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I recently listened to President Donald Trump say that Palestinians do not want to return to Gaza. That no one would. He spoke of the devastation of Gaza, without mentioning the role of Israel in that devastation, before and since Oct 7, 2023. Or the eagerness with which Israeli religious extremists are rushing to settle Gaza. But worst of all, was how Trump described the resettlement of Palestinians, elsewhere.
It reminded me of nothing so much as the fantastical and false terms in which Nazis described what Jews would enjoy in resettlement in the East. (This is evoked in Aharon Appelfeld’s “Badenheim 1939.”) Nowhere did Nazis describe the ghettos and camps to which Jews were bound. At that moment there was not yet a Final Solution, just the expectation that Jews would disappear off the face of the earth, through duress.
But of course, there is much of this second Trump administration which brings Nazi Germany to mind. Adolf Hitler sometimes used the slogan “Make Germany Great Again” to turn ordinary Germans into co-conspirators in crimes against humanity. We Jews are still here.
As my people dreamed of Zion, Palestinians dream of Palestine. Despite all Israel has done, with American aid, Palestinians are still standing. I hope the peoples of the world who ignored the plight of my people, will not turn away from justice for Palestinians. But first safety. In their homeland.
Annlinn Kruger
Bar Harbor
