For someone who graduated from Harvard, he needs to relearn his history.
I lived and worked in Germany and Israel for a good deal of time from 2011 to 2020. I’m very familiar with the history of Palestine from biblical times through our current era. So, like many others, I was utterly shocked when our worthless, orange monster-in-chief blurted out yesterday that the US would “take over” Gaza and ship its 2 million inhabitants to other countries. The relocation of 2 million Palestinians is not logical or viable. Only an idiot would think it’s a good thing to do.
And the idiot who created this idea was probably Jared Kushner. During Trump’s first term, Kushner was given the task of dealing with Israel issues, so I have a glancing knowledge of some of the details that involved Kushner and Trump’s unfit Ambassador, David Friedman. One of the dirty little secrets that no one in MAGA land will admit is that Kushner was directly responsible for an over two-year delay in getting the Abraham Accords signed. Israel and the UAE actually began these agreements between Israel and the Gulf-based Arab States during the administration of Barack Obama. Trump humpers don’t like to admit that. They also work very hard to hide the fact that Kushner did ZERO work to make the agreements happen. Israel and the UAE did all the heavy lifting; no one should say otherwise. Kushner pushing his degenerate father in law as well to move the Embassy to Jerusalem ( a pointless move that ceded a lot of negotiating strength with Israel) as well as trashing the Palestinians put the UAE in a horrible position, and they refused to sign them. It took two years for the dust to settle. Kushner created that mess through his refusal to understand the needs of both parties — simply echoing the right-wing Likud position.
Thus, today, I was not surprised when MSNBC showed an interview with Kushner from February 15, 2024, where Kushner said ( among many lies )that Gaza never existed before 1967 and the Six-Day War.
That statement is a lie. It is a grotesque lie that needs to be refuted. That’s what the post is going to do. ( I’d also point out that the “waterfront property” viewpoint is a deluded fantasy — but that is for another day).
So, let’s set the record straight. Gaza has existed for a very long time. It existed during the British Mandate in Palestine and during the Ottoman rule of the region from the 1500s through 1917. For Kushner to blithely sweep that long history aside is nothing short of evil and wrong.
To repeat, Kushner was lying deliberately or inadvertently ( I believe it was the former) about the roots of the Palestinian population in the region. He’s not alone in believing these lies. One hears people say, “There has never been a Palestinian people” from worthless souls all the time. Like so many Americans, they know nothing about Israel as it really is — just the imaginary vision they think it is.
People have lived in Gaza for literally 1000s of years. The rule of the land changed hands many times over the centuries, and Romans, Mongols, and Crusaders, and later, Napoleon conquered it. Christianity spread there — a small Christian community in Gaza still exists — and 1,400 years ago, Muslim armies invaded. in 1516, a small town called Gaza was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire. Under Ottoman rule, the Palestinian territory was organized into three states, Jerusalem, Gaza, and Nablus, all linked to the Damascus Province.
In World War, during the British drive on Jerusalem, under General Allenby, Gaza was conquered by the British. This ended 401 years of Ottoman rule. What’s important to remember is that: 1) Gaza was much more significant during that time, and 2) The population of that bigger district was primarily Arab. These Arabs had ties to many places, but the area of Palestine was their home. During the mandate period, Gaza was a Southern District subdistrict, including Beersheva and Hebron. In 1942, it was established as a formal district of Palestine.
In 1948, when Britain quit the mandate and Israel’s war of Independence, Israeli armies pushed Egyptian ones back to what we know as Gaza today. Tens of thousands of Palestinians took refuge in Gaza after fleeing or being driven from their homes in a mass displacement known by Palestinians as “Nakba,” meaning “catastrophe” in Arabic. The invading Egyptian army had seized a narrow coastal strip 25 miles (40 km) from the Sinai to just south of Ashkelon.
The influx of refugees saw Gaza’s population triple to around 200,000. Under the UN partition plan, the area of Gaza was to be given to the Arabs because that was the majority of the population. That did not come to pass, and the region came under Egyptian military rule from 1948–1967. In 1967, Israel captured the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Middle East war. An Israeli census that year put Gaza’s population at 394,000, at least 60% of them refugees. Over the next 50 years, the population grew to 2.2 million.
The rest, as one might say, is agonizing history that needs to be told, but it would take a whole other post.
The key point remains, however, when a worthless soul like Jared Kushner says, “Gaza never existed.” — he is lying through the teeth that hold the silver spoon he was born with. He’s 100% wrong, as is his useless excuse of a father law. Only traitors believe that terrible lie.
Kushner knows better. And he needs to pay the price for his lies.