychological health, as our bloody track record proves.

Israel’s Plans

Israel’s assault on the colonised West Bank began immediately after its temporary pause in eliminating Gaza’s population. “Days after Gaza ceasefire; Large-scale incursion into West Bank city, dubbed operation ‘Iron Wall’, begins with deadly air strikes” (Middle East Eye. 21 January 2025 12:30 GMT). The BBC has also reported the assault on Jenin.

The operation’s name—‘Iron Wall’—reveals its premeditated nature. The soldiers’ orders are predictable: demolish infrastructure, target public buildings, spread fear and confusion, maximise casualties. Israel continues to justify these actions with its standard pretexts of self-defence and ‘fighting terrorism’.

Pressured by the Israeli Jewish majority, Israel’s government is now executing the final stages of its settler-colonial project across historic Palestine. This project operates like a single-minded, fully armed machine with one clear purpose: to replace the indigenous Palestinian population with people Israel defines as Jews. This project is the fundamental raison d'être of the Israeli state and its people. The drive for an exclusively Jewish ghetto serves as the only unifying force in Israeli society. Few consider, or care about the long-term consequences, except those who anticipate financial windfalls from redeveloping Gaza and the colonised West Bank, and exploiting Gaza’s offshore gas reserves.

The scope of Israel’s systematic elimination now extends across three fronts: Gaza, the West Bank, and its own Palestinian citizens. Incursions into Lebanon and Syria serve a dual purpose: territorial expansion, and clearing potential dumping grounds for Palestinian refugees from the colonised West Bank and Israel.

As with every aspect of this elimination project, Israel follows well-worn historical patterns. In 1938, Nazi Germany conducted what became known as the Polenaktion (Polish Action) where they forcibly deported around 17,000 Polish Jews living in Germany. These people were arrested and transported to the border between Germany and Poland, effectively stranded in a no man’s land near towns like Zbąszyń, as Poland initially refused to accept them. The deportees endured makeshift camps with inadequate shelter, food, and medical care. This forced deportation to the border region demonstrated the Nazi regime’s escalating persecution of Jews, and their willingness to use deportation as a tool of ethnic cleansing, foreshadowing the more extensive and systematic deportations that would follow during the war years.

The Palestinian population today faces similar systematic division and displacement. Almost two million Palestinian citizens of Israel live as second-class citizens, comprising about 20% of the Israeli population. Just under three million Palestinians live in the colonised West Bank. Before the October 2023 assault on Gaza, just over two million Palestinians lived—or rather, were trapped there. I suspect Israel has murdered close to 100,000 so far. Israel treats this elimination as a numbers game, but we must insist on seeing each victim as a human being with a body, thoughts, feelings, relationships, hopes, and dreams.

To complete the elimination of Palestinians from historic Palestine, Israel must devise different strategies for each region. Minimising its own casualties is likely to be one of Israel’s primary considerations—not from any concern for their people, but because significant Israeli losses might spark population rebellion.

The presence of so many Israeli colonies throughout the West Bank prevents Israel from using carpet bombing as it has done in Gaza. Instead, the territory has been strategically divided into areas of concentrated Palestinian population interspersed with colonial settlements. This fragmentation has always served a clear purpose: to separate indigenous communities from one another, weakening their social bonds, and their capacity for organised resistance.

Jenin, with its predominantly Palestinian population concentrated in refugee camps, was the obvious first target. The Palestinian Authority forces, acting as collaborators, have cleared the way by withdrawing from the area, allowing the Israeli military unrestricted access to ‘finish the job’.

Every settler-colonial project in history has relied on collaborators. What has Israel promised the Palestinian Authority and its forces in return for delivering their people to the fate Israel has in store for them? While some collaborators may believe they can survive by cooperating with Israel’s project to ‘cleanse’ historic Palestine of Palestinians, I have no doubt others are coerced through Israel’s tactics of kidnapping relatives or threatening families. History will reveal the extent of Israel’s psychological warfare in Palestine—the shadowy operations and systematic effort to fracture Palestinian society. This strategy is not original; all settler-colonialists have used it. A fractured population, divided by deeply sown seeds of mistrust, struggles to mount effective resistance.

Israel’s strategy depends on Trump to coerce or bribe Jordan and Egypt into accepting Palestinians from the colonised West Bank and Gaza. While Owen Jones criticises journalists for failing to confront Trump about the criminality of ethnic cleansing and forced displacement, such confrontation would likely prove futile.

The next phase of Israel’s plan is becoming clear. After Jenin, other West Bank cities, towns and villages will face similar operations. The Jewish settlers who have established footholds in places like Hebron and Nablus will be temporarily relocated, housed at government expense away from the impending carnage. The pattern of displacement will be systematic: men will be rounded up, humiliated, and transported away, their fate uncertain. The remaining population will face forced ‘evacuation’—given minutes to leave their homes at gunpoint, carrying only what they can hold. The drive eastward will be deadly; Israel’s strategy appears to include maximising casualties, particularly targeting children to diminish the population’s future viability.

Israel’s plan likely divides survivors between east and northeast. Jordan faces a stark choice regarding West Bank refugees: accept them or face Israeli military action. Another option—Jordan itself blocking refugees by force—would serve Israel’s narrative by distributing culpability for the humanitarian crisis. US financial incentives will likely influence Jordan’s decision.

Those not directed toward Jordan will be forced to march northeast, into the newly cleared space between Syria and Lebanon. The journey itself becomes a tool of elimination, every death en-route advancing Israel’s objectives.

The temporary ceasefire should not be mistaken for an end to Israel’s broader strategy. While global attention shifts elsewhere, the systematic elimination of Palestinians continues. The attacks on Jenin signal the beginning of the next phase—a calculated progression that already unfolds across the West Bank while the world’s attention is diverted. Those who imagine Gaza’s survivors will be allowed to rebuild are missing the larger picture: this is merely a pause in an ongoing project of total displacement.

If no one stops Israel, the final phase of their project will target Palestinian citizens of Israel, concentrated in the country’s north. Their citizenship will likely be revoked, as they too are forced toward the northeast, thus completing the elimination of Palestinians from all of historic Palestine.

As always, I hope I am wrong. But Israel’s actions are never random, and if Israel is not stopped, it will complete its project. The public must reject the false justifications of ‘self-defence’, and ‘war against terrorism’ that Israel and the pro-Israel media repeat. Those who accept the comfort of these excuses, remain blind to the brutal fact that a genocide with all its horrors is unfolding in front of us, with the collusion of our countries and media.

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