Something Donald Trump will never understand
Australian Friends of Palestine Association (AFOPA) Statement 7 February 2025
AFOPA unequivocally condemns US President Donald Trump’s astonishing announcement that the US will “take over” and “own” Gaza and permanently relocate the over two million Palestinians who live there to neighbouring countries. This demonstrates a clear intent to ethnically cleanse Gaza in violation of international law and in violation of all human decency.
Trump’s plan was met with delight by the genocidal war criminal, Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, for whom the International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant. A smirking Netanyahu praised the President for “thinking outside the box with fresh ideas”. Demonstrating no end to his depravity, Netanyahu gifted Trump a gold pager, a sick nod to the brutal Israeli operation in Lebanon and Syria in September last year, which killed 42 people, including children and injured over 3,000 others. Trump responded that it was “a great operation”. These are Australia’s allies.
Trump appeared blissfully unaware that when he referred to resettling people somewhere where they aren't being “shot and killed”, the person responsible for the shooting and killing was sitting alongside him. The US having enthusiastically supplied and funded the endless bombs, weapons, tanks and bulldozers that have made Gaza unfit to live in, Trump justifies his plan to ethnically cleanse Gaza by claiming that it is evil to suggest that people should live in such dire conditions.
World leaders have condemned Trump’s agenda. The Australian Prime Minister has not. Instead, Albanese has trotted out the usual meaningless mantra about supporting a two-state solution. Our Prime Minister and Foreign Minister must publicly and forcibly denounce Trump’s statements as incitement to war crimes, while at the same time place pressure on our allies, the US and Israel, to restore the rights of the Palestinian people. The Australian government must rediscover its political and moral compass and insist on international law being applied equally to all groups of people.
It is urgent that the Australian government imposes sanctions on Israel for its genocide, illegal occupation and apartheid. Australia must end all military, economic, trade, cultural and sporting ties to compel this rogue state to act in accordance with international law. Australia must expel the Israeli Ambassador and recall the Australian Ambassador from the apartheid state. Wavering between silence and open support for Israel renders the Australian government complicit in Israel’s war crimes and crimes against humanity.
We also unequivocally condemn the Opposition Leader for his deplorable backing of the “big thinker and deal maker” on which he is modelling himself. Referring to Trump as “shrewd”, Dutton went on to extoll Trump as bringing “gravitas to the situation”.
The Palestinian people have endured eight decades of savage oppression, brutal occupation and crushing apartheid. Gaza has suffered an inhumane blockade by land, sea and air for 17 years. And yet we are watching in awe as hundreds of thousands of people return to unrecognisable neighbourhoods, streets and homes. They are burying the remains of their loved ones and coming to terms with their unimaginable losses. Forty percent of Palestinians are taking care of children not their own.
Their grief is palpable but so is their resilience. Despite five massive Israeli bombardments in 17 years and a 16-month genocide, Palestinians in Gaza are reclaiming their land. They remain resolute and steadfast because they are fighting for justice, for their homeland, for the land they love.
This is something Donald Trump and the occupying regime will never understand.
For further comment please contact Christa Christaki on 0401 121877.