Hen Mazzig is a senior fellow at the Tel Aviv Institute and the founder of TLVi.org, a non-profit dedicated to combating hate and misinformation online.
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’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’s terror.
Reactions to President Donald Trump’s statement on Tuesday night 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.
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.
I'm never going to be upset about "call-out posts" that say I'm too sympathetic to Palestinians. I'm a little surprised that some people think I would be.
— Hen Mazzig (@HenMazzig) February 5, 2025
I'm not offended by the idea I treat people equally. I'm honored.
The destruction of Gaza under Hamas’s 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.
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.
So many FreePalestine activists on this platform said they won’t vote for Kamala because of the war in Gaza.
— Hen Mazzig (@HenMazzig) February 5, 2025
Trump said today he will remove 1.8M Palestinians from Gaza and that the US will own the Gaza Strip. pic.twitter.com/GcRTno6OyC
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.
Of course, the plan to displace Gazans that Trump floated, alongside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday night, 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 theatre.
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.”
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.
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.
I've been receiving a lot of the same message lately: "Hen, how can you condemn Trump's suggestion to send the Palestinians away?"
— Hen Mazzig (@HenMazzig) February 5, 2025
Many believe that, with the right explanation, they will change my mind, and I'll understand them. And I do understand why they think that, to an… pic.twitter.com/9lmuwp157L
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.
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.
