It Could Happen Here - What's Happening To Gaza Under Trump: An Update with Dana El-Kurd
Episode Date: February 13, 2025Robert sits down with Dana El-Kurd to discuss President Trump's surprise announcement that the U.S. plans to annex Gaza and force all Palestinians out of the area.See omnystudio.com/listener for priva...cy information.
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Welcome back to it could happen here.
This is a daily news podcast about all of the things happening here,
which is wherever you happen to be.
And also the world in general.
And today we are going back to talk about Gaza, particularly what has happened and
changed in sort of us policy relating to Gaza, to what's going to happen as the
actual combat operations wind down to the Trump administration's so far promises to
effectively, ethnically cleanse the entire area and turn it into some sort of weird US satellite.
And with me today is Dana El-Kurd, an assistant professor of political science,
guest on our episodes about Bibi Nanyahu over at Behind the Bastards.
Dana, thank you so much for being here with us.
How are you doing today?
I know that's a dumb question.
I just asked you that at the start of this too.
No, thank you for having me.
I think every Palestinian in the world is not doing great.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Again, like I said, a dumb question.
The short story of what is happening
is that Trump made an unprecedented announcement
about a week ago on stage with Netanyahu that Gaza would be, that like the Palestinian population would
be forced out and not allowed to return.
And it would be turned into effectively American condos, right?
Like that's, that's essentially, I think that's essentially the gist of the initial meeting,
which was met with a degree of chaos even from Israel, because I don't think
anyone entirely knew exactly what Trump was going to say when he got up on that stage, which is
pretty normal Trump fashion. But yeah, how would you characterize kind of the initial reaction to
that announcement? Yeah, so a couple different audiences for that announcement to begin with.
For the Israeli side, I mean, what I'm hearing from analysts and people who
follow Israeli politics is that this has really changed the permission structure for them.
I think you're right that they didn't expect something to this degree, but now that it's been
said, it's like that is the full extent of what we can expect to do. right? And so I don't think a lot of people are thinking like,
for real, there's gonna be a Gaza Riviera.
But what this does is it just expands the scope
of what they think is possible for Gaza,
whether it's preventing reconstruction
and basically keeping them in this kind of stagnant condition
and allowing people to start trickling out and leaving And basically keeping them in this kind of stagnant condition
and allowing people to start trickling out and leaving and anybody left is considered combatant.
That could be a possibility moving forward.
It could cover up for more aggressive action,
ending the ceasefire.
I mean, it's really upended the things
in terms of the Israeli perspective
and how much they've accepted it, I think.
Yeah, because I mean, my interpretation would be that
what Trump's literal words leave the door open
to everything from, like you said, sort of slowly,
waiting for people to trickle out
and not letting them back in,
kind of like what you saw in the Chago silence
or outright mass killing, you know?
Like there's no closed doors in Trump's plan.
Other than about three hours before we recorded this
on Monday, the 10th, a series of articles went out
based on some of Trump's comments,
confirming Palestinians wouldn't be allowed back
into Gaza under his plan.
Like the plan is for ethnic cleansing, right?
Like that's the only way to describe that.
Yeah, no, it's very explicit.
And I think that the way in which American allies,
allied regimes in the region have reacted to this,
like, shows a great deal of alarm.
Obviously, Jordan and Egypt, already struggling as it is
with a variety of issues, don't want a bunch of Palestinians
who are very politically active to be absorbed
into their population.
The Saudi government put out, I would say, a pretty strong statement.
I was surprised how strong it was about how much they do not endorse such a plan.
So yeah.
And it's interesting because Trump, in the way that he often just says shit, I'm going
to read the exact quote.
I'm talking about starting to build.
And I think I could make a deal with Jordan.
I think I could make a deal with Egypt.
You know, we give them billions and billions of dollars a year.
And so far Egypt and Jordan have both said, no, this is not something we're interested.
You and special rapporteur Francesca Albanese said Trump's proposal was
nonsense, but has to be taken very seriously, which I actually think is a reasonably good summary of how to handle everything that he says.
It's nonsense that you have to take it very seriously.
