America has its own Nakba and it is living in the White House.

The Nakba, among the Palestinian people is the ethnic cleansing of Palestine when more than 700,000 Palestinian Arabs fled their homes and villages in 1948 or were forced out at gunpoint, in preparation for the founding of the State of Israel. People were told that the displacement would be temporary and that they would be able to return when it was “safe.”

During the war of that year, 400-600 Palestinian villages were sacked and urban Palestine was nearly erased from the earth. It is 70 years later and generations of Palestinians have been born without ever having seen their former homes, which they never relinquished. Israel took the land and has been taking pieces of the land that was to have been given back for a Palestinian homeland. In the worst example of the taking is the West Bank, where Jewish settlements over decades have inexorably taken land that was not theirs, piece by piece.

Nakba is Arabic for “catastrophe,” and that's what Palestinians have suffered over the decades, near their homes and villages, but not allowed to return as promised. In the recent Gaza massacre by the Israel Defense Force, where dozens were purposefully killed by Israeli snipers and hundreds were wounded by live ammunition, the Palestinians were demonstrating by the thousands that they demand to be able to return to their homes. They were carefully gunned down by heavily armed snipers, often at a great distance, even though the overwhelming majority reportedly were unarmed. Unless, of course, one considered kites bearing Molotov cocktails that were flown over Israeli territory from Gaza were weapons. The disparity in armaments was laughable, if the result were not so deadly.

Gaza is unique in the world, in that it is described by human rights experts, foreign leaders, visitors, and experts in the field of incarceration as “the world's largest open-air prison.” When it was supposedly turned over to the Palestinians, there were so many restrictions applied by Israel that the Gazans really cannot leave. Palestinians everywhere in and around Israel must get permission from the government for just about everything, including visits to doctors and hospitals. Often, permission is given too late and people give up trying. Prisons are like that.

The ethnic cleansing was truly a catastrophe and it remains so...a nakba. The Nakba in the White House is another matter. Trump has brought the United States to such a low level that hardly anyone recognizes it for what it once was. The so-called “light of freedom” that it once was is not recognizable as the America of the Statue of Liberty and its message. Donald Trump, as president, has done such damage to the nation that it has become the laughing stock of nations, especially its fellow “developed” nations. How could such a person be elected president, they ask, and then they go about the business of the world without its arguable leader, the most powerful in the world.

The Right of Return demonstrations and rallies at the fence that keeps them in their prison resulted in 60 targeted deaths (including medics, the press, and children) by snipers, Trump's White House immediately said it was the fault of Hamas, without knowing if that was true. One of the great lies involving Israel and the Palestinians is that “Israel has the right to defend itself,” as if thrown stones, firebombs thrown by hand, and kites on fire are any match for Israel's weaponry, some of the most advanced in the world.

When the propaganda from the governments of Israel and the U.S. is so relentless, it's easy for the average persons to believe that most, if not all, Palestinians are terrorists. Some Israeli officials have said as much, noting that Palestinian children will only grow up to be terrorists themselves. So, what if some of them are killed in a blanket attack. Members of the American press have asked Trump's official spokespersons about the slaughter of Palestinians. To a person, they do not answer the question, but simply say that Hamas is to blame, attributing to Hamas much greater power to organize tens of thousands to demand the right of return than it actually has.

In much the same way, Trump's people have responded to questions about his attack on National Football League (NFL) players, who have knelt during the playing of the national anthem. Most of those who knelt are black, exercising their First Amendment rights to protest the brutality of police against black men and boys, and some women. Even the American Conservative magazine in mid-May ran a piece by Daniel Larison, in which he wrote under the headline “The Trump Administration’s Despicable Response to the Gaza Massacre”:

We know that the Trump administration consistently indulges U.S. clients and encourages them in their worst behavior, but the refusal to hold Israel accountable for obvious, egregious crimes like this one is nonetheless breathtaking and despicable. Hamas bears responsibility for its own crimes and misrule, but it is ludicrous to hold them responsible when Israeli forces shoot live ammunition into a crowd of unarmed people. The administration’s attempt to shift the blame from the government that killed nearly five dozen unarmed protesters and wounded hundreds more to anyone else is similar to their responses to Saudi coalition crimes in Yemen: ignore them for as long as possible, absurdly claim that the client state is acting in “self-defense,” and when all else fails find some other group or government to blame for things that the client has done. Refusing to hold Israel responsible for its crimes guarantees that there will be more of them in the weeks and months to come. As long as the administration doesn’t object to this excessive and illegal treatment of Palestinians, the Israeli government will assume that it has Trump’s full support and will keep doing more of the same. The Trump administration is giving Israel a green light to shoot Palestinian protesters, and its determination to ensure that there is “no daylight” between our two governments means that there is practically nothing that the Israeli government can do that this administration won’t tolerate.

Across the political spectrum and across the world there has been condemnation of the slaughter of Palestinians and the wounding of so many hundreds more, but that will not stop future slaughters of people who are demanding what is rightfully theirs, return to their homes and what were once their villages. It will happen as long as the likes of Trump officially condone and support such actions.

Like other administrations, Trump and his top officials have essentially washed their hands of any responsibility for what has happened and what is happening in Israel-Gaza-Palestine. In fact, while unarmed people were being shot by snipers, there was a celebration going on not many miles away, to observe the move of the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, a unilateral decision by Trump, who cares little how his actions disrupt ongoing diplomacy or whatever order there seems to be in the world at large. He only knows to do what will bring him the highest accolades at the moment.

Trump has shown his contempt for black Americans in any number of ways (his relentless attack on professional football players), his failure to address the brutal treatment that has been suffered by black men, boys, and women at the hands of the police, and the ban against Muslims' entering the country, to name a few. He has presided over the destruction of environmental laws and named to be heads of agencies the very people who formerly pledged to reduce or eliminate the agencies themselves. He has appointed as head of the Department of Education a woman whose goal is to privatize as much of public education as possible. Charter schools, vouchers, and other forms of privatization have gone a long way toward the return to segregation of black and white students. While it may be a reflection of segregation and racism in other aspects of society, it is particularly damaging in education. Not a word, however, from the administration.

There are so many ways Trump has continued the breakdown of democratic norms that it is too much to list, but there is one thing that he has done that makes him the Great Nakba in the White House: He has succeeded in diminishing the credibility of most of the institutions of society, including the government. He has damned the judiciary and Congress, he has attacked the nation's own intelligence agencies at home and abroad, and, probably most egregiously, he has attacked the free press, which for all its faults, exists to explain to the people what is being done to them.

While there are indications that ever-growing numbers of Americans realize what he has done and intends to continue doing in destroying institutions, there is a core among voters that he can depend on to support him, no matter what he does or when he does it. It's why he resorts to campaign-style rallies of those supporters in various parts of the country, at which he feeds them the raw meat of contempt and hatred for “the other”: Immigrants, minorities, women, wage-workers (particularly their unions), and so many others. His lies have carried him far and the people generally have shown that he can and will ignore their need for decent housing, living wage jobs, and health care for all, and still be allowed to continue to live in the White House. As ever, it's all about him and the praise heaped on him by his staff and core supporters. He is truly the great catastrophe that many feared he would be, after the votes of 2016 were counted.