Israel's New Madagascar Plan
President Trump and Israel have suggested a horrific plan for Palestine
In January, President Trump, in a press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, explained his atrocious plan for Gaza where he casually mentioned plans for the US „taking over Gaza.” With the US takeover, he also explained cavalierly that there was a plan in the works to forcibly relocate the entire population of Gaza. He announced,„We’ll own it ... We have an opportunity to do something that could be phenomenal ... the Riviera of the Middle East.”
The President’s suggestion was no less than genocide. However, the obedient reporters in the press conference had no appropriate pushbacks that was commensurate with the genocidal implications of his suggestion. The US press knows all too well how to concern troll about feasibility when it comes to policy proposals that aid the average person. Look no further than any interview with Bernie Sanders during his presidential campaign. Whenever he suggested Medicare-for-all, he was peppered with questions like, „How are you going to implement this?” And „how will you pay for it?” (Despite, the US being completely monetarily sovereign).
Prime Minister Netanyahu and his cabinet met with this proposal filled with glee. They even suggested that Palestinians ought be relocated to Puntland (an autonomous region in Somalia), Somaliland or Morocco. For a country that builds its entire reason for existence on the Holocaust, they have willfully ignored (or perhaps embraced) the historical parallels.
While anti-semitism and anti-communism always remained the core doctrine of Nazi philosophy, as illustrated by their mythological boogeyman „the Judeo-Bolshevik.” Upon coming into power, the Nazis slowly enacted their anti-Jewish policies. Each new policy further restricted the lives of Jews under the control of the Reich. After Hitler was appointed Chancellor the laws were enacted successively to further restrict the livelihood of Jews.
On April 7, 1933, Jews were banned from joining professional associations. At first, Jews were excluding from working in universities and in government positions. Soon, the list of professional bans expanded. Jewish doctors were forbidden from receiving reimbursements from health insurance funds. Later that year, the government revoked licenses of Jewish tax collectors. They imposed a maximum quota of 1.5% on admissions of “non-aryans.” In 1934, Jews were banned from performing on stage as actors and musicians. In 1935, Nazis introduced Nuremberg laws which prevented Jews from getting treatments in hospitals. Starting in 1937, Jews were forced to register their assets. Finally, in August of 1938, Jews were given identity cards that marked their Jewish status, which kept them separate from Germans. Along with this, the Nazi government started dabbling with ways to remove all Jews from the Reich.
It was in 1938, where Nazis and other far-right governments held talks to remove Jews from Europe. One of the first proposals was the Madagascar Plan.
Ironically, the Madagascar plan didn’t start with Nazi Germany, but in neighboring Poland, where a far-right, anti-semitic government reigned. Despite western mythology giving Poland the status of „dual victimhood” of Nazis and Soviets, reality of Poland was far different. Poland’s extreme right-wing government had begun policies to exclude Jews from Polish life, a few decades before the Nazis. As early as 1919, armed Polish militias began ethnic cleansing campaigns. In 1920, TheJewish Daily News reported that there were so many restrictions that it was almost “impossible” for Jews to make a living in Poland.
It was amidst this background that in 1936, Poland began its negotiations with France on the possibility of forcibly relocating its large Jewish population to the French colony of Madagascar. After much negotiations, France finally allowed Poland to send a few envoys to study the feasibility of the mass relocation in 1937. To lead the expedition, Poland sent Solomon Dyk, Leon Alter and Major Mieczysław Bohdan Lepenski . All three of them came back with similar analysis. Lepenski said it was only possible to settle 5,000-7,000 families in Madagascar, while Alter concluded that only 500 families could settle there. The Polish Government wanted to send 50,000 families per year. Despite these feasibility studies, the Polish Government continued the push for Madagascar as a potential spot for deporting Jews.
However, their plans were scuppered when, in April 1938, a new government came into power In France. After seeing the deteriorating situation for Jews in Austria and Germany, the French government realized that they would have to deal with a larger population of Jews, and they soured on the idea.
However, like all bad ideas, it did not die with the French Government’s refusal. The Reich, for some time, had been considering ways empty the areas their lands of their Jewish population.