I mean, the man has the nukes, as we've discussed.
So yeah, I mean, the way that people have reacted is obviously a great deal of alarm.
And on the Palestinian side, it's like, different Palestinian political actors are bracing
for the end of the ceasefire, essentially.
Yeah, I mean, that's a pretty stark term to put it.
And I don't know, I guess,
because yeah, one thing that the door is open on
is Israel saying, well, now that we've announced this plan
and people have to get out,
everyone staying is effectively a combat.
Exactly, yeah.
I think that that's...
Yeah.
It's not, you know, what we've seen over the past 470 days up to ceasefire is not that they have
much respect for non-combatants to begin with.
Yeah.
That really didn't stop them from targeting civilians, targeting children.
So you can imagine now that even, I mean, it's hard to even talk about it in these terms.
It's not like the Biden administration was really holding them accountable either.
But now, again, because the permission structure has just been expanded to such a degree that
we don't know what kinds of things we're going to see for people who remain in Gaza in the
coming future.
And obviously, this derails any possibility for Palestinian and Israeli civil society
actors who are trying to move beyond this particular status quo.
And there's no international actor that's really empowering those efforts.
And so it's really bleak.
Yeah.
I mean, it's bleak in so many comprehensive ways.
Like one thing, and not to,
I don't mean to like kind of take the focus off of Gaza,
but this is, you used the term permission structure.
On an international level, the USA,
we are backing a forced expulsion
and genocide of an entire population.
Does change the permission structure
for every international actor in terms of like
a massive variety of conflicts
around the world. Like this is like a sea change in international norms that so many millions of
people outside of Gaza will eventually and they're probably immediately be affected by.
I mean, I think that there has always been gaps in what is acceptable and what is permissible
under international law.
Obviously, that has never been applied evenly.
And then if you were a particular group that didn't have American backings, for example,
the Armenians in Artsakh, it didn't matter if you were ethnically cleansed.
But like you said, this just expands it to such a scope.
Like now this is an acceptable policy solution
to remove wholesale huge populations.
And when the ceasefire happened, there was an argument,
and I think that this is a valid one,
that Palestinians, the fact that they were able to,
in the ceasefire agreement,
secure their right to return even to the rubble,
that was a huge obstacle to this kind of precedent.
And I think Trump is now trying to upend that victory, even if it's, you know, in
terms of a precedent set or in symbolic terms, like, like you said, this is now
going to become how states operate.
I mean, the Syrian dictator during the Syrian civil war, I think pushed the
bounds of how states can operate.
And this is another level.
Yeah.
Well, and I think that this is,
and I want to kind of zero back in on Gaza in a second,
but I really do.
I think that that broader point that you just make
can't be made enough, not just the centrality of Syria,
but the idea that when on the international stage,
the leader of a country is allowed to do force displacements
through massive aerial bombing.
Like there's this idea that you can just be like, well, that's just Syria, right?
It's never just Syria, just like it's never just Gaza, you know, right?
These things metastasize.
You have to view that those kinds of actions on the international stage like a cancer.
Right. No, absolutely.
There was a Syrian activist and political writer, Yassin al-Hash-Saleh,
who said the Syrianization of the world. Yeah. And we're seeing the Gazification of the-Salih who said the Syrianization of the world.
Yeah.
And we're seeing the gossification of the world.
We will see the gossification of the world.
And that's very, very dangerous for everybody involved.
Yeah.
That can't be overstated.
A chill kind of goes down my spine thinking about that and thinking about that quote,
which makes this a very bad time to throw to ads, but that's what I'm gonna do. Then we're gonna come back and we're gonna talk about demining.
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We're back.
So to Zira Beck and on Gaza, obviously one thing that comes up when Trump talks about
this plan that is an actual thing
that would have to be dealt with one way or the other is that huge chunks of Gaza are
uninhabitable right now and will be for the foreseeable future because of the sheer quantity
of munitions dispensed.
