South China Morning Post – Dec 31, 2023

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich

One of the senior figures in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition called for Palestinian residents of Gaza to leave the besieged enclave, making way for Israelis who could “make the desert bloom”.

The comments by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who has been excluded from the war cabinet and discussions of day-after arrangements in Gaza, appear to underscore fears in much of the Arab world that Israel wants to drive Palestinians out of land where they want to build a future state, repeating the mass dispossession of Palestinians when Israel was created in 1948.

“What needs to be done in the Gaza Strip is to encourage emigration,” Smotrich told Army Radio on Sunday. “If there are 100,000 or 200,000 Arabs in Gaza and not 2 million Arabs, the entire discussion on the day after will be totally different.”

He said if the 2.3 million population were no longer there “growing up on the aspiration to destroy the state of Israel”, Gaza would be seen differently in Israel.

“Most of Israeli society will say ‘why not, it’s a nice place, let’s make the desert bloom, it doesn’t come at anyone’s expense’.”

Smotrich, whose hard-right Religious Zionism party draws support from Israel’s settler community, has made similar comments in the past, setting himself at odds with Israel’s most important ally, the United States.

But his views do not reflect the official government position that Gazans will be able to return to their homes after the war against the Islamist movement Hamas which controls Gaza, now nearing the start of its fourth month.

“Contrary to false allegations, Israel does not seek to displace the population in Gaza,” an official in the prime minister’s office said in a statement to Associated Press later on Sunday. “Subject to security checks, Israel’s policy is to enable those individuals who wish to leave to do so.”

Smotrich’s party, which helped Netanyahu secure the majority he needed to become prime minister for the sixth time almost exactly a year ago, has seen its approval ratings slump since the start of the conflict.

Opinion polls also indicate that most Israelis do not support the return of Israeli settlements to Gaza, after they were moved out in 2005 when the army withdrew, ending a 38-year occupation.

The United Nations still sees the Gaza Strip as territory occupied by Israel as it controls all but one border crossing.

Palestinians and leaders of Arab countries have accused Israel of seeking a new “Nakba” (catastrophe), the name given to the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who fled or were driven from their homes in the wake of the 1948 war that accompanied the founding of the state of Israel.

Most ended up in neighbouring Arab states, and Arab leaders have said any latter-day move to displace Palestinians would be unacceptable.

In a speech on Sunday, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas rejected any move to force Palestinians to leave their homes. “We will not allow displacement, whether from the Gaza Strip or the West Bank,” he said.

Hamas condemned Smotrich’s comments as a “vile mockery and a war crime”.

Gazans “will stand firm and steadfast in the face of all attempts to displace them from their land and homes”, the group said in a statement.

The stated goal of Israel’s military is to eliminate Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that launched a surprise cross-border assault on Israeli towns on October 7, killing 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and grabbing 240 hostages.

Israel’s air and artillery bombardment has killed more than 21,800 people according to health authorities in Hamas-run Gaza, with many more feared dead in the rubble, and pushed nearly all its 2.3 million people from their homes.

Palestinian health ministry casualty figures do not differentiate between fighters and civilians but the ministry has said 70 per cent of Gaza’s dead are women and under-18s. Israel disputes Palestinian casualty figures and says it has killed 8,000 fighters.

Washington is clearly against Israel reoccupying the Gaza Strip and also opposes the forced expulsion of Palestinians living there.

The US is calling for a reformed Palestinian Authority to take control of the Gaza Strip after the war, though Netanyahu is against this. He wants the army to retain security control even after the war and is calling for Gaza to be demilitarised.

At a news conference Saturday, Netanyahu said the war would continue for “many more months” and that Israel should assume control of the Gaza side of the border with Egypt.

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