In July 1938, at the behest of leaders from various Jewish communities, President Franklin D. Roosevelt convened a conference in Evian France to figure out the fate of the Jews in Europe, given the deteriorating situation in many countries. Delegates from 32 countries attended it. The Nazi regime, neither attended the conference nor sent delegates. None of the countries in attendance were able to come up with a satisfactory plan to protect or house Jewish residents in their lands.
The Nazi government closely monitored this conference and based on the unresolved status of Jews. As the conference left the status of the Jews unresolved, they used this to further their anti-semitic propaganda. Alfred Rosenberg immediately published a series of anti-semitic articles. In the articles, Alfred Rosenberg mentioned that no country wanted to accept the a larger Jewish population of refugees. He used this for his propaganda purposes to show that Jews were unwanted and also dangerous.
Around this time, the Nazi leadership convened in order to plot a some kind of “Final Solution” for Jews. One of the ideas that repeatedly came around was to send Jews to a far away lands. Two places that were mentioned was Guyana, which was controlled by the British and Madagascar.
In November of 1938, Kristallnacht occurred and thousands of Jewish businesses were vandalized. Thousands of more Jews were arrested. With the domestic persecution of Jews, the German Foreign Minister Joachim Ribbentrop convened with French Foreign Minister Georges Bonnet. They discussed the possibility of reopening the idea of sending German Jews to Madagascar. The French Minister replied by saying that France, too, had 10,000 Jews that they were trying to get rid of, but Madagascar was deemed not feasible for them.
Later, in February of 1939, Alfred Rosenberg had a fiery speech where he wanted to create a police state, a reservation of some sort, not just for German Jews, but Jews all over Eastern Europe. He said,"I emphasize the word reservation, for there can be no question of a Jewish state, either now or in the future.” His plan would be similar to having Jews in a concentration camp, but the concentration camp would be located in a far away country.
In September of 1939, Germany began invading Poland. At the dawn of the invasion, Adolf Eichmann and Dr. Franz Stahlecker, chief security of police in Prague, discussed deporting Jews under the control of the Reich to Poland as a stop-gap measure while they worked out the details of the Madagascar plan. They presented this idea to Reinhard Heydrich, who eagerly created a Jewish Reservation inside of Poland. They chose the city of Lublin to build this ghastly reservation. With it, began the first wave of expulsion of Jews. According to a London Times correspondent who witnessed this debacle, “early in October the Jewish Community of Mahrich-Octrau (on the former Prussian-Austrian frontier] was ordered to compile a register of all male Jews between the ages of 17 and 55 and to call for volunteers for ‚retaining camp’ in connection with the proposed Jewish reservation round Lublin.” Further, „Each man was ordered to take a knapsack.. food for 3 days… about 1000 men were taken in buses to there railway station”
Jews who arrived in Lublin were forced to work in construction, under dangerous conditions. They were subjected to intense starvation, as their daily rations were not enough to sustain the population. Many died as a result.
After Germany invaded France in 1940, and France’s rather quick surrender, Germany thought they finally could enact the Madagascar plan. They controlled France, and in turn, controlled the colonies of France, too. With the records of the French Colonial Department open to him, Eichmann prepared a report detailing the plan of exiling Jews to Madagascar. In his plan, Madagascar was destined to become a police state under the leadership of the Reich, where four million Jews would be deported. Logically, the transport to Madagascar would be provided by two ships a day, and each of the ships would transport 1500 Jews. He envisioned deporting all the Jews to Madagascar within four years.
This plan was leaked to the western presses from Italy in July of 1940, and it received the official endorsement of the Third Reich in August of 1940. However, the logistics of the plan depended on Germany having a sea route to Madagascar through the Straight of Gibraltar and down through Africa. But, the British Navy enacted a blockade of German ships. To achieve the sea-route, Germany tried an extensive bombing campaign in UK, which left England battered but still standing.
With the ongoing war, England used her superior naval power, which she possessed because of the vast number of colonies, held onto through sheer force. This blocked any possibility of Germany having a naval route to carry out The Madagascar Plan.
In 1941, Germany began targeting who they considered their Main enemy: The Soviet Union. They commenced Operation Barbarossa, which began with indiscriminate bombings of cities in the Soviet Union. Upon occupation, they enacted a version of genocide, so brutal, that it was hitherto, unprecedented. In each town, the Nazis, with the help of many local collaborators, rounded up Jews and communists. They summarily shot them. The scale of the massacre was so great, that sometimes, blood leaked through the water table, and the tap water turned red.