A number of munitions that have been used in Gaza are cluster munitions, but even munitions
that are not cluster munitions, when you're dropping bombs on particularly dense urban targets, there's
a wide variety of things that can happen to those munitions on their way to their target,
including them getting deflected by debris, them getting deflected by pieces of metal
and rebar and the like that damages the device and stops it from detonating, but leaves it
still in an active state.
The estimate I'm seeing for munitions used in Gaza is about 10% of
the munitions. And there's no way of knowing how many have been dropped, but estimates
are at least 30,000 in the first 70 days, I think. Yeah, seven weeks, sorry, much less
than 70 days, nearly 30,000 munitions in the first seven weeks of the war. So a huge number,
about 10% at least, are still active and live.
And for an idea of how long it takes to demine and render an area safe for munitions like
this, there are still people who die in France from World War I munitions, up to the present
day in 2025.
So this is a massive problem.
In the best case scenario, something has to be done with
these munitions.
This is something that Trump has been bringing up and when talking about his desire to clear
people out of their demine and then rebuild effectively, what sounds almost like a vacation
colony for the United States.
And one of the issues just with any sort of practical sort of effect with demining is
that USAID has been gutted as an agency and that's the agency through which demining was done
We've spent billions of dollars put billions of dollars into demining around the world through USAID
The US military is actually not allowed by our laws to do demining operations
There's a complicated history there
But like so we both got this situation where the proposed justification for pushing the population out is, well, it's
not safe to be there. We have to demine it. And also we have created a situation in which
the organizations that do demining can't do it anymore.
Yeah. And I think those same organizations asked for like an exception to the stop work
order and were denied
by the state department and no explanations were given.
And so, I mean, it's obviously a fig leaf.
It's obviously an excuse.
Like this has nothing to do with bettering conditions
in Gaza and the fact that he's gone back and clarified
and has been asked a number of times,
including last night after the Super Bowl or something.
And he said, no, no, they won't be allowed to return.
Yeah.
Well, all right.
What are you demining?
You really think you're going to build hotels?
Yeah.
My understanding is like people in the administration were also surprised by this tack of reasoning.
So I wonder who's fed him this idea.
Like who's given him this idea that he's gonna be able
to build hotels here?
My understanding based on reading,
I honestly don't have any ins in the Trump administration,
but the reporting I've seen suggested came from Kushner
that like a year or so ago he was talking about.
Yeah, he was talking about this.
Like this is great, you know,
a great place to build a condo.
It's beautiful, you know, wonderful weather. I great, you know play a great place to build a condo. It's beautiful
You know wonderful weather. I mean we know just from the past that is kind of how Trump works is
Somebody people tell him a lot of shit
But something sticks in his brain and that like with the Greenland shit can become US policy and that appears to be I mean
As best as I can tell that's the origin of this. It's just like
The grift can really stick in his mind. He's really good at holding on to possibilities for grifting.
Yeah. The fact that you are doing a genocide in order to clear land for condos doesn't
make it less of a genocide, but it is like a justification for genocide.
I don't think I've heard a country's leader make before.
Right.
I mean, parts of this are familiar and go back,
you know, even to the Iraq war in terms of US policy
and further back, right?
Like what is kind of the core of US support of Israel
is our desire to have a stable territory within the Middle
East from where we can project power, right?
So to that extent, this is like a natural expression
of US policy for decades in the area.
Like, well, what if we just take this for ourselves and then we have this stable platform
from where we can air strike whoever the hell we want.
And also Jared Kushner can have his condos.
Yeah, I mean, the thing is they can they can achieve and have already been able to maintain
American hegemony with all sorts of bases across the Middle East,
some secret, some not.
Qatar, like it's, it's, this is,
I think this is another level where it's like,
American hegemony is tangential
to Jared Kushner making money.
Which is an interesting little,
I've never seen a hegemon kind of shoot itself in the foot
in this direction to this degree.
Yeah.
I don't want to, the focus to be on like the danger to
Americans from this, but this is extremely dangerous
for Americans too, right?
