I grew up on stories of exile. My family was forced out of Iraq and Tunisia for being Jewish — homes stolen, communities erased and history rewritten. To this day, too many people insist it was “voluntary migration,” as if nearly a million Jews in Arab lands simply woke up one morning and decided to leave behind centuries of roots, culture and history.I get the disgusted feeling he's implying right-wingers "overlooked" eastern Jews' plight? Well that's awfully rich coming from somebody who doesn't seem to have much respect for women. This certainly obscures how the Menachem Begin government did its best to help people of such backgrounds, and suggests Mr. Mazzig's political leanings are impeding his ability to appreciate that. Of course, it's also possible he's implying the left as of now is advocating for moving out what Mazzig blatantly calls "palestianians", and can't stand if anybody on his end of the spectrum is supporting what's best worked on, which is to send away products of Islamic indoctrination who tragically were all on Hamas' side 2 years before, to a distance that would be best remained at.
I’ve spent years pushing back against that erasure, making it clear that my family — and so many others — were forced to leave. And yet, today, I see a disturbing echo of that same denial. The same people who overlooked Mizrahi Jews’ suffering are now casually advocating for the forced displacement of Palestinians as “the only option” to deal with Hamas’ terror.
Reactions to President Donald Trump’s statement last week about removing Palestinians from Gaza ranged from some voices applauding it as a necessary step — one online commentator even told me it was time to “try something new to solve this conflict” — to anti-Israel activists using it as “evidence” of Israeli intentions, to extremists on both sides seizing it to justify their absolutist solutions for this conflict.This entirely obscures the evils of Islam, which I sadly guess Mr. Mazzig isn't even the slightest bit willing to acknowledge, and even if he studied the Koran's contents, chances are it makes no difference to him. He continues with his shoddy obfuscations:
I see things differently, because I don’t have to imagine what forced displacement does to a people. I see it in my own family, even 75 years later. My grandmother still speaks of Baghdad — not just as a city, but as her other homeland that was taken from her. The trauma of being uprooted never left her, nor did the deep pain of knowing that an entire world of Jewish life in Iraq was erased in a single generation. Yes, we rebuilt. Yes, Israel gave my family refuge. But what was lost can never be fully regained.
This is what’s missing from the argument that Palestinians would be “better off” leaving Gaza — that they would have safer, more comfortable lives if they were resettled elsewhere. It’s the same logic that was used to justify the expulsion of Jews from Arab lands. And while my family may have found security in Israel, that doesn’t mean the original trauma was justified. Nor does it account for the cultural and communal annihilation that came with it.
The destruction of Gaza under Hamas’ rule is undeniable. But forced displacement doesn’t solve that problem — it only ensures that the pain and resentment of this war will last for generations. I am not blind to the fact that anti-Zionists today demand the ethnic cleansing of Jews from Israel. Not only is that hateful, but it fundamentally denies the Jewish people’s historic connection to the land of Israel. That’s racism. And it’s unacceptable.And I guess it's weakness to look for the cause of the hatred driving Muslim adherents, right?
Indeed, the loudest voices in the “Free Palestine” movement aren’t calling for a two-state solution. They’re not talking about peace. They want Israel gone. They want Jewish sovereignty erased. They don’t see Oct. 7 as an atrocity — they see it as a model.
But you don’t fight anti-Zionist eliminationism with eliminationist rhetoric of your own. You don’t counter the fantasy of erasing Israel by proposing the same for Gaza.
That’s not strength. That’s surrender — to the idea that this is a zero-sum war where one side must be erased for the other to survive.
I am not talking about efforts — if they exist — to give Gazans who wish to seek refuge elsewhere the ability to do so. That is their right. I am talking about the fantasy that all Palestinians in Gaza will be wiped out or relocated to some as-yet-undetermined place, as if that were a serious solution.And this is defeatism on Mazzig's part. Mainly because the Jordanian king has so far shown the willingness to take in children of families who need medical care, and there are more who'll be relocating to Indonesia. But Mazzig, in all his moral equivalence, won't show any appreciation, will he? And of course, he avoids any reference to the Religion of Peace. He definitely doesn't speak of it negatively. And he doesn't seem particularly interested in making a case for sending a message to Arab countries that they should take in these so-called palestinians, whose very name draws from one given to Israel by the Roman empire, and Mazzig obscures that entirely.
