‘There is going to be a big, big redrawing of the map…where it ends up is anybody’s guess.’

The week that Israel began its ground invasion of Gaza in October 2023, I went round to speak with my grandfather Moshik – co-founder of the anti-Zionist leftist group Matzpen – in his study at home in London to get his thoughts on what was then unfolding. I began the interview by asking him what he made of the recirculation of an advert he and 11 others had published in Haaretz in the immediate aftermath of the Naska, or June 1967 war, soon before my family migrated to the UK. The advert was doing the rounds online because of its prescient critique of the murderous logic of the Zionist project underpinning Israel’s expansionist agenda. He replied that he felt horrible, because the dire predictions he had made long ago were now playing out in full – Israel was acting to achieve nothing less than the ethnic cleansing of the indigenous population of Palestine living under occupation.

Almost a year and a half on, following many months of Israel’s genocidal assault on the Palestinian people which has left hundreds of thousands killed and injured, I returned to his study this week to get his understanding of the latest developments in the region, the prospective geopolitical manoeuvres we can expect from the various parties involved, and what action we can take to prevent the worst of these further catastrophes coming to fruition.

The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.

When we spoke in late October 2023 you were already talking about Israel’s plans to expel Palestinians from Gaza, and you said of Zionist expansionism, “I think now we are returning to the beginning. We are in the middle of an act of ethnic cleansing.” If we were returning to the beginning 16 months ago, where are we now?

I think it should have been clear to everyone after just a few days. The Israeli leadership started by reacting almost instinctively, but then the strategic thinking got into action and they set themselves the true aim of the war: ethnic cleansing.

For many years I had been saying that it was on the cards, but I was thinking mainly of the West Bank. The Israeli political elite and the military command were waiting for an opportunity, but they did not expect the opportunity to arise in the Gaza Strip, and thought of Palestinians there as being in a sort of warehouse, contained for the long term; whereas they were looking for an opportunity to do major ethnic cleansing in the West Bank. The latter is now returning to the agenda, but the Israeli leaders haven't given up on ethnic cleansing in Gaza, where they have a green light from the White House.

Surely more than just a green light? Donald Trump is putting forward his own proposals for “ownership” of Gaza and the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian population.

Yes, but who is going to do the ethnic cleansing? Not the American army. It's the Israeli's job. Don't forget Trump is a real estate businessman, so he is looking for the opportunity that will arise once the Palestinians are out of the way, expelled or exterminated. In exchange for giving the green light, he wants an option for developing the “Riviera of the Middle East”.

Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli leadership care only about the US – it is the only restriction that they recognize as operative. If Americans allow something, then the Israelis consider it okay – it doesn't matter what the rest of the world thinks. Who cares what Keir Starmer says? In any case, he will probably just parrot the Americans.

Are we not seeing some divergence between the US and UK over Gaza, and now Ukraine as well?

Not in any essential or meaningful way. Starmer is not going to go against American policy. If the White House says that ethnic cleansing is okay – and on this it has been very explicit – then that is what they will do. And I think this is coming up.

So do you understand the nominal ceasefire in Gaza as just a momentary pause?

Yes, the lull at the moment is just to get a few hostages back and to gain time, but there is no indication that Trump wants the ceasefire to continue indefinitely, and political conditions in Israel don't favour its continuation in the long term.

Itamar Ben-Gvir has left the cabinet, but the government has survived because Bezalel Smotrich is still there. Smotrich has said that if the ceasefire goes on – if they move to the second and third stage of the agreement – then he will leave the cabinet, and Netanyahu will lose power.

For now, Netanyahu has an extra reason to continue the war – the personal incentive to keep out of jail, and to keep out of investigations in regard to 7 October 2023, which has been true all the time. It has been depicted as the main motive for the war, which is false. The motive is ethnic cleansing.

Trump has said he will announce his position on Israeli annexation of the West Bank in the coming weeks – how does this tie into Israel’s plans for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians there? 

For the West Bank, they need a much more complicated situation for total ethnic cleansing.

Netanyahu wants a war with Iran because he has got a dual aim. First of all, Iran is an obstacle to complete Israeli hegemony over the region. Iran’s allies – the “Axis of Resistance” – are now more or less gone, but the regime remains an important player that is not subjected to Israeli hegemony, and could break its regional monopoly on nuclear weapons, so Israel wants to destroy it.

At the same time, a war against Iran may serve as a regional conflagration that is a convenient context for ethnic cleansing in the West Bank. They are now preparing for this eventuality. There are long-standing plans. What is going on in the West Bank is far beyond what Israel was doing there for many, many years now. They are using tactics that they have used in Gaza – total destruction – now in the refugee camps around Jenin, and in Jenin itself. This, I think, they plan to escalate.

