Anan Abu-Taleb, a two-term former Oak Park village president and local restaurant owner, was born in Gaza. He still has family there. Several family members have been killed during the war between Israel and Hamas and the unceasing bombardment of Gaza by Israel.
Abu-Taleb has at times over the past 17 months spoken publicly and boldly about the situation there. At other times he has stayed quiet in deference to his children and his businesses.
Last week, President Donald Trump suggested during a news conference with Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, that the millions of Palestinians still living there should be relocated to other countries while Gaza could be “owned” and rebuilt by the U.S. and turned into the “Riviera of the Middle East.”
We asked Abu-Taleb then for his response to Trump and he sat for an hour’s interview on Feb. 7.
Abu-Taleb wants to avoid giving Trump too much power and says he has listened more to and been “motivated by the statements of many Jewish people around the world” since the conflict began. He is heartened by those who speak up for a Palestinian homeland, for self-definition, for freedom.
“These are people who consistently from the beginning of this were against attacks on Palestinian children, women, the elderly. These are people who support human rights,” and are active in protesting for justice, he says.
That said, he doesn’t discount what Trump has recently announced as a possible future position of the U.S. Asked how he would describe any U.S.-backed step to push millions of Palestinians out of Gaza and the West Bank, Abu-Taleb says, “It would be ethnic cleansing. How else could you describe it? To force people to move from their homeland is the classic definition of ethnic cleansing.”
Abu-Taleb calls the current conflict “a war of erasure,” with intentional efforts by Israel and its Democratic and Republican U.S. backers to erase all of the markers and the memories which made Gaza home to millions. He noted that his mother’s home and his father’s home and the family farm have been fully destroyed. “It is all rubble. You cannot recognize it.”
Abu-Taleb says the bombardment of schools, hospitals and mosques throughout the densely packed Gaza strips away every connection a family feels.
“When all the familiar places are gone, then you can’t share those memories anymore. It is a planned way to deny people their history. You rip them from their past. You deny them their memories. We should all be outraged,” says Abu-Taleb.
“If you see your brother, your sister, your classmates blown up, if you hear screams at night, how do you go on with your life?” he says.
Abu-Taleb first wrote about his family history for the Journal in an essay in 2012 when he recounted being turned away from a checkpoint in Israel as he tried to visit his father who was dying. The elder Abu-Taleb lived until he was 92, though his exact age was never certain. His mother came to visit the family in America in 2023 and remains here.
Abu-Taleb describes Trump’s other repeated statements about American expansion such as buying Greenland and turning Canada into a 51st state. And now there is the notion of owning Palestine. The distinction, Abu-Taleb says, is that with Greenland and Canada “he doesn’t talk about transferring their people. In Palestine he doesn’t want the people. Just the land.” That’s because, he says, “Palestinians don’t look like us. They’re not human. They’re subhuman. They don’t deserve clean water. Or medicine. They’re not deserving of their own land so we can transfer them somewhere else.”
Trump, he says, does not want immigrants in the U.S. “but he wants Palestinian people to migrate from their own homes. It is hard to comprehend.”
He describes Gaza today as a “demolition site. It’s unlivable. You can’t plan for the next hour.”
Abu-Taleb says his experience of coming to the U.S. when he was 19, his education at the University of Chicago, his ability to make a family, to build a business and eventually to be twice elected as Oak Park’s village president, gives him a remarkable and conflicted perspective.
Known for his leadership in public and private development projects, Abu-Taleb says, “Maybe it was working at the village. But I understand the value of infrastructure, of building something.” Watching his homeland reduced to rubble is beyond painful, he says.
Now, with a ceasefire in place, with hostages from Israel and prisoners from Palestine being released, he feels some relief and sees some value in engaging in open conversations in the community. “It is time to have discussion in Oak Park. I’d welcome an open discussion,” he said.
“People are capable of doing extraordinarily good things. But also of doing extraordinarily bad things. We have to be consistent. Are you a believer in human rights?” Abu-Taleb asks.
