Knesset MP Denounces Trump-Netanyahu Gaza Seizure as “Crime of the Century”
Aida Touma-Suleiman decries the plan as an act of imperial terror that threatens to ignite further conflict in the Middle East.
Watan-Member of the Knesset Aida Touma-Suleiman sharply criticized the plan devised by U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to seize Gaza, describing it as the “crime of the century.”
In an article published by Haaretz, she asserted that the aim of Israel’s “destructive” war—rendering the Strip uninhabitable and forcibly displacing its residents—had been clear from the start, if only the world had paid attention to the words of Israeli officials.
Imperial Terror
The writer described Trump’s joint press conference with Netanyahu as an “exhibition of imperial terror,” particularly since the Republican president expressed his intention to take over the Strip while feigning concern for the Palestinians’ well-being given the rubble and mines, all the while “standing beside the person responsible for all the destruction.”
Touma-Suleiman, who represents the leftist Hadash-Ta’al party, warned that having the leader of the world’s greatest power orchestrate such a plan is tantamount to an open death sentence under international law.
She pointed out that the seizure of Gaza is a “chaotic, arbitrary, and brutal” move that “will ignite the flames of war in Arab countries.”
She added that Trump spoke about expelling the Palestinians from their land as if he were a capitalist considering a real estate development, referring to it as a “demolition site” and casting Netanyahu as the contractor responsible for the “planned war crime.”
Netanyahu Washington Visit
Forces of Evil
The writer stated that Trump’s plan has awakened the worst “forces of evil” in the Middle East: former Israeli Minister of Security Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, bolstering “their delusions of ethnic cleansing, settlement, and building a Greater Israel.”
She further noted that Trump has salvaged Netanyahu’s political career, and that the latter will now proceed with the crime of the century with full confidence, completing the destruction of the Strip and annexing the West Bank as well—all while the Israeli opposition watches silently.
However, the writer believes that the crime of the century will not occur, as the Palestinians will not agree to leave their land, nor will any Arab state accept hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees, thereby preventing another Nakba.
She affirmed that she and peace advocates among both Arabs and Jews will not remain silent about this “war crime.” There will be no surrender and no silence; they will stand against chauvinism and imperialism, oppose the crime of the century and all the daily crimes of occupation and apartheid, and insist that the only solution is one: an independent Palestinian state coexisting alongside the state of Israel.