Of course, the plan to displace Gazans that Trump floated, alongside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week, is unlikely to end up getting carried out.
Let’s be honest: Relocating Palestinians from Gaza is never going to happen. No Arab country will get on board. Saudi Arabia rushed to release a statement making it clear they won’t normalize relations with Israel without a Palestinian state. Egypt and Jordan have always said they won’t take in Palestinians from Gaza. No American administration — least of all one that ran on ending wars and tightening borders — will commit troops to enforce it or open the gates to Palestinian refugees.
This is political theater.
We’ve seen this play before. Netanyahu and Trump previously dangled West Bank annexation only to “concede” it in exchange for the Abraham Accords. Now, Trump is floating this logistical insanity — likely knowing it will never happen — to position himself as the only one who can “negotiate it down.”Because Mr. Mazzig wants it to be. He's obviously anti-Trump, just like he's anti-Netanyahu. And if he thinks western conservatives are the root cause of all evil, and can't acknowledge even liberals make mistakes, that's just the problem Mazzig has failed to prove he can rise above.
But here’s the real danger: While world leaders understand this is just bluster, the people watching — especially online — think it’s real. And that’s a serious threat to us.
Because when these extreme ideas enter the mainstream, they don’t just fade away. They stick. They fuel conspiracies. They get used to paint all Jews as complicit in a plan that doesn’t even exist. And once again, we become the scapegoat.And we deserve better than to have leftists like Mazzig lecture us with cowardice. This reeks of blood libels anti-Israel propagandists use, to imply that Israel is literally guilty of tyrannizing Gazans entirely without justification. And ignores all the barbaric acts committed in the name of the Religion of Peace, to say nothing of how many Muslims in Gaza were indoctrinated with Hitler's Mein Kamph, translated into Arabic. That Mazzig apparently obscured such horrific discoveries speaks volumes, and the same goes for how he obscures the celebrations the Gazan Muslims had after October 7, 2023. The Islamofascists in Gaza also celebrated September 11, 2001, and Mazzig doesn't dwell on that either. What does that say about what kind of person Mr. Mazzig is?
Political leaders pushing these ideas aren’t protecting Jews. They’re making us targets. Jews deserve better than to be associated with unrealistic, cruel proposals that will almost certainly never happen but will absolutely be used against us.
And if there’s one thing I know from my family’s history, it’s that displacement only creates new wounds; it does not heal old ones. The Jews who were expelled from Arab lands never found justice, and Palestinians won’t either if they are forcibly removed from Gaza.
Hamas started this war. Hamas is responsible for this war. But the people in Gaza shouldn’t have to pay for a tyranny that rules over them with an iron fist. Many of them, as we’ve seen from footage throughout this war, oppose Hamas and do not want to live under their control.
The more we entertain the idea that one side must be erased for the other to live, the further we get from any future that isn’t defined by endless war.And the more we vehmently refuse to discuss the content of the Koran/Hadith, and vehemently refuse to acknowledge that the modern claim of a "palestinian state" was an anti-Israel fabrication, the less likely we are to solve a terrible problem. Oh, and has Mr. Mazzig ever spoken in defense of black Africans who were victim of Islamofascism in Africa? Or victims of honor murders? He also doesn't seem particularly concerned about Islamic hostility to homosexuality, this despite Mazzig himself being homosexual. He also obscures how Gaza is really Israeli land, and this makes him no better than say, the phony conservative Ed Morrissey.
There are no magic wands here. No shortcuts. And no amount of forced migration — of Jews or Palestinians — will bring the peace we all deserve.
The only way forward is to dismantle Hamas, empower Palestinian leaders who reject extremism and invest in a long-term solution where both peoples can live with security, dignity and self-determination — without adding to the traumas that must be overcome another episode of ethnic cleansing like what my family experienced.
Mazzig has only proven himself one of the biggest hinderances to Israel, and if he hasn't apologized to the aforementioned Shrier, that's another serious error he's made.
