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| Photo: Gaza, MSF |
Donald Trump announced that the US would take control of the Gaza Strip and furthermore expel the Palestinian population in order to turn it into a type of Mediterranean Riviera, inviting what he called people of the world to settle in his new property speculation.
When he talks of people of the world, it is clear, and he was explicit, that it doesn’t include any Palestinians. People of the world are from the USA, France, Great Britain and other parts and all, absolutely all of them, without exceptions are Zionist colonisers.
The reaction to his criminal declaration is not surprising. If Europe and other countries were willing to tolerate when not actively supporting the Zionist genocide, the forced displacement of two million people is for them perhaps a lesser crime, though it is still a war crime and a crime against humanity. Governments have reacted with statements expressing their concern about the situation and stating that what is at stake now is the ceasefire and that hazy reactionary two state solution, instead of one secular Palestinian state for all. This contrasts with the recent EU announcement that the basis has been set for a special tribunal to judge Putin for the crime of aggression.[1]
Trump, however, states that it is his intention to commit a war crime violating Article 49 of the Geneva Convention (IV) and they don’t have much to say, they just express their concern. Article 49 couldn’t be clearer.
Individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory to the territory of the Occupying Power or to that of any other country, occupied or not, are prohibited, regardless of their motive…
The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.[2]
So, what Trump proposes is a war crime on two grounds. Not only does he want to expel the mass of the Palestinian population but he also aims to transfer part of his own civilian population to that zone. What’s more, he aims to do it for his own personal benefit. To take economic advantage of a war crime, is itself a war crime according to article 33. And pillage is banned in international law and also US law since 1863 when the Lieber Code laid down the death penalty for pillage. This prohibition was later included in the Hague Regulations of 1907 and in the Geneva Conventions, though this latter document doesn’t explicitly lay down the death penalty for this crime. Pillage is theft in a war or after and there already have been court cases at the International Criminal Court for this crime.[3]
Trump is a criminal for many reasons and his delirium of building a Mediterranean Riviera on the bones of the victims of a genocide and ethnic cleansing is just one example of his criminality. Unfortunately, no one will do with him what the Israelis did with Eichmann i.e. kidnap him, try him and sentence him. As the novel The Gaucho Martín Fierro puts it, “Justice is like a knife it never hurts those that wield it.”
Nothing will happen to Trump and Netanyahu, as with many war criminals and various of those guilty of genocide, will die in his bed. The European Union will express its concern whilst its companies also get rich on the ethnic cleansing as they did with the genocide. Meanwhile Putin will go on trial.
References
[1] The Guardian (04/02/2025) Foundations laid for tribunal to try Putin for Ukraine invasion. Jennifer Rankin.
[2] The Geneva Conventions can be consulted at.
[3] ICC cases can be consulted at.
⏩ Gearóid Ó Loingsigh is a political and human rights activist with extensive experience in Latin America.
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