Gaza: a textbook case of ethnic cleansing

What is happening in Gaza is more than a spur-of-the-moment decision; it is part and parcel of the Zionist project.

Ethnic cleansing — the forced or “pressured” removal of an ethnic, racial or religious group from any given area with the intent of making the latter ethnically homogeneous — is considered one of the worst possible crimes against humanity. Indeed, it is often described as part of a continuum of violence whose most extreme form is genocide — the actual physical destruction of a people, in whole or in part.

There is currently an ongoing debate over whether Israel’s actions in Gaza — which in less than three months have wiped out 1% of the enclave’s pre-war population — constitute a genocide or not. As I reported a few days ago, South Africa has filed a case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) accusing Israel of just that.

While I consider South Africa’s move important in terms of applying international pressure on Israel — and I will be following the proceedings very closely — I also consider the whole “genocide debate” to be somewhat misleading. After all, slaughtering civilians on an industrial scale, as Israel has done and continues to do in Gaza, remains atrocious regardless of whether it fits some legal-technical definition or not.

But more importantly, it is a distraction from what the Israelis are unequivocally attempting to do in Gaza, because they themselves admit it, and that is the ethnic cleansing of (all or a significant part of) the Gazan population — now rebranded by Israeli propaganda as “voluntary emigration”.

Two senior ministers in Netanyahu’s cabinet — National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich — recently endorsed the rebuilding of settlements in the Gaza Strip and the encouraging of the “voluntary emigration” of Palestinians.

According to the Times of Israel, “they presented the migration of Palestinian civilians as a solution to the long-running conflict and as a prerequisite for securing the stability necessary to allow residents of southern Israel to return to their homes”.

According to Ben-Gvir:

[The war presents an] opportunity to concentrate on encouraging the migration of the residents of Gaza. [This policy is] a correct, just, moral and humane solution. We cannot withdraw from any territory we are in in the Gaza Strip. Not only do I not rule out Jewish settlement there, I believe it is also an important thing.

While Smotrich said that:

The correct solution [to the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict] is to encourage the voluntary migration of Gaza’s residents to countries that will agree to take in the refugees.

In a radio interview, Smotrich further elaborated on his “solution”, suggesting the removal of around 90% of Gaza’s residents:

If there are 100,000 or 200,000 Arabs in Gaza and not two million, the whole discourse about the day after will be different.

According to Smotrich, more than 70% of the Israeli public today supports such a plan — which he describes as a “humanitarian solution”.

Last month, another senior cabinet member — Intelligence Minister Gila Gamliel — penned an op-ed for The Jerusalem Post similarly calling for the “voluntary resettlement” of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip to other countries around the world. 

Israeli security cabinet member and Agriculture Minister Avi Dichter went even further, calling for the rolling out of a “second Nakba”.

There have also been official Israeli government reports proposing the transfer of Gazans to Egypt and the “thinning” of the population in Gaza.

And this is on top of the countless other statements by current or former Israeli officials explicitly calling for the ethnic cleansing — or outright genocide — of Gazans, some of them openly talking of “erasing”, “flattening”, and even “nuking” Gaza.

But perhaps most notably, Benjamin Netanyahu himself, at a meeting of Likud Knesset members last week, admitted that his government is “working for the voluntary emigration of Gazans from the Gaza Strip”.

“Our problem is countries that are ready to absorb them, and we are working on it”, Netanyahu said.

In short, Israel has gone out of its way to make it clear that its ultimate goal is to ethnically cleanse Gaza — indeed, it’s hard to imagine how they could be any more explicit about it.