Over the next two years, Bezalel Smotrich, Israel's finance minister, wants a drastic "thinning" of the Palestinian population in Gaza so the land can be taken over and absorbed into Greater Israel.
A settler leader and occupation governor of the West Bank, Smotrich said at a recent November 26 conference organized by the Yesha Council, an umbrella organization representing the various municipalities of illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank, that the Palestinian population of Gaza needs to be reduced by half, in part through "voluntary migration."
"It is possible to create a situation where Gaza's population will be reduced to half its current size in two years," Smotrich said at the event. "Occupying Gaza is not a dirty word."
"We can occupy Gaza and thin the population by half within two years" through a strategy he is calling "voluntary emigration," or the encouraged voluntary removal of the Palestinians who currently live there.
The purpose of the conference, by the way, was to discuss new strategies for removing the Palestinian people from Gaza so Israel can seize the land for itself.
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(Related: Did you know that Israel wants to annex the West Bank and implement a two-state solution where both states are controlled by Israel?)
WAR CRIME: "Voluntary emigration" means forced displacement
Even the Times of Israel, an Israeli newspaper and media outlet, can see right through Smotrich's deceptive rhetoric. There is nothing at all voluntary about coercing people to leave their homes and land so it can be annexed by another group of people who claims it belongs to them.
The Times of Israel describes Smotrich's "forced emigration" plan as a "euphemism for forced displacement – a war crime."
The reason we know this is Smotrich's true plan is multi-pronged. For one, he is calling for Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) to become the new ruling government in Gaza. Smotrich wants the IDF to handle all civilian affairs in Gaza from now on – the same IDF, of course, that has killed more than 40,000 civilians since the start of the October 7 war.
Smotrich wants the IDF to establish a "Civil Administration" to rule Gaza in the same way it did pre-2005 when Israeli forces and Jewish settlements were scattered all around Gaza. The Israeli police state would be restored in Gaza under Smotrich's plan.
If this "encouraged migration," as he calls it, is a success in Gaza, then it could also be replicated in the West Bank, Smotrich says, which is home to three million Palestinians.
Smotrich is chairman of the Religious Zionism party, which for many years has called for large parts of the West Bank to be annexed by Israel. Now that Donald Trump has been reelected president, Smotrich is excited about the opportunities that he will soon offer to the Jewish state.
"This is a possibility that opens up with the new [Trump] administration," Smotrich says. "The less we talk about it, the more we can do."
"As in Judea and Samaria [the West Bank], there is an inverse relationship between declarations and statements and practice."
Smotrich's plan also involves dismantling the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank – Hamas is currently in charge of Gaza – and replacing it with full Israeli military rule by force.
Since last fall, Israel has been engaging the so-called "Generals' Plan" to forcibly displace all Palestinians from northern Gaza.
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