Netanyahu’s silence is paving the way to Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in Gaza
A T-shirt calling for the resettlement of Gaza being sold at the ‘Conference for the Victory of Israel’ on 28 January 2024
The lead editorial in Haaretz on 29 January 2024:
The strong members of the governing coalition, on whom the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu relies, convened in Jerusalem Sunday to present and to celebrate with dancing the new goal of the war.
The heads of the right-wing parties, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, and key Likud figures such as Tourism Minister Haim Katz and Samaria Regional Council head Yossi Dagan, no longer settle for the government’s declared goals – “the elimination of Hamas” and the return of the hostages; the right is demanding the ethnic cleansing of the Gaza Strip, the expulsion of its Palestinian population and the establishment of Jewish settlements in place of the Palestinian cities and villages that the military has destroyed.
Netanyahu saw the dance of transfer, the registration desks for applicants to settle in “the green, technological and Jewish Gaza City,” and responded with silence.
His silence, like that of other senior Likud figures, expresses the political power relationships in the coalition and in the security cabinet: The role of the prime minister has shrunk, and he has become Ben-Gvir and Smotrich’s propaganda officer.
They will rule the roost, and Netanyahu will obey and carry out their orders in his news conferences and in idle conversations with the President of the United States. If he dares to rebel against his masters, he will find himself on the fast road to an early general election, a commission of inquiry and the realization of his fears of standing trial as a former prime minister.
While Netanyahu sent the heads of the Mossad, the Shin Bet security service and the Hostages and Missing Families Forum to Paris, to advance a deal for the hostages’ release, the country’s true rulers made it clear to him that they consider this a pipe dream.
Ben-Gvir already announced that an end to the war means the end of the government. He has nothing to lose: His party is soaring in voter polls and will only improve if he positions himself as wanting to fight to the end, in contrast to Netanyahu the defeatist. Paralyzed by fear, the prime minister took out his frustration on the families of the hostages, who he condemned to continued hell in Gaza.
We must not disregard the proposal for ethnic cleansing and settlement in the Strip, treating it as a show by political rock stars from the settlements seeking attention and headlines. The settlers are organized and politically strong, and since the war began they have driven out many Palestinians from Area C of the West Bank, which is under Israeli control. They mean what they say, and if allowed, they will use their political power to carry out the “second Nakba” in Gaza.
As they see it, the displacement of most of the Strip’s population on the order of the Israel Defense Forces and the razing of most of its homes offer a one-time opportunity for ethnic cleansing of historic proportions.
Netanyahu, glued to his seat in the Prime Minister’s Office as he is, will not stop them. The Israelis who believe in respecting human rights and preventing serious war crimes, in the principles of international law and in the necessity of coexistence with the Palestinians must unite against the disastrous initiative.
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