AS Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu, along with their respective delegations, sat down to dinner in the White House on Monday, Israeli forces were busy doing what they have been doing in the killing fields of Gaza for the past 21 months: murdering and pillaging.

And perhaps the most unfortunate development during this meeting was the fact that the Israeli leader — responsible for the murder of tens of thousands of Palestinian men, women and children — announced that he had nominated Mr Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Sometimes reality is far more grotesque than fiction. And though negotiations for a possible ceasefire continue, no one should doubt Israel’s long-term intentions even if the butchery stops: the Israeli state seeks to ethnically cleanse the occupied territories of their Palestinian inhabitants, and forever obstruct the chances of a viable Palestinian state.

Those who believe a two-state solution is still possible should listen closely to what Mr Netanyahu said at the White House. “Never again” he declared when discussing a “complete state” for the Palestinians, while adding that “overall security will always remain in our hands”. By security, one assumes the Israeli leader means that Tel Aviv will always retain the ‘right’ to butcher Palestinians into submission should they step out of line. As for Gaza? The Israeli leader repeated the intention to ethnically cleanse the Strip, and ship the Palestinians off to other countries.

His defence minister offered more details, saying that all of Gaza’s Palestinians will be rounded up into a concentration camp in Rafah, and after “deradicalisation”, they will be “encouraged” to leave for other states. Perhaps starvation and mass murder are amongst the methods the Israeli state uses to ‘encourage’ Palestinians to flee. But the brave people of Gaza are not ready to go anywhere; they would rather die on their land than face expulsion and exile.

Ever since the Oct 7, 2023 events, over 57,000 people have been slaughtered by Israel in Gaza. However, the Gaza Mortality Survey, conducted by experts from the UK and other Western states, suggests the actual death toll may be over 83,000.

But to the world these are mere numbers; no one has the moral courage to halt this massacre. What is particularly shocking is how much Zionism in modern Israel resembles Nazism in 20th-century Europe. Both are exclusionary ideologies, with their followers known to perpetrate unimaginable cruelty. The Nazis sent their victims off to the gas chambers; the Israeli state oversees a genocide in Gaza. But while Nazism is today rightly condemned the world over, the modern followers of Zionism get the best seat at the table, and are wined and dined by the world’s most powerful leaders, as the children of Gaza suffer and die in pain.

Published in Dawn, July 9th, 2025