The big question is whether they will get the green light from the White House to start a sufficiently big attack on Iran to create a situation that will not only lead to the downfall of the Iranian regime, but also create the conflagration under the smokescreen of which major ethnic cleansing can be perpetrated in the West Bank. This is an open question. The US has so far resisted the temptation to get militarily involved in an attack against Iran. It has never been terribly concerned about Israel doing it, but if the war doesn't go well for Israel, then it may drag in the US as Israel's ally. The US is committed to protecting Israel if it is ever in any real danger.

Indeed, as we have seen over the past year when Israel provoked escalations from Iran. What do you make of the impact of Trump’s demands on Israel’s neighbouring Arab states? Jordan's King Abdullah II visited the White House earlier this month, while Egypt’s President Sisi cancelled his planned visit. 

Sisi refused to go because he doesn't want to repeat this embarrassing show. I don't know if you watched Abdullah in his meeting with Trump, squirming and blinking nervously? He's got a lot to be nervous about. His throne is tottering.

It is not impossible for Trump to decide simply to get rid of the Hashemite regime in Jordan, and replace it with a client of Israel and the US. It’s possible. You can't tell about Trump, he may be happy to see it. But I can tell you who else may feel a bit happy about the collapse of the Jordanian regime: the Saudis. 

The Saudis wouldn't mind, in the right circumstances, to take over from Jordan as custodians of Al-Aqsa, the holy compound in the Old City of Jerusalem. Jordan is a small country. The population is basically divided into two blocs: the original East Jordanians, who are incredibly loyal to the Hashemites, and then the Palestinians.

Who were ethnically cleansed in the Nakba and the Naksa.

Yes. And they are not a united political bloc, but they are a major part of the population that is not inherently loyal to the Hashemite house. The prospect of an influx of hundreds of thousands, not to say a million, Palestinians into Jordan, would be completely destabilizing.

And the same for Egypt?

Egypt is a totally different thing. I think there is still a fairly realistic prospect of Palestinians being pushed into Sinai. They would create a sort of a big refugee camp in the north of the Sinai Peninsula.

As I mentioned before, the Saudis have a long-term historical account with the Hashemites. After all, the House of Hashim used to be rulers of Mecca and Medina, but the House of Saud dislodged them.

You see, there are lots of people who want to control Al-Aqsa – the Israeli messianic fanatics, the House of Saud to complete their custodianship of the three holiest shrines of Islam, and then Jordan which is, for the moment, custodian of the compound. That was an agreement that Dayan made with King Hussein after ’67 – he didn't want trouble, he wanted quiet in Jerusalem. Look, if the messianic fanatics get hold of Al-Aqsa, they will blow up the holy shrine, and this will create a world conflagration. This would be Armageddon.

Which is not what Netanyahu is looking for?

Netanyahu is not in favour of full-on Armageddon. But he can barely hold back his partners – people like Smotrich, they don't care about this. They are ready for it – they are looking for the end of days, as are the evangelists supporting Trump. I mean, Trump wouldn't like to promote it, but some of his supporters wouldn't mind.

With that apocalyptic prospect in mind, what is it that we can do to avert such catastrophes that you’ve outlined? At the start of the genocide you spoke about how there was a role for Jews outside of Israel to organise as Jews in order to disrupt Israel's claims to be acting on behalf and in the interests of Jewish people worldwide. Do you still think that’s the case?

I still think there is a place for a Jewish contingent within a broader movement. Jews have a special role within this because they are put in an embarrassing position by a state that is engaged in genocide, and is claiming to act on their behalf. So Jews have an interest in giving the lie to this false claim. This is basically an antisemitic position, to imply that the Jews are being represented by this genocidal state.

Yes, there is a self-interested reason to organize as Jews, but do you think it helps the Palestinian cause to do so, especially given Trump's and Netanyahu's plans show quite plainly the naked imperialist agenda of Western interests in Palestine, and just how little the Zionist project has anything to do with the protection of Jewish life?

I think it does certainly help the Palestinian cause to do this, but always in conjunction as part of a wider movement. I'm not advocating separatism.

Public opinion has shifted quite clearly – the opinion polls in the US show that the position of younger supporters of the Democrats is quite different from the official position of the leadership of the party. Among Jews there has also been a shift. There is both more need and more potential and possibility for trying to prevent ethnic cleansing.

But look, there is going to be a big, big redrawing of the map. You can visualize how it starts, but where it ends up is anybody's guess. Things don't actually work out according to the way people plan it, there are always unexpected things. I hope very little of all this will happen, but I fear it will. I don't enjoy being right. In the meantime we have to do our best – march, write, speak against it, and try to make it difficult for our governments to support it.▼

Eli Machover is a DPhil candidate in political theory at the University of Oxford and an editor at Vashti.