Barry Ziman
After more than 600 days of war, the terrorist group Hamas refuses to surrender, release the remaining hostages and relieve the suffering of Gaza civilians. Given the plight of those caught in the crossfire, President Donald Trump was right in urging that Gaza civilians be evacuated to other nations in the region. Such an evacuation would mitigate the logistical challenge of ensuring the civilian population of Gaza is not deprived of necessary access to food and medicine, as the war to end Hamas rule is protracted.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in a June 15 interview on Fox News, agreed with a voluntary evacuation option for Gaza civilians. “It’s good for peace; good for Israel and the United States, and I think it’s good for Palestinians. They should be given a choice,” he said. Netanyahu reiterated this view during his recent visit to the White House.
Besides Hamas, those standing in the way of evacuation are Egypt and Jordan. Yet it is extremely rare to hear any condemnation or even critique of these nations for perpetuating and exacerbating this crisis through their refusal to extricate Gaza civilians en masse.
Trump should be encouraged to follow his initial inclination. When asked, this past February, if he would be willing to withhold aid from Jordan and Egypt if they fail to assist with the evacuation, he said, “Yeah, maybe, sure, why not? If they don’t, I would conceivably withhold aid, yes.”
Indisputably, during most military conflicts, civilians under duress flee war zones. The Syrian civil war, in which dictator Bashar al-Assad poison gassed his own people, resulted in displacement of millions of Syrians who fled to Europe and to Jordan. Jordan accepted an estimated 650,000 Syrian refugees.
However, when it comes to Gaza civilians, Jordan has closed its doors, even rushing out some Gaza children after they provided emergency medical treatment. Gaza parents of those children who received emergency care complained, but “Jordan’s policy is to keep Palestinians on their land, and not to contribute to their displacement outside their territory,” said the Jordanian government in a statement sent to the BBC.
Similarly, after the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, Egypt tightened its fencing and border with Gaza. They did not want Gaza civilians fleeing, even temporarily, into their territory.
Vociferous, ignorant protestors on American university campuses never acknowledged that a Gaza border wall and the Rafah access point into the enclave were controlled by Egypt.
More concerning, this fact of geography is rarely mentioned or interrogated as an issue of interest by U.S. media, or even from members of Congress, including those who demand a unilateral Israeli end to the conflict. But try asking a member of Congress just how to end Hamas’ rule if Israel ceases its military operations and all you will get from them is a blank stare.
Israel only seized the Gaza side of the Rafah crossing in May 2024. However, at the start of the war, The New York Times ran a headline that said, “As Deaths Soar in Gaza From Israeli Strikes, Egypt Offers Aid, but No Exit.” Egypt’s president was quoted as saying Gaza civilians must “stay steadfast and remain on their land.”
Like the Jordanians, Egyptian altruism appears constricted by perceived threats to its government posed by Hamas. Egypt’s primary concern is not having its regime destabilized by an influx of Palestinian refugees and potentially Hamas terrorists. However, Egypt controlled Gaza from 1948 to 1967, so the civilians of Gaza have legacy ties to Egypt but were never offered an independent state by that nation. Similarly, Jordan’s military in 1970 engaged in armed conflict with Palestinians who fled to that nation.
Given this complex, ambivalent history, when Trump boldly suggested the evacuation of Palestinians to Jordan and Egypt, their governments became conspicuously reticent on the plight of Gaza’s civilians.
For those who condemn voluntary humanitarian evacuation with the moniker of “ethnic cleansing” such objection is both irresponsible and callous. The saving of lives, including and especially children, from a military conflict zone is not, in any way, tantamount to ethnic cleansing.
To equate voluntary evacuation with ethnic cleansing is to degrade those groups who have been real victims of targeted, systematic ethnic cleansing in the region, including Jews, Kurds, Yazidis and most recently the Druze in Syria. To be ruthlessly executed or enslaved for a religious or ethnic affiliation is the real crime of ethnic cleaning.
Hamas’ attack on Israel, with its overtly depraved intent to exterminate and kidnap civilians of all ages, was calculated ethnic cleansing against the Jewish state in the unequivocal application of the terminology. Hamas’ war crimes and nihilistic brutality are not only directed against Israel but also against the Palestinian people whom they have executed in the streets and the use of the Gaza civilian population as human shields.
If a large-scale voluntary evacuation through an Egyptian and Jordan escape route is successful, such action would not only serve America’s strategic interest but render appropriate aid and compassion while facilitating the Israeli destruction of Hamas, thereby paving the way for a future peace in which Gaza civilians could ultimately return home to a fully demilitarized zone.
Barry Ziman is a novelist and government relations professional living in Northern Virginia.
