The Violent Take it By Force
Rev. Mark Davidson warns against dismissing Trump’s outrageous plan to seize and “redevelop” Gaza as mere fantasy. Tracing its roots through a century of Western imperialism, racism, and unchecked power, Davidson shows how this vision echoes a long history of colonial violence against Palestinians. As the U.S. enables war crimes and undermines international law, he urges us to resist further ethnic cleansing and demand that Gaza be rebuilt—by Gazans, for Gazans. Let justice—not impunity—shape the future.
Rev. J. Mark Davidson, Executive Director
2/14/20253 min read


Trump has announced his intention to seize Gaza and drive the Palestinians out of their homes. He wants to take it, “clean it up,” and develop it into a beachside resort, “the Riviera of the Middle East.” On one level, this is so outlandish and wildly impractical that no rational person could possibly take it seriously. But given the history of western imperialism in the Middle East, and the United States government’s blatant disregard for the humanity of the Palestinian people, it would be a grave mistake to dismiss it as mere Trumpian bluster and a real estate fantasy. There are three main reasons why this threatened forced displacement and takeover of Gaza should be taken seriously:
Western imperialism. In 1916, after WW I ended and the Ottoman Empire collapsed, the governments of France and the United Kingdom, with tacit permission from Russia and Italy, took it upon themselves to carve up the Arab world into zones of control and influence. The “Sykes-Picot Agreement” was a secret treaty conducted without the slightest consultation with the indigenous people of these lands. They simply drew arbitrary borders to suit their interests. They ran roughshod over long-standing cultural traditions and historical alliances, and spawned rifts and divisions where none previously existed. They identified oil fields and ports and travel routes that they coveted, and simply declared that they were now theirs. This was naked western imperialism, a source of Arab anger and frustration to this day. What Trump is talking about is nothing new. It fits into a long history of injustice and western imperialism. Western imperialists have not changed their ways.
Racism. In 1917, Sir Arthur Balfour, foreign secretary in the UK, ardent Christian Zionist, penned the infamous “Balfour Declaration.” This brief declaration was addressed to Jewish financier Walter Lord Rothschild, head of the British Zionists. It promised “a national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine. The Palestinian people were not consulted. Palestine was not England’s to give away, but that didn’t stop them from setting in motion a disastrous chain of events which continues to roil the entire region. At the treaty of Versailles in 1919, Balfour took issue with the idea of self-determination being applied to the Palestinians: “ …in Palestine, we do not propose even to go through the form of consulting the wishes of the present inhabitants of the country. The Four Great Powers are committed to Zionism. And Zionism, be it right or wrong, good or bad, is rooted in age-long traditions, in present needs, in future hopes, of far profounder import than the desires and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who now inhabit that ancient land.” In other words, Jewish lives matter, and Palestinian lives don’t. What Trump and Netanyahu and the extremist far-right Israeli government are talking about is nothing new. It is deep, unrepentant racism toward the Palestinian people. It has been in effect for over a century, and it remains in effect.
Unchecked power. After WWII, in 1948, the international community passed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, enshrining the rights and freedoms of all human beings. In that same year, the United Nations passed a series of protocols and agreements, including the Geneva Conventions, that constituted the architecture of “international humanitarian law,” including the Convention Against Genocide. This was a legitimate attempt of the international community after a war-ruined Europe lay in ruins, and the Holocaust and Hiroshima, to change course, to establish a “rules-based world order.” But none of that has prevented war crimes from being committed against the Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank (or in Sudan or the Congo, Ukraine, among other nations). International Criminal Court arrest warrants have been issued for PM Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. But to what effect? Netanyahu was warmly welcomed at the Trump White House, Yoav Gallant was the guest of honor at a Chicago synagogue, and the U.S. Congress condemned and sanctioned the International Criminal Court. If international humanitarian law wasn’t able to stop a genocide in Gaza, what makes us think it will be able to stop the forcible displacement – ethnic cleansing – of @ 2 million Palestinians from Gaza, or from the occupied West Bank? The sad fact is that we do not have an effective enforcement mechanism to check the power of the violent taking whatever they want by force.
By any moral standard, those who destroyed Gaza have a responsibility to help rebuild it. Gaza must be rebuilt by Gazans, with the help of the international community, for Gazans. Those who have suffered greatly should be helped to rebuild their lives and to reclaim a future in their own land. Here’s a first step: take the $3.8 billion per year in U.S. military aid to Israel, a country being run by war criminals, and redirect it to the reconstruction of Gaza, for as many years as it takes.