Israeli opinion: The fantasy of the displacement of Palestinians from Gaza

The Israeli right, especially among its settler and religious wings, continues to openly fantasize about displacing the population of the Gaza Strip under the burden of war. In parallel with the normalization of calls demanding the killing of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, it is expected that prominent voices in the Jewish settlement camp will rise, angry at Netanyahu because he ostensibly negotiated with the Americans on the issue of transferring responsibility for the Gaza Strip [instead of displacing its residents], at a time when these voices celebrate With the scenes of displacement that come from the Strip. We are forbidden from falling into this trap, if not for moral reasons, then at least because, from a practical standpoint, this is nothing but utter nonsense.

First, Israel cannot tolerate forced deportation of this kind, because the international community will not tolerate it. The current war has taught us an important lesson about how much Israel needs the support of the United States and other Western countries in order to remain safe. This support is available to Israel for various reasons, one of which is that Israel belongs to the “right family” of countries. Mass displacement in China or Russia may be considered possible in the 21st century, but the international community, to which we prefer to belong, refuses to do such things. Whoever carries out such matters does not receive a grant in the form of an airlift of ammunition and two aircraft carriers to protect him personally. Rather, what happens is that sanctions and ostracism are imposed on him.

The matter would have been tolerable if such illusions had remained, confined to the internal meetings of the editorial board of Channel 14 [known for its right-wing], or the management of the settlers’ council in the West Bank. But the insistence on dragging us all in the direction of a discourse that seems serious about the issue of displacement harms Israel and the “just war” that we launched in Gaza. Any satirical real estate announcement about a [settlement] housing project in the Gaza Strip is completely similar to the call to drop a nuclear bomb on Gaza [the Israeli Heritage Minister’s call to drop a nuclear bomb on the Gaza Strip, published in our bulletin on 11/5/2023], or a political document issued from one of the ministries, [the position paper issued by the Israeli Ministry of Intelligence, published by the Institute for Palestine Studies on 10/31/2023], is translated almost automatically, and is taken seriously outside Israel. The result is a reduction in the time given to fighting, and with it a reduction in the ability to bring Hamas to its knees and recover the kidnapped.

It goes without saying that, even if we are not punished or excluded, we should not deport Palestinians from the Gaza Strip. The idea of forcing two million people to board ships, planes and buses (whose buses? Who will pay their fares?) without having a specific destination will not make the two million displaced people stop longing to return to their country, as they have not stopped doing so over the past 75 years. If there is anyone who knows that the people do not forget their homeland from which they were easily removed, it is us, the Jews.

I do not think that anyone observed this immediate and smooth transition in the statements of the Israeli right, from saying, “The Nakba did not happen in the first place,” to declaring that “The Nakba must be committed again.” The first statement was, at least to some extent, an expression of a sound moral feeling that the mass and intentional displacement of civilian populations should not be boasted about. As a people who have been expelled, time after time, throughout history, it is our right and our duty to protect ourselves from attempts to revoke our right to exist. In the same context, when we have a national homeland, we must renounce attempts to permanently displace millions of men, women and children from their homes.

The moral response of those calling for the Nakba is to say that Palestinians must be encouraged to emigrate, because it is in their interest. The proponents of this statement are trying to convey an objectionable message. It is true that it is forbidden to prevent Palestinians who wish to leave their homeland from fulfilling their desire. There are Palestinians who prefer to leave their country, just as there are Israelis who want to leave the country and immigrate abroad. But it is enough to imagine how we would feel if there was a Saudi project to pay a huge sum to every Jew who preferred to immigrate to Singapore, for us to realize that this innocent proposal to encourage immigration is not innocent when it turns into a political plan.

The right, which claims that it alone is realistic, but focuses on the disappearance of millions of Palestinians and the establishment of settlements in the lands from which they will flee, only proves that it is a camp that lives in illusion.