The brutal genocide the perpetuated in the East had its cost. It affected the soldiers’ morale, as they had to physically gun down men, women and children. Babies were massacred by throwing them against tree stumps. Soon, they realized this was an inefficient way to generate the massive scale of genocide in their plan. They had to come up with a cleaner and more efficient way to perpetuate mass death.
To achieve this end, in January of 1942, Nazis gathered in the city of Wannsee, which is a suburb near Berlin, to formalize their extermination plan. Reinhardt Heydrich laid out the plan to carry out the final solution: utilize the labor of the victims for the massive factories, roads and construction projects, and those who couldn’t work, would be subjected to a “special treatment.” The “special treatment” was Zyklon-B, a poisonous gas they would use to gas many victims at once. It was relatively cleaner than the plan they enacted in the east. Most importantly, it gave the soldiers a psychological distance from the acts
After the conference, they made enacted their plans seamlessly. Concentration camps were built. These concentration camps provided a source of free labor for German industries. After the laborers were no longer able to work, they had massive industrial gas chambers to execute thousands in a matter of minutes. After the war, researchers documented that the Nazis had established a total of 42,500 camps.
While, the Madagascar plan didn’t come to fruition, it still acted as an important plank to slowly convince the population to commit genocide. It allowed the population to get accustomed to thinking it is okay to mass deport Jews. It established a set of humans whose lives had lower value. It allowed for people to pretend that they were not participating in one of the most brutal genocides in history.
Now, 80 years after the liberation of Europe from Nazi Rule, Israel is engaging in a genocidal campaign. They have been mirroring the methods of those who engaged in genocide before them. Palestinians have been systematically dehumanized. A database gathered over 500+ statements made by Israeli government that shows genocidal incitement. Avigdor Lieberman, who has served as Deputy Prime Minister under two Israeli administrations said, “There are no innocent people in the Gaza Strip.” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu invoked the biblical story about the children of Amalek, about a race of people who were inherently evil, and who were justifiably wiped from the face of the earth. the Bible said, “Nothing could serve as a reminder of Amalek’s name—not even an animal about which it could be said, ‘This animal belonged to Amalek.” He later said, “Remember what Amalek did to you” referring to Hamas and Gaza. The inference is clear that he was inciting genocide.
Even before the start of Israel’s bombing campaign, Palestinians were already living like they were in a ghetto from the 1940s. In Gaza, Israel restricted everything that went in and out of Gaza. They even restricted the calories that went into Gaza. In the West Bank, Palestinians are only permitted to walk through certain roads, subjected to hours-long checkpoints. Even ambulances were prevented from traveling freely.
In today’s world, Isreal’s excuse of „fighting terrorism” is met with no skepticism or analysis. Israel’s response to the October 7th attack, unleashed a genocidal bombing campaign, sending two million people in Gaza to starvation. Withholding food aid, until many died of starvation. But, everyone has a right to resist a hostile occupying force. Similarly, Nazi Germany also cited „banditry” for their reason for the brutal response. Historians dubbed their response as “Genocidal Counterinsurgency” After the Belarusian Partisans killed Nazi officials, Nazis responded by wiping out over 600 villages in Belarus. Jewish Partisans blew up entire train lines and derailed trains. Once again, Nazi response was brutal, they rounded up entire towns and villages of people and summarily executed them. After, Reinhard Heydrich was murdered by resistance groups, entire town of Lidice, in the Czech Republic was destroyed. Looking back today, no reasonable person even questions the actions of the Partisans who are seen righteous in their fight against a genocidal occupying force. The Nazi retaliation is further used to show the brutality of the Third Reich.
Israel has successfully weaponized the holocaust for cynical purposes: anti-semitism is a weapon to be wielded to silence any critiques of Israel. For decades, Israeli politicians have compared Palestinians to animals that need to be eradicated. The Times of Israel once ran an article entitled „When is Genocide permissible.” The US, historically, has provided Israel with impunity in the UN Security Council. While, it is unlikely that Israel will realize their Madagascar plan, we must think of it as just another rung on the ladder to furthering their genocidal plans and intentions. Unfortunately, the world has not learned its lessons from the past. Most countries are sitting on the sidelines, while the Trump administration will continue the policies of all the predecessor administrations for allowing Israel to continue the genocidal project.
