Palestinians furious with Israeli officials’ call for voluntary emigration of Gazans

Palestinians are outraged at statements made by several Israeli officials calling for a voluntary emigration of Gazans.

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said on Tuesday that Gaza could not survive as an independent entity and that it would be better for Palestinians living there to leave for other countries.

Smotrich, who heads one of the religious nationalist parties in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition, said he supported a call by two members of the Israeli Parliament who wrote an op-ed piece for the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday, which called for “countries around the world to accept limited numbers of Gazan families who have expressed a desire to relocate.”

Palestinians condemn Smotrich

These remarks sparked outrage among Palestinians.

Dimitri Diliani, the spokesperson of the Democratic Reformist faction within Fatah, told The Media Line that “the Palestinian people, having endured the catastrophes of 1948 and 1967, continue to live through the horrors of forced displacement by Israel.”

According to Diliani, “In the face of the profound genocide unfolding in Gaza, it is essential to reject any notion of ‘displacement’ when the civilian population is subjected to a genocidal bombardment by Israel.” 

“Suggestions by Israeli officials responsible for the ongoing genocide in Gaza, such as Finance Minister Smotrich, implying that this land cannot accommodate both peoples are casually made, and they reveal a political ideology founded on the dehumanization of the Palestinian people within a bigoted supremacist Israeli society,” noted Diliani. 

Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned in the strongest terms Smotrich's statements regarding the displacement of Palestinian citizens outside the Gaza Strip.

The Foreign Ministry considered those statements an integral part of the worldview that the far-right Smotrich embraces. The options that he presents to Palestinian citizens are unacceptable to them; one being surrender and peaceful coexistence with Israel, to simply forget about what Palestinians consider the occupation and its crimes.

Ahmed Rafiq Awad, president of the Jerusalem Center for Future Studies at Al-Quds University, told The Media Line that the forced deportation of Palestinians is politically motivated and in violation of international law.

“This is not a solution, this is fueling the conflict,” said Awad.

“This proposal is consistent with his [Smotrich’s] plan and with the Zionist colonial mind, which was based on occupation and extermination, and this is a racist, colonial call to expel the people of the country from their country. Smotrich is the one who comes from Romania, not us. We are the people of the country. He is the one who should leave, not us,” said Awad.

The controversial statements drew widespread criticism from Arab officials, especially from Egypt and Jordan who have said they will not accept any situation that sees Palestinians uprooted from their homes.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said on Wednesday that “the displacement of the residents of northern Gaza is not voluntary and the result of deliberate military targeting.”

He added that Smotrich’s call to displace the Palestinians “is irresponsible and rejected.”

Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Al-Safadi said on Monday that Israel has not left a humanitarian or legal red line without crossing it and refuses to listen to the world, adding that Jordan continues its targeted effort to expose the Israeli narrative.

“Any attempt to displace Palestinians towards Jordan is a declaration of war that we will respond to and deal with firmly,” Al-Safadi told Al-Mamlaka TV, adding that “Jordan is explaining to the world that what Israel is doing is not self-defense but war crimes.”

Israeli lawmakers Danny Danon, a former ambassador to the UN, and Ram Ben-Barak, a former deputy director of the Mossad, published a comment piece in the Wall Street Journal, suggesting moving some Gazans to nations that will accept them.

“Hamas’s unprovoked terrorist attack has endangered not only Israel but the more than two million people who live in the Gaza Strip,” wrote Danon and Ben-Barak, whose op-ed criticized the UN for “doing nothing tangible to help Gaza’s residents” and urged the international community to “explore potential solutions to help civilians caught in the crisis.”

The two officials drew comparisons from the wars in the former Yugoslavia and Kosovo as times that European countries opened their borders to refugees, as well as the 1.2 million refugees accepted by Germany in the wake of the Syrian civil war. The two lawmakers urged countries around the world to “offer a haven for Gaza residents who seek relocation.”

“We simply need a handful of the world’s nations to share the responsibility of hosting Gazan residents. Even if countries took in as few as 10,000 people each, it would help alleviate the crisis,” they continued.

“The international community has a moral imperative—and an opportunity—to demonstrate compassion, help the people of Gaza move toward a more prosperous future and work together to achieve greater peace and stability in the Middle East,” they wrote.

However, according to Awad, “This solution is not at all as humane as it claims. This is a colonial solution. This is consistent with his [Smotrich’s] plan, in which he says that the Palestinian must be either killed, an immigrant, or a worker,” said Awad, adding that “the point of this is that he wants to empty Gaza, but on the surface, it appears unforced, voluntary. This is manipulation.”

Smotrich called earlier this month for security zones to be set up around Jewish settlements in the West Bank, keeping Palestinian farmers away during the olive harvest season.

The harvest season, when Palestinian olive growers spend more time in the open bringing in the crop, has often led to clashes between Jewish settlers and Palestinian inhabitants in the West Bank.

Smotrich wrote to Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, demanding special zones to be established around the settlements to stop Palestinians coming near, “including for the olive harvest.”

“We should pay attention to these calls, which may appear on the surface to be humanitarian, but they are colonial and dangerous,” said Awad.

Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, during which Hamas members killed around 1,280 people and kidnapped about 240 more, according to Israeli authorities.

Israel responded by declaring war on Hamas and launching strikes on Gaza, which has killed 11,240 Palestinians, mostly civilians, including 4,630 children, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry.