HOUSTON – President Donald Trump is facing backlash regarding his statements with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, suggesting that Palestinian refugees from the Gaza Strip could be permanently resettled elsewhere.
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For a city like Houston, which is home to a large population of Palestinian refugees, many residents may not understand the gravity of this conflict in the Middle East if carried out. For historians like Dr. Abdel Razzaq Takriti, who serves as the Arab-American Educational Foundation Chair in Arab Studies at Rice University, this story sounds familiar—and a reality many should be concerned about.
“Unfortunately, in the United States, often that reality is distorted in the general media; people don’t know what has happened. They think of it as just violence between two peoples; a fight, a brawl; a conflict,” he said. “But what has happened is essentially forced displacement; ethnic cleansing.”
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The Trump administration has since dialed back aspects of the proposal after it was widely rejected internationally, saying the relocation of Palestinians would be temporary. U.S. officials have provided few details about how or when the plan would be carried out.
In his comments Tuesday alongside visiting Netanyahu, Trump said Palestinians from Gaza should be resettled in lands in Egypt, Jordan, or elsewhere, promising them a “beautiful place.” Egypt and Jordan have both rejected Trump’s call, and Palestinians have vehemently rejected Trump’s proposal, fearing Israel would never allow refugees to return.
“Let’s start by clarifying some terms, because these things are being thrown around: redevelopment is not redevelopment, it is theft in this case,” Dr. Takriti explained. “The neighboring countries know this when they say, ‘We don’t want to absorb this population,’ this is not them being xenophobic. This is saying, ‘If you do that, this has political implications for that population, they lose their political rights to their land they still retain those rights, but it becomes much harder for them to attain them in the future; their land will be taken over.”
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“Gaza is the size of Harris County where we live here, our hometown,” he added. “Can you imagine if somebody did this to Harris County, to Houston? Destroyed everything? Displaced everybody from one part of Houston to the other and then has the audacity to come and tell you afterward, ‘By the way, Houston now is uninhabitable, you have to get the hell out because we’re going to redevelop it and give it to another people.’”
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As a renowned scholar of revolutions, anticolonialism, and state formation in the modern Arab world, Dr. Takriti is aptly qualified to speak on this topic objectively. Still, in the current political climate where arguments revolving around the Middle Eastern conflict are understandably sensitive topics, Dr. Takriti notes they are important conversations to have.
“Anti-Semitism is a real issue, and it should be combated whenever it appears, like any other form of racism or any form of racism is reprehensible,” he said. “However, when that charge is used in the context of trying to silence people who are trying to stop a genocide, that is actually a huge affront to the history of the great Jewish scholars that have defined terms such as genocide and antisemitism. So it’s clear, like [Raphael] Lemkin, who was the founder of the concept of genocide, worked really hard to stop it.”
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“He created that concept to prevent genocide from happening again,” Dr. Takriti continued. “He developed it in the context of the genocides that were being committed against European Jews during the Holocaust. But he wanted it to be applied globally because he wanted this never to happen to any people.”
Before coming to Rice University, Dr. Takriti held the Arab-American Educational Foundation Chair in Modern Arab History at the University of Houston for nearly 10 years. He was also the Founding Director of the Center for Arab Studies. As a longtime Houston resident, he’s seen how the Palestinian population has grown and fallen in love with this city.
“Houston is the favorite city in the United States for communities like this because of its openness, because of how great it is,” he noted. “And we see that in the cultural products that are coming from Houston, like the Netflix series Mo... This occupation has caused misery for that population in a big way, it also has impacted their relatives here in Houston. I have friends that have lost 220-230 of their relatives. It’s not a joke.”
That’s why he argues it should concern residents why their taxpayer dollars couldn’t be used to fix domestic issues.
“In the case of Houston, we see our government—the federal government—has spent over $20 billion to enact a genocide over a helpless population that is that has already suffered years of starvation, blockade, and occupation,” Dr. Takriti said. “This stuff could go into developing Houston, developing American cities that need help. We have roads to fix. We have infrastructure that is decaying. We have people that are starving in our streets. We have small businesses that need support. We have all sorts of programs that require invigoration; why are we spending it instead on massacres?”
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When one looks at the photos in Gaza, one might wonder how they’ll be able to rebuild if there’s nothing left. The Associated Press reports that Israeli bombardment and ground operations have transformed entire neighborhoods into mostly rubble. Major roads have been plowed up, critical water and electricity infrastructure is in ruins and most hospitals no longer function. And it’s unclear when—or even if—much will be rebuilt.
There’s still a relentless call for peace, Dr. Takriti admits, and while there are moments when one feels hopeless, optimism finds a way to make its way through the rubble.
“I cannot begin to tell you sometimes, and I don’t mind sharing this with the viewers, sometimes I sit there, and I get into deep moments of just feeling so upset for myself, with myself, for not having enough power to stop it,” Dr. Takriti concluded. “The only real solution is to have a shared future for both people on the land where they have equal rights, where they live together equally on all of the land, and where Palestinians are allowed to return there and where they’re allowed to exercise their sovereignty as a people on their land.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.