Like having your country openly back a genocide
to this extent, like not just even arming it,
but saying like, we are specifically going to build,
like take this land and profit off of it is such a it's it's so comprehensively
escalates everything on an international scale. Like I don't even I can't even I can't think
of a single decision that's this reckless that's been made in my lifetime by by American
politicians other than the Iraq war. Right. And that was I think maybe the first nail
in the coffin. And we're we're reaching the last nails in the coffin.
Yeah, yeah, the coffins almost done. It's almost done. We're dismantling the
whatever remnants of the international order used to exist and it's really
gonna be a freefall. Yeah, I don't know what more to say on that. I guess kind of
the one thing we should get into is what we're seeing in terms of the Trump administration and pro-Palestine protests in the United States.
Obviously, last night at the Super Bowl, we had a moment where a member of Kendrick Lamar's, the performance crew on the ground.
I think it was one of his dancers, as far as I can tell.
I don't believe the individual has been named yet. Maybe I missed that.
I think somebody has released his name.
I think the Intercept.
Okay, well, I don't feel specifically a need to do that,
but an individual who was a part of that
was standing on one of the cars that was on stage
that Kendrick had been dancing on,
unfurled a Palestine and Sudan flag.
It was a fairly small, couple of feet wide,
couple of feet deep. So not like a mass, certainly not a destructive act,
but like not only did that person get like banned for life
from all sort of NFL events and performing or attending them,
which I suppose was not super shocking,
but there were immediate announcements
by New Orleans police that they are trying to figure out
what to charge this person under, which like,
I... Tell me what kind of crime that is, you know?
I mean, it's not like he even invaded the pitch, right?
Like, he's like kind of like an actor, yeah.
He did a thing that wasn't part of the script, I assume,
but like, I don't know how you even...
Charged him.
Yeah, I don't think charges are out yet, right?
But they're going to find something to do which is
Also going to set a precedent, right?
Because this is nothing this person was not in a place they weren't allowed to be this person didn't damage any property
They held a thing like that's the definition of protected speech
You know, if you're their employer you can fire them for that, but you can't charge them criminally
for that.
I mean, they wanted to make an example.
Yeah.
And we'll see what kind of example that they try to make out of this person.
And like you said, it's really in line with the Trump administration taking aggressive
action against any forms of dissent around American foreign policy that is obviously, as we've mentioned,
like very tied up with the genocide that unfolded.
And so it's these executive orders
around deporting international students,
it's executive orders around like expanded understandings
of anti-Semitism.
And the idea is even if you don't go after everybody,
you're making an example enough that like you're chilling people's abilities to engage whether it's on campuses or off campuses.
And so it's definitely I can tell you from like the academic perspective, like a number of
disciplinary organizations and like Middle East Studies Association and things like this, like
they're very concerned. Like this is a very concerning moment.
Yeah.
I want to kind of dig into that a little bit more and we'll continue our conversation.
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We're back.
Dana.
Yeah. We're just talking about kind of the chilling effects.
This has had as an academic.
Do you want to talk a little bit about what you've experienced so far and what
you think kind of needs to be the response to this attempt to chill any kind
of protected speech in favor of Palestine?
Or not even in favor. That's the wrong way to put it.
It's not even in favor, yeah.
Yeah, discussing the reality of the genocide, yeah.
I mean, that's the thing is like, they have not, they've conflated
any attempt to give information with advocacy.
So there's that conflation.
But then of course, advocacy in and of itself is protected.
Yes.
You're certainly allowed to advocate if you're a student or things or a citizen in the world,
of course. So there is that conflation. And I will say that we're seeing attacks on academic
freedom and we're seeing attacks on freedom of speech and freedom of assembly on academic campuses,
both in public institutions that have to uphold public laws and also in private institutions that have paid lip service
to things like free speech and are now ignoring that commitment in the past.
And so we've seen even tenured professors, like what happened in Muenberg College, like
tenured professors being targeted, losing their jobs.
And I can say that this has really activated organizations
like the American Association of University Professors,
the AAUP, the Middle East Studies Association,
as well their Committee on Academic Freedom
has been working to collect data
on how this has impacted people's abilities
to engage on the issue of Israel-Palestine,
even in their research or teaching.
