RIGHT-WING MINISTER CALL ON GAZA TO 'RESETTLE' PALESTINIANS, BUILD SETTLEMENTS IN GAZA STRIP
1 January 2024, 6:37 pm
Head of the Otzma Yehudit party, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, leads a faction meeting at the Knesset in Jerusalem on January 1, 2024 (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
Arab MPs compared statements by party leaders Smotrich and Ben Gvir to Nazi calls for 'Lebensraum'; Liberman said Israel should reoccupy southern Lebanon to ensure security.
Two senior right-wing partners of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu backed the rebuilding of settlements in the Gaza Strip and encouraged the "voluntary emigration" of Palestinians on Monday, while hawkish opposition MK Avigdor Liberman called for Israel to reoccupy southern Lebanon.
Speaking during a meeting of each party's factions in the Knesset, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich 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.
The war provided "an opportunity to concentrate on encouraging the migration of Gaza's population," Ben Gvir told reporters and members of his right-wing Otzma Yehudit party, calling such a policy a "correct, just, moral, and humane solution.”
Knesset in Jerusalem on January 1, 2024 (Yonatan Sindel, Flash 90)
Two senior right-wing partners of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu backed the rebuilding of settlements in the Gaza Strip and encouraged the "voluntary emigration" of Palestinians on Monday, while hawkish opposition MK Avigdor Liberman called for Israel to reoccupy southern Lebanon.
Speaking during a meeting of each party's factions in the Knesset, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich 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.
The war provided "an opportunity to concentrate on encouraging the migration of Gaza's population," Ben Gvir told reporters and members of his right-wing Otzma Yehudit party, calling such a policy a "correct, just, moral, and humane solution.”
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"We cannot withdraw from any territory; we are in the Gaza Strip. Not only do I not rule out Jewish settlement there, I believe it is also an important thing," he said.
The" right solution "to the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict is to" encourage the voluntary migration of Gaza's population to countries that will agree to accept the refugees, "Smotrich told members of his religious Zionism party, predicting that" Israel will permanently control the territory of the Gaza Strip, "including through the establishment of settlements.
He also reiterated his previous statement that Jerusalem cannot allow Gaza to remain a" greenhouse for 2 million people who want to destroy the state of Israel "and asserted that" as long as I am finance minister, not a single shekel will be given to Nazi terrorists in Gaza.” Veteran Arab Israeli MP MK Ahmad Tibi (Hadash-Ta'al) condemned Smotrich and Ben Gvir, comparing their statements to Nazi calls for "Lebensraum," or living space, and stated that such rhetoric "incites genocide.”
"One day will come, and these two senior ministers in the Israeli government will stand before the International Court of Justice for war crimes," Tibi said.
A number of lawmakers, including cabinet members, have pushed for the "resettlement" of Palestinians from Gaza, an idea that Netanyahu and the international community have vehemently rejected.
The idea of population displacement, once considered a fringe view espoused by members of the ultranationalist Kahane movement, gained new attention in mainstream Israeli political discourse this November when MKs Danny Danon (Likud) and Ram Ben-Barak (Yesh Atid) published an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal, calling for "countries around the world to accept a limited number of Gaza families who have expressed a desire to relocate.”
Their proposal was welcomed by Ben Gvir and Smotrich, the latter calling the initiative "the right humanitarian solution for the people of Gaza.”
Writing in the Jerusalem Post a few days later, Likud's Gila Gamliel Intelligence Minister considered the possibility of promoting "the voluntary resettlement of Palestinians in Gaza, for humanitarian reasons, outside the Gaza Strip.”
Avigdor Liberman, the leader of Yisrael Beytenu, called for Israel to reoccupy southern Lebanon on Monday and said that it must "pay in the region" for the harm that Hezbollah's attacks on Israel's northern cities have caused.
The former defense minister, an opposition member, said the Israeli military should "close" a swath of southern Lebanon and push the terror group north of the Litani River, even if it meant occupying the area for 50 years.
"We will not annex anything, and we will not build settlements, but we will release the territory only if there is a government in Beirut that knows how to exercise its sovereignty," he said.
"Everything between Lebanon and Israel should be under the control of the IDF," Liberman added, likening it to Germany's post-World War II military occupation. "If Lebanon is not willing to pay for its territory, we have not done anything," he said. Israel maintained a military occupation of southern Lebanon to keep terror groups away from the border from 1982 until a chaotic retreat in 2000.
Liberman also slammed Netanyahu's handling of the war against Hamas, saying his government "doesn't know how to end the war in the south or how to act in the north."
News Sources : ( https://www.timesofisrael.com/ministers-call-for-resettling-gazas-palestinians-building-settlements-in-strip/ )
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