As Israel systematically destroys buildings and lives across the Gaza Strip, some members of its government are speaking more loudly and more brazenly about how they’d like to “encourage emigration” from the territory. The U.S. has condemned the rhetoric and demanded that it “stop immediately.” But influential ultranationalists in Israel’s government are doubling down.
“I really admire the United States of America but with all due respect, we are not another star in the American flag,” Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir posted on X last week. “The United States is our best friend, but before everything else, we will do what is good for the state of Israel.”
If Gaza has been rendered uninhabitable, then how can migration out of the territory be characterized as voluntary?
Ben-Gvir’s prickly pushback underscores the extreme lopsidedness and moral folly of the U.S.’s relationship with Israel as it wreaks havoc in Gaza. The U.S. provides Israel with extraordinary financial and military assistance and diplomatic cover; President Joe Biden has even bypassed Congress multiple times to expedite weapons transfers to Israel. And, yet, when the U.S. offers the most modest pushback to Israeli language that suggests an ethnic cleansing project, Israel gives the U.S. the middle finger. It’s well past time for the U.S. to put an end to that imbalance.
Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich are the ultranationalist firebrands who’ve recently been pushing the envelope the most. “What needs to be done in the Gaza Strip is to encourage emigration,” Smotrich recently told Army Radio. “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.”
Smotrich also argued that the disappearance of most of Gaza’s population would permit Israelis to regenerate the war-torn enclave themselves: “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.’” Ben-Gvir has also described the war as an “opportunity to concentrate on encouraging the migration of the residents of Gaza” and a pretext for annexing territory. “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,” he said during a recent meeting with colleagues.
Technically, the official Israeli government position is that Gazans will be able to return home after the war, but there is good reason to doubt that claim. Top Israeli policymakers in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s war Cabinet have called for a security buffer zone in Gaza after the war, which would mean that Israel controls land in Gaza. Moreover, Ben-Gvir’s and Smotrich’s rhetoric about emigration is broadly consistent with much of Netanyahu’s own.
The prime minister is advocating for “voluntary migration,” refusing to specify who will control Gaza after the war, and is conspicuously declining to condemn Ben-Gvir’s and Smotrich’s unapologetically colonial language of setting up new settlements in Gaza. According to The Washington Post, Netanyahu has tried to pressure Biden to lean on Egypt to accept displaced Gazans, and in a faction meeting Netanyahu has talked about finding other countries to accept Palestinians; Congo is reportedly among the countries that his coalition has contacted.
The notion that Israel would be “encouraging” migration — that is, that such a policy would be a gentle nudge and that any subsequent migration would be “voluntary” rather than coerced — is as preposterous as it is offensive. Israel has forcibly displaced almost every Gazan from their homes; manufactured a humanitarian crisis in the territory by reducing or cutting off vital supplies and energy to all civilians; and razed or severely damaged entire residential blocks, hospitals and schools across the enclave. The destruction across Gaza resembles the kind of destruction that cities saw during World War II campaigns, experts say. If Gaza has been rendered uninhabitable, then how can migration out of the territory be characterized as voluntary? If someone makes it impossible for people to live in the place where they exist, then they’re not choosing to leave. They’re trying to survive.
The United Nations’ special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese, has called the “voluntary migration” narrative a “cynical” cover for “classic forced displacement” and said such displacement would mark a “crime against humanity.” There is no standard definition for ethnic cleansing under international law, but one U.N. panel of experts has described it as “a purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic or religious group from certain geographic areas.” Given Israel’s rhetoric, its actions and its history of illegal settlements, there is good reason to think that Israel is already going down this path.
There’s a straightforward solution to Israel’s resistance to complying with international laws prohibiting forced population transfers. The U.S. can stop aiding Israel. Only withdrawal of aid and diplomatic support — or credible threats to do so — has a chance of pushing Israel to reverse its brutal treatment of millions of Palestinian civilians. At the very least, such a withdrawal of aid and support will ensure the U.S. can finally wipe its hands clean of complicity with this horrific misdeed. Right now, Israel has it good: It gets to behave as a belligerent ethnostate that scorns international law while getting exceptional support from the most powerful country in the world. There’s little incentive for it to change unless the U.S. decides to put its money where its mouth is.