And then there was a study by two professors,
Mark Lynch and Shibri Talhami,
George Washington and University of Maryland respectively,
that found something like over 90% of professors
who teach on the Middle East are self-censoring.
Jesus.
And it's not because they're out in front of the classroom
giving a crap about giving their opinion.
I can tell you, none of us want to
change anybody's minds about this.
It's like they're literally just self-censoring the content.
Like we're just afraid to even address what happened,
what's happening in a historical context
or teaching a course on Israel-Palestine
or any of those kinds
of things is now completely under the microscope.
And this is all part of the whole kind of authoritarian chilling effect of any ability
to express anything outside of like what the regimes that you live under considers acceptable.
And it always starts with these, well, if we talk about Palestine and what's happening
there, then maybe this department will get, you know, its funding cut and we won't be able
to talk about anything. So really this is, you know, it's the same decision a lot of hospitals
are making around like the treatment for trans kids as well. We'll lose our funding if we do this and
we do all these other good things, but they never stop, right? Like you never actually are safe. There's no point
at which these people say it's enough. They take your ability to talk about or to act
in one way or way and then they take it away in another and they keep taking, you know,
until you make a stand and you might as well make a stand the first time they start trying
to take shit from you. Otherwise you're going to get backed even further into a fucking
corner. Yeah. There has to be institutions and leadership at these institutions holding a line because this kind of
preemptive obedience hasn't served them. And it's not going to change fundamentally the fact that this administration
sees
academic knowledge production as a
political landscape they need to control?
And see, I mean, JD Vance says it like professors are the enemy.
Yeah.
So what are you doing trying to placate?
You know, it's like you're, you're just giving them an easier time.
No.
And through the use of funding and their ability to kind of gin up outrage in media groups
like APAC have effectively blasted a salient and free speech
in this country where you really, you almost can't talk about Palestine and you certainly
can't acknowledge what Israel is doing, right?
You can't say it state and plain terms like we are watching a genocide be at least attempted
here, right?
And if you do that, there are huge consequences to most people in traditional organizations, particularly professors, which is always where it starts.
And yeah, that salient is just going to get whiter and whiter and whiter, right? Like
that's the way this stuff works.
Yeah, yeah. I mean, this is not a new argument, but it's like the ways in which the United States has engaged
abroad, it's very much boomeranging home.
And so it's not about, like you said, it's not just about Palestine.
It's not about people who study Palestine or teach about Israel-Palestine.
It's so much broader than that, the precedent that is being set.
And what is like kind of a silver lining is that the last year of the Biden administration,
the last year plus of the Biden administration,
and then even now, I think at least it has helped people
connect the dots a little bit.
But like, this is not an issue in isolation.
And just because you don't happen to work on it
doesn't mean that you're safe from people meddling
in your syllabi or chilling your speech on other issues, whether it's
trans rights, whether it's reproductive rights, whatever issue, if you don't toe the line,
they're going to come for you too, right?
And so I think that, at least I've seen, folks who have never been activated on the issue
of Israel-Palestine,
whether in their advocacy or in their research,
they are making that connection at least.
Maybe that's a silver lining that I'm trying to be less bleak here.
Yeah, I think that's helpful.
When I think about the hypocrisy of this moment,
I think about how much of the clamping down on speech,
particularly the attempt to punish student protesters in the United States is predicated on accusing them of backing Hamas.
And it's so interesting to me because like, you know, obviously I don't think Hamas is
a good organization, but neither is the IRA and the former president of the United States,
Joe Biden made pro-IRA statements.
Like one thing is okay and the other is not. I
don't know. I find it incredibly frustrating that like there's this pretended act that like,
because you've got some people on one side who have made statements in favor of this group
that sucks, that that is a reason for cracking down on the ability of people to talk about
a genocide. Like it's just this hideous hypocrisy
that I don't even understand how like people
can keep that consistent in their own heads,
but they don't need to, right?
That's always the thing with fascists.
No, there's no need for consistency.
Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, that's the thing is like,
first of all, the conflation that like the entire movement
made such a statement or, you know,
I mean, obviously that in and of itself is dishonest and and like you said it's not that they care about
consistency and they don't have to maintain an honest approach to this
they're just using these isolated incidents of of particular you know
particular students or particular groups to shut down any speech around it.
And I was featured in this like Vox video
and it was just like an explainer.
And I received some harassment and like accusations
that because I was providing context in a Vox video,
which is what I was asked to do based on my expertise. Yeah that I was making excuses for
You know what had happened on October 7th and I was like is the red line now just even discussing anything
Yeah, with with any kind of expertise or information like it's it's yeah, it's mind-boggling
I mean, I guess I think that is what they want to make the red line
Yeah, yeah
What you went through there too makes me so angry when I read shit like,
and this is not on Gillibrand,
but Kristin Gillibrand was on someone's podcast recently
talking about why some of her Republican colleagues
who had expressed opposition to some of Trump's picks
ultimately voted for them.
And she's like, they're scared of getting murdered.
And like, isn't everyone who says anything?
And like, you got death threats for a Vox video.
Like, why are these congresspeople
who have so many more resources to protect themselves,
why do they get to be scared?
Oh, well, that's, yeah, Congress and its inability
to do anything, like, that's a whole nother level
of demoralization.
Yeah. Is there anything else you wanted to make sure
we hit on during this conversation
before we sort of close things out?
I'm not sure if maybe this is too in the weeds, but I think there's been a lot discussed
around Trump and the statements around Gaza and his supposed plans for Gaza.
And some analysts have claimed that this has to do with taking an extreme position so that
then Arab-Israeli normalization deals could make the claim that we talked him down from
this brink and like Saudi is going to make peace with Israel and claim that we convinced Trump
not to do this kind of thing.
And so that's been something I've read in some analysis and I don't think it's actually
correct.
I don't think that Trump is making these these kinds of statements or possibly these kinds
of plans just as kind of like, I don't know, multi-level chess with Saudi Arabia to get them to
sign a peace deal with Israel. And the conditions in the region I think have really shifted. And I
don't think Saudi Arabia, as I mentioned at the beginning, because they put out statements to
this effect, I don't think they're at all interested in this kind of move at this point. So maybe I would only add that Trump is not playing this long game that
we think he is. Maybe we can take him at his word. Yeah. No, I know. Because Biden was playing a
long game, a dumb long game, but a long game, trying to brokers a deal with Saudi Arabia and
Israel. Again, I think deranged.
If there's clear evidence that the fact
that he was not compas mentis, it's that, right?
But it was a long game.
And I don't think that Trump is,
I don't think Trump cares about that.
Yeah, and the region has changed so much,
for whether we like it or not,
like Iran is not the threat it used to be.
Iran has closer ties with Saudi Arabia. Saudi Saudi Arabia. I mean has a huge influence on the new Syrian government
Like they don't need this they don't need this and like this is not this kind of long game multi-level chess
You know mastermind over here that Trump is no doing so yeah
I just wanted to add that people are just doing shit and trying to grab on to whatever they can
Right and like let's see what sticks essentially exactly
I mean that and that is so much of that is the entirety of
The the current plan of the new regime in the United States is throw everything you can out there and see what sticks
You know, yeah, they're doing that in Gaza. Just like they're doing it everywhere else
Well, Donna, thank you so much.
Do you want to plug anything at the end of this, your own stuff or something else?
Check out, I guess, the Fire These Times podcast.
I sometimes do episode for them.
Yes.
Yes, yes, yes.
And if you're looking for organizations to help support Gazans right now, Heal
Palestine or Anera, A-N-E-R-A are both doing really crucial work.
Excellent. Excellent. We'll check that out. Definitely check out the Fire These Times. or Anera, A-N-E-R-A, are both doing really crucial work.
Excellent, excellent.
We'll check that out.
Definitely check out the Fire of These Times,
and that's a great place to send some aid.
Donna, thank you so much for being on the show again.
And yeah, I hope you, I don't know.
I hope.
I hope.
That's what I got. That's all hope.
Yeah.
Yeah, thanks, Robert. If What Happened Here is a production of Cool Zone Media.
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