Our Wednesday News Analysis | Manifest Destiny and Zionism, a legacy of ethnic cleansing

Screenshot from a video showing Israeli soldiers saluting the Israeli flag while singing the Israeli national anthem on a beach in Gaza in November 2023

"History has repeatedly shown that ethnic cleansing does not bring lasting peace; it sows the seeds of hate and future conflict.

The forced displacement of Indigenous peoples, whether in North America or Palestine, has led to generational resistance. The Palestinians, like the Native Americans before them, will not abandon their claims to their homeland.

As the world watches the situation in Gaza unfold, it must ask itself whether it is willing to allow the mistakes of the past to be repeated in the 21st century.

… history teaches that oppression breeds resistance and
that native populations do not simply disappear.

They fight back by whatever means, leading to further instability
and conflict in the years to come."

Ethnic cleansing is as American as apple pie and justified through the doctrine of Manifest Destiny, which emerged in the 19th century and promoted the belief that Americans were divinely ordained to expand westward. This expansion led to the forced displacement, extermination, and cultural erasure of countless Native American tribes. An estimated 2 to 18 million Native Americans lived in North America before European contact. By 1890, the U.S. Census officially recorded 248,253 Native Americans.

The displacement of the Native Americans was systematic and brutal. The Indian Removal Act of 1830, enforced by President Andrew Jackson, led to the Trail of Tears, the forced relocation of Native American tribes from their ancestral lands in the Southeastern United States to Oklahoma. This uprooted the Indigenous peoples, leading to the deaths of thousands due to harsh conditions, starvation, disease, and exposure to make for American settlers. The government facilitated this through policies that legitimized land seizures, forced relocations, and even massacres, all in the name of progress and Manifest Destiny.

President Donald Trump echoed this 19th-century expansionist rhetoric, first at his inauguration when he declared a “Manifest Destiny to Mars” and the seizure of Greenland and Canada, and then later when he proposed taking Gaza and turning it into the “Riviera of the Middle East.” His statement underscored the persistent mentality that expansion and domination remain central to his administration. Trump’s worldview, which revives 19th-century imperialism and Manifest Destiny, is similar in many ways to Zionism...

Read more: Manifest Destiny and Zionism, a legacy of ethnic cleansing

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BROKEN TOYS AMONG THE ASHES: CHILDREN IN THE SHADOW OF WAR

Source: Daily Sabah
https://www.dailysabah.com/opinion/op-ed/broken-toys-among-the-ashes-children-in-the-shadow-of-war

By Melda Civelek
Published March 10, 2025

War's toll on children is immeasurable, as mental scars persist long after the bombs stop

Palestinian children pose for a picture on the debris of a building, Gaza City, Palestine, March 6, 2025. (AFP Photo)

For these children, war is not only a physical conflict; it also means an emotional rupture and a deep hole in identity construction.

A child who constantly witnesses death and destruction begins to perceive the world as an untrustworthy and dangerous place;

Especially children who experience the loss of a parent or witness their parents' helplessness experience severe ruptures in essential attachment dynamics.

Even when the sound of the bombs stops, the screams of children continue to echo for generations in the debris left behind. The children who survive these conflicts are silent witnesses who are ignored, especially by so-called civilized societies, but carry the deepest scars.

War, one of the most brutal scenes in human history, leaves irreversible damage not only on the conflicting parties on the front lines but also on the minds of innocent children who have to grow up in that geography. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict, far beyond the political and ideological conflicts that have been going on for years, inflicts irreversible wounds on children's mental health; the cold reality of war disrupts children's most basic emotional and cognitive development processes. A generation growing up in the deadly shadow of bombs struggles for life not only with physical destruction but also with the invisible wounds they carry in their souls.

War threatens not only the physical safety of children but also their emotional attachment. The loss of a mother, father or loved one creates a deep mourning in young victims. Children do not have the same developed coping mechanisms as adults in understanding and coping with their lost loved ones. For this reason, losses trigger a deep sense of grief and hopelessness. Traumatic losses in particular reinforce the belief in children that their perception of the world is an unsafe and dangerous place...

Read more: Broken toys among the ashes: Children in the shadow of war
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CHRISTIANS ARE PRESSING TRUMP TO CLEAR A PATH FOR ISRAEL TO ANNEX THE WEST BANK

Source: The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/08/world/middleeast/west-bank-trump-evangelicals.html

By Ephrat Livni
Published March 8, 2025

Some 80 percent of white, evangelical Christians voted for President Trump. Now, some want a policy change that could undermine a future Palestinian state.

A view of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bethlehem. Credit...Yosri Aljamal/Reuters

Evangelical Christian leaders who delivered votes to President Trump are now pressing him to declare that Israel can claim ownership of the West Bank, based on a promise God made to the Jews in the Bible.

“The current administration is very aware that white evangelical Christians voted in large numbers and are deeply motivated to support Israel,” said David Katibah, who leads communications and Christian engagement at Telos in Washington, a group formed by two Christian Americans in 2009 — one evangelical and the other of Palestinian descent — to support a resolution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict through education and “peacemaker” training.

Mr. Katibah said he had been raised in an American evangelical community and noted that it does not have a monolithic perspective on annexation.

He said that younger evangelicals are increasingly embracing “a more expansive view” that emphasizes mutual flourishing, justice, and human rights for both sides.

They are seeking a way to pave a path toward annexation of territory that is widely viewed internationally as intended for a future Palestinian state. Israel seized the territory as part of a war between it, Jordan, Egypt and Syria in 1967 and has occupied it since. In recent years, the right-wing government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been encouraging Jewish settlers to build homes there at an increasing rate.

Prominent evangelical supporters of Mr. Trump are mounting a multipronged approach to pressure the president — making appearances in Israel, petitioning the White House, pushing their ideas at a key evangelical conference and building congressional backing.

Some of America’s leading evangelicals, including Ralph Reed, Tony Perkins and Mario Bramnick, visited Jerusalem on Tuesday to publicly back Israel’s sovereignty of the West Bank...

Read more: Christians Are Pressing Trump to Clear a Path for Israel to Annex the West Bank