The disingenuous “just asking questions” genre of op-eds is hardly novel, but few examples of it have ever been as morally reprehensible as Sadanand Dhume’s at the Wall Street Journal on February 12 (“If Indians and Pakistanis Can Relocate, Why Can’t Gazans?”). Dhume poses the question in the context of Trump’s stated intention of taking over Gaza and expelling the current population, in order to turn the area into another Riviera, Atlantic City, Merv Griffin Show set, or whatever location represents “high-class” in his disordered mind.

Dhume’s “argument,” if you want to apply that label to his despicable word-vomit, is of the “it’s not fair that everybody else gets to do it” variety:

Many population transfers have taken place over the past century. In the 1920s, Greece and Turkey agreed to a forced population swap: Greek Orthodox Christians in Turkey moved to Greece, while Muslims in Greece moved to Turkey. After World War II, millions of Indians and Pakistanis were forced to find new homes, as were ethnic Germans from Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union. In the 1970s, Uganda expelled Indians. Only in the Palestinian case has the refugee question festered endlessly.

He left out the Trail of Tears.

The thing is, all these cases he mentioned are examples of the horror implicit in the modern ethno-state, which is based on the idea that every nation-state is a State of the X People and everyone within the borders of the state who does not share that ethnic identity is officially Other and contaminating the National Body. These mass ethnic cleansings, expulsions, and exchanges of population are prime illustrations of why the ethno-state and its associated ideology are evils. Further, when carried out by countries other than U.S. allies, such actions are commonly regarded as war crimes. When carried out by Serbia in the 1990s, they were the pretext for American bombing and Milosevic’s war crime prosecution. As for the expulsion of South Asians from Uganda in the 70s, it’s interesting that Dhume didn’t mention the name of the leader who carried it out; it was Idi Amin — maybe the name rings a